Hampton Inn & Suites Raleigh Cary Lenovo Center — Hotel in Cary

Two Days of Hell

I just got home after an 8 hour drive from Raleigh. My daughter bought me and her father tickets to the Elton John concert in Raleigh this past Tuesday and she and I and my husband her boyfriend drove up with our 3 small dogs (a westie, a terrier mix and a toy poodle). I was so excited. I had booked the hotel months in advance because it was pet friendly. My daughter bought the tickets as a Christmas present to me and her father. Well, we arrived Tuesday at 4:00 with our pets. So excited - a nice pet area, dog biscuits at the counter - so inviting for pets. Well not so inviting it turned out. We left the hotel at 6:30 pm for the concert and starting at 7:00 the hotel front desk started calling me at the concert to tell me my dogs were barking (sorry they are dogs and it was 7 in the evening - not 11 or throughout the night) and it was disturbing "a diamond club member". I was called 5 times during the concert and I kept saying I would be back by 10:30 but that wasn't good enough. Apparently the other dogs in the hotel didn't bark - only mine. So I said do you want me to come back and she said yes. So after my daughter spent over $1K for tickets for us, my husband and I had to drive back in the middle of the concert and he stayed with the dogs while I went back after the concert to pick them up. They had to walk to my car 3/4 of a mile because all of the roads were closed. So as if this wasn't bad enough that my first night was totally ruined, I got a call on Wednesday at 3:00pm that "the diamond member" checked out because my dogs were barking. I was in the room with the dogs sleeping all afternoon and they never barked. So that was an outright lie but she went on to say that I would have to leave if they barked again. I am not making this up because I couldn't. I had no idea what she was talking about because they didn't bark - I was there. I went and talked to them and he said "well a diamond member checked out". I guess the other dogs on the floor weren't barking. I thought it said "pet friendly". Well only if your dogs don't make any noise at all. Perhaps a muzzle would help. I said do you want my husband to stay with the dogs tonight? My daughter is getting engaged. The girl said that would be nice if you did. So my husband had to stay there on Wednesday night and miss my daughter's surprise engagement to her boyfriend. It was horrible. He was afraid to leave the dogs for fear they might bark. My dogs didn't make a sound all night through each night. But I guess you can't make noise now in a "pet friendly hotel" after 6:00 in the evening. I should have done as the Desk Manager suggested and left the hotel to go to the Hyatt - right down the street and pet friendly. I have been a Hilton Honors member now for 6 years. I work as a consultant and travel constantly - in fact this room and my daughter's was paid for with my points. I might not be a "diamond" member but I thought I gave your chain enough business over 6 years to qualify for decent treatment. You ruined our time - completely. It was a disaster and something that can never be made up. I have my choice of any hotel when I travel and I can tell you I am not booking a Hilton again from this experience. It will be a Marriott where I have been treated with respect and kindness when I traveled with my pets. This has never happened to me before. I have a sour taste in my mouth now about Hilton and I'm sorry to say that. - You can be sure that I will let any of my co-workers and friends know of this horrible horrible experience and the fact that both days were ruined because someone couldn't listen to a dog bark in a "pet friendly" hotel. Don't stay here - go to the Hyatt right down the street if you have pets and want to be treated with dignity. Unless of course you are a "diamond" member. Then you obviously are more important in the eyes of...

The hotel is beautiful and in a great location if you’re going to an event at PNC. However, this hotel is the furthest thing from pet friendly. We came to town for the Elton John concert and it was completely ruined by a diamond guest who had an issue with our dogs barking. We got 5 calls during the concert about the dogs, and my mother had to leave the concert two hours early to go back to the hotel. Keep in mind, this concert was my Christmas gift to her and I spent a small fortune on these tickets. The next day we received another call at 2 in the afternoon after one of our dogs barked ONCE, and that is not an exaggeration...one bark at 2pm. We know this because we were in the hotel with them the entire afternoon. We were told that this particular diamond member checked out because of it, accused of not doing anything to remedy the complaint from the night before (reminder - my mother left the Elton John concert two hours early), and told we would be asked to leave if they barked again. Housekeeping actually said that they hear dogs barking all the time (hence pet friendly) and that they didn’t hear anything from our room. Regardless, the hotel staff insinuated someone needed to be with our dogs at all times. As if leaving the concert early the night before wasn’t bad enough, my father ended up having to stay back on our second evening and actually missed my surprise ENGAGEMENT. We have taken these dogs all over the country to multiple high end hotels and have never had this issue. They are dogs, and they do bark from time to time, which should be expected from an animal and shouldn’t be a cause for concern in a pet friendly hotel. There were multiple other dogs we encountered during our two night stay that were much worse behaved than ours. If you have animals that have vocal chords, stay at the Hyatt down the street. The entire trip was ruined, and my father missed my engagement. That’s something we’ll never get over. My mother and I both travel for work and frequent Hilton hotels (enough so that both rooms were paid entirely with Hilton Honors points), but this experience truly tarnished the entire Hilton brand for us. I have never been so disappointed with...

When we first arrived at this Hampton Inn, my fiancé and I felt so lucky to have found a hotel close to my brother that not only took pets, but had clearly taken their presence into consideration for the hotel design. We felt very comfortable leaving our dog there while we went to wedding planning appointments. So we were shocked when we came back to the hotel and our sensitive but well-trained rescue dog wasn't there. For a moment, we were truly terrified that someone had taken her. Turns out, that someone was the staff at the front desk.

In the paperwork for having pets in the hotel, it states that they have the right to call you if there are complaints or problems, but nothing more (not even a broad clause allowing such an action). I returned their call within 15 minutes but the person who answered claimed it was unlikely that they meant to call me. I did not receive any other calls after that, but I'm guessing after that one call (just 15 minutes after we left, returned 30 after we left), someone else staying in the hotel had complained enough that the staff felt their only option was to take the dog out of the room.

To me, "pet-friendly" means understanding that this kind of action is 1) terrifying to dogs, especially those who have experienced trauma, 2) not okay by pet owners, who care deeply and are responsible for their animals, and 3) unfair to clients, who should be warned about the possibility of this sort of action taking place before it happens. Furthermore, we would have happily changed rooms if we had been given fair notice of the noise complaints. Instead, we checked out immediately after retrieving our traumatized pet from the front office and we will not go back unless this issue...