Hilton Columbia Center — Hotel in Columbia

I had a horrible experience with the Hilton Conference Center not once, but twice. The first time happened the night of my wedding. The manager Justin D. was very helpful after the fact and sent my new husband and me a voucher for a complimentary stay to make up for the bad experience. We were really surprised and thankful for this gesture.

We decided to use the voucher on our anniversary this year. I called the hotel and booked the stay in advance, with my only request being that we had a king-sized bed. When I arrived at the hotel for our stay, the first red flag was the front desk attempting to charge me full price for the room even though I had booked on a voucher. I corrected them before I was charged, but they of course had me put down my CC for incidentals. Totally fine.

My husband and I went to our room and quickly realized it was not the room my reservation email said – it was a double queen room. I called down to the front desk and the desk person I spoke with was very rude and told me “There’s no king rooms left in the building. If you’re not happy you’re going to have to speak to the manager because I’m telling you all I know.” I was surprised by his abrasiveness because I hadn’t lost my cool at all. I went downstairs and spoke to the manager, Jobie H. This manager’s attitude was horrible. I showed her my confirmation email which said king room. Never once did she apologize for the mix up. Instead, she started telling me that in order to honor my reservation, she was going to have to take a room from someone else and that they weren’t going to be happy. I was upset that she was trying to make us feel bad for inconveniencing other guests when it was really their mistake in the first place. Our room had already been taken from us, and we were just trying to get it back. After a lot of side remarks from her, she let me know that none of the rooms would be ready until after check in time. I said that was fine and my husband went to get our belongings from the original room. When he got back to the lobby, a room had miraculously become available and we were able to take all of our stuff back up to the room right down the hall from our original room.

Unfortunately, this room was yet again a double queen room. I really couldn’t believe it. We brought our belongings back down to the lobby and told Jobie of the issue. She once again issued no apology and said she was going to have to have another person confirm it wasn’t a king room because it’s a king room in the system. This was frustrating because, as I told her, I didn’t want to have to come back down there at all-- I wasn’t making it up. She told us that she was going to have to take a different room from someone who was going to be very upset, and that she was going to have to comp them their stay for the inconvenience. Again, I didn’t appreciate all of the snide side remarks trying to make us feel bad. After about an hour of all of this, we finally checked into a King sized room and were able to make our dinner reservations. But starting your anniversary on the verge of tears from a manager making you feel guilty for trying to correct a situation after an hour-long check in experience was really terrible. Let alone the fact that we were only there because they had made our wedding night so awful.

About three days later, I saw on my bank statement that we were charged full price for the room. I can’t explain to you how upsetting this was. I had already corrected them once for trying to charge me full price. I called immediately and was told the refund would be processed within 5 days. Well a week later, I still hadn’t been refunded. I just called today and was put on a hold while the desk person spoke with her manager. Allegedly, the refund should now get processed. I’m not sure what the hold up is, but I will never stay at this hotel again. I will update this review once my money is back in my account, but I felt I needed to share this experience because it was truly one of the worst I’ve had.

Update 5/4/23: I have finally...

My company threw a small event in March 2023, and my review of the experience is a bit mixed.

To be honest, I’m not sure I would re-book with this hotel/event space. I booked the room about 60 days in advance and that process was overall pretty easy. However, almost every step afterward was a struggle. I signed a contract saying I would spend X amount of dollars in catering to rent the event space and would need 30 days notice of how many / what food we wanted to order. At the 30 day mark I reached out to Kelly McGuinness at Ruth Chris Steakhouse regarding what we wanted to order. It took her 3 weeks to respond to my ample phone calls, messages and emails. It was 10 days prior to the event and she still hadn’t gotten back to me confirming our choices and I was starting to panic since I had customers attending my event. I had to call the hotel and physically wait on the phone to speak with someone. It was so bad that even another Ruth Chris employee told me the lack of communication is a “recurring” problem at this location. The customer service I received when ordering $2k in food was completely ridiculous and unacceptable.

In terms of the actual event space and hotel experience, Bailey (the events manager) was great to work with and very helpful and responsive.

On the day of the event there were two other large groups meeting at the same time. Our workshop was smaller and the noise level from the others was very noticeable and at times distracting. The rooms are definitely not sound proof. When we arrived the outside signage wasn’t working and we had to consult tech help to get it up and going. I had asked for a podium and extra chargers for the middle of the room and had to ask . Also with the other large events taking place many people were wandering around eating our catered food, it put me in an awkward spot to have to defer people away from eating our event’s food since there were no barriers. Thankfully one of the staff did notice this and attempted to put up some barriers to help since I was in the room with the workshop. Despite the issues in actually ordering the food, everything came out perfectly and the gentleman who set everything up was great and super helpful.

The parking situation was a bit sticky for those attending the event. I wanted to 100% cover the $17ish fee for the day for my attendees to park with a voucher. However, when my guests arrived they told me there were several issues. Apparently the parking deck was fully open with workers outside and as a result it did not give the customers who attended my event a voucher to use upon their exit. One of my customers said he was charged to enter the parking deck. After I consulted with the hotel, they told me the parking deck is actually owned by the city which is why there was confusion. I realize this may not have been the hotel’s fault, but it still was a pain for my event to have to deal with this.

My last remarks deal with me wanting to extend my hotel room one extra night. When I arrived I asked if there was one more night of availability, which I was told no. I understood the hotel was full, so I just asked about 1-2 times a day to see if there were any openings. Majority of the front desk staff was super unfriendly and unhelpful (almost like they didn’t even check, just immediately said no). It was really strange that when I looked online it said rooms were available but the front desk continued to tell me no and that the hotel was actually oversold and it would result in some folks losing their reservations. I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be to think you are booking a hotel but when you arrive they would tell you that they overbooked and you must stay elsewhere. Finally, I was able to get a room for another night. The evening staff at the front desk was entirely more helpful than the day staff. In particular, Eric Carnish was able to get me a room for my extended stay and even gave me a discounted rate. He was by far the most polite and accommodating staff at this hotel.

Overall, I'd say plan your...

Ok, where do I begin. My family and I stay here June 1, 2024. We traveled all the way from Pennsylvania as a stopping point because we planned a big Disney resort and cruise vacation. I booked this place based on the ratings I saw being it was rated very high, which I don’t know who gave it such high ratings. Now back to the main thing, so I got a suite which I thought would be one of there top rooms and I was misled and robbed because the room didn’t match the ratings and the high price! It was filthy and outdated! It had a horrible smell and very dusty and trash left in seats and behind and between furniture! Being my daughter and I have asthma the dust and other things really bothered us. I called or went down, I can’t remember what exactly I did, but I talked to a woman at the front desk and she gave me a different room that was a little cleaner but not anything to be happy about but I was supposed to get a discount then for the room because it wasn’t a suite and for the inconvenience. Now, the room still wasn’t all that good, to the point that we didn’t even sleep with the sheets and blankets on us , we didn’t even take showers because the bathroom wasn’t all that clean, we just said as soon as we get to Disney that afternoon we’ll all get showers and refreshed then. So the day we departed I noticed that I wasn’t discounted for the room and I had to go to the front desk and speak with the woman that was there at the time, which it’s the morning of June 2, 2024. Now, I let her know what the situation was and she said that the woman at the desk should have put it in with the discount but it wasn’t there so she did it and made it what I should have been charged, but after that experience I shouldn’t have been charged a thing, especially not feeling comfortable enough to sleep properly or take showers, but I just wanted to get out of there and get to where I know the standard of the rooms were at a higher standard! Now, I will say, the woman at the front desk that changed the room was pretty nice, and the woman that took care of the changes that morning was very professional, I think the daytime staff my be a little bit more professional, but in all the ladies that were at the desk both times were polite, but the woman in the morning seemed more knowledgeable of how things should be done…. But in all I could have taken my money somewhere more suitable for a family experience and not some place that people are looking to go for a quick one night stand or as Jada, would call it, an entanglement! I took a few photos just to show what at top rated suite has, just to let future guests see what they’re in for! And as you can see, there’s dust and stains on sheets and furniture and holes in...