Hilton Garden Inn Columbia Downtown — Hotel in Columbia

If you are looking for location only, this Hilton is a great spot to everything downtown. However, if you are expecting traditional Hilton experiences, it is definitely not the best choice. If you are used to staying in a Hilton hotel, you may want to check out other options. Here we go- street side rooms can hear most motorist traffic. Hotel side is on Gervais street- very busy late into the night. The shower water temperature went from lukewarm to cold to hot, depending on the time of day you wanted shower. Guest services is anything but guest-centered. On the first day of a three day stay, there was one roll of toilet tissue available (for three people) and three bath towels, one of which had a very conspicuous stain on it. I went to the front desk and asked for toilet tissue and towels and was told, "no problem, someone will bring that up to you." Someone never did. Rooms are serviced every other day, which is fine, but when the room was cleaned, still no additional rolls of tissue were issued, no coffee pods. We decided to just purchase our own. I requested room service coffee one morning (hotel advertises room service amenity) because I was told by a staff member that it was included with my room. Again, I was told by two different people, "no problem, someone will bring that up." Never received the coffee, after two requests. This would have been fine too because there is a nice Keurig in the room, but alas, no coffee pods were issued, only decaffeinated tea, and only three cups for two mornings. On arrival, the carpet by the bed was wet, not damp, wet, as if the air conditioner were leaking. The beds were horribly uncomfortable- like, to the point that I think I need to see a chiropractor. We never expect to get anything for free, but if you wanted a cup of coffee after 11 AM, you had to pay $2.50 for it. There was no refreshing and complimentary lemonade or ice water. But you could buy a drink at the "shop" for 5-8 bucks a pop. There are no vending machines in the building, either. The "continental breakfast" that I paid for, to come with my room, was located in another section of the hotel (suites location), with no signage. It consisted of the usual yogurt, muffins, and box cereal options. Normally, I think there is bread for toasting, but the toaster was broken. However, you could eat a "made to order" breakfast in their dining room for $17.00 a person. The restaurant and bar had no open/closed signs anywhere, and at one point, around 6 in the evening, the lights were off and we were told to just walk in and someone would come up to help us. We did venture to the restaurant for dinner one night. The drinks and food were good and the waitstaff was very friendly. Two salads, an order of wings, and two cocktails cost us about $80.00. If you visit this hotel, do not expect anyone to assist you with luggage, it is all self-load and unload. The room decor was barren to say the least. The lobby is very nice and decorative and when you enter it, you feel like you're at a Hilton, but when you walk into the room, you feel like you've landed in a Motel 6. No offense to Motel 6, stayed there often as a kid, but it doesn't cost $200.00 a night. There was one wingback chair, a stool, and a desk chair to use for sitting. The bathroom was super small, for even an average hotel and the toilet seat kept slipping off the commode. They did offer the usual body soap, shampoo, and conditioner, etc. in pump bottles, which was nice, but honestly, do you really know what they refill those with?? There is a lovely indoor pool that was very clean, but do not expect it to be heated. It is very cold. They also have a ping pong table, you just have to get the paddles and balls from the front desk. Hotel lobby, restaurant, walkways, and outdoor areas were exceptionally clean. Bottom line- this hotel may not be for those who want the "little conveniences and niceties" that make a stay truly enjoyable, but if location is your only concern, it's...

This is THE WORST managed Hilton property we have ever stayed at and we are Diamond Members so we've stayed at A LOT. The cleanliness of the whole hotel is bad. The gym had towelettes all over the floor for days. The gas fireplace wasn't working and no one turned the gas off so fumes were just spewing out. The pool had the same towels crumbled up in corners and on chair for days. The hotel "store" had 3 boxes of lean cuisine, bottles of water, some sodas, expired first aid items, a messy coffee/espresso machine, all of which were extremely hard to pay for because of the incompetent front desk employees. The room had mold in the bathroom, the air conditioner did not cool and was extremely loud, the pillows were stained, the end tables were sticky, the bar of soap was SO small that it wasn't even enough for one person to use through a whole shower because it broke into pieces. Room service was none existent and when requested at the front desk we got I'll write it down and it never happened. We tried to call from the room to any of the services and no one would pick up it would just ring and ring. The front desk picked up once transfered us to the same housekeeping line which just rang. When we tried to call the front desk back they hung up on us 5 times. We then went down to find three of them just sitting there laughing and caring on with their own thing. We stayed there 5 days. On check out we were met with a room charge that wasn't ours. We went to have it taken off and the front desk said they couldn't do that but could give us a $10 refund. WHAT? We didn't even eat at the restaurant. She then said she can't do anything about the full charge until her manager got in at 3pm, so again she would write a note. After a heated exchange another worker finally got the manager who was there and he resolved the charge. Hilton should be ashamed to put their name...

Worst service of any Hilton property I have ever been in. Staff seems generally disinterested, which in and of itself should be enough to go elsewhere, but our check in experience was the worst I’ve ever seen.

We had two rooms under two names for our reservation. There was some confusion as one had been prepaid. It took them nearly forty minutes to figure out which reservation was which. During the wait they were rude and dismissive of our attempts to help them (we had the res numbers and knew which one was the prepaid). No idea how that was an issue, but it was. When they finally got to our rooms we discovered that neither of them were the two queen beds room we’d reserved. Not wanting to further deal with moving rooms, I returned to the front desk to request a rollaway or cot. I was told they “didn’t have either rollaways or cots because they are considered a fire hazard.” Strange - but I figured it was within the realm of possibility. Since having three of us in a bed isn’t ideal, I then asked if we could switch one of the rooms to a double queen as we’d originally requested. After five minutes staring at the computer screen I was advised there were no double queens available. I told them that if we needed to wait until a room was cleaned we’d be happy to do so. He explained that “unfortunately all double queens are full for the night.” I returned to my room annoyed, and booked another room at another hotel for the extra member of our party.

The cherry on top? Our friends checked in later that evening and they too found their double queen room had been switched out for a king bed.... but, some how (I guess it was magic??) they had a rollaway available.

We booked this hotel because of its proximity to our venue. We’ll never make that mistake again as there are MUCH better options in the area (for the...