Embassy Suites by Hilton Columbus — Hotel in Columbus

I'm going to break this into categories to help explain my review. ||What I liked |Location as far as convenience to my needs. |Breakfast was nice. Attentive staff with a very well stocked spread.|They moved us to a new room.|After the big groups left, they regained control of the hotel. ||What was controllable by the hotel-||Way understaffed at the front desk. She was in charge of housekeeping needs, running the snack sales, guest relations, etc, at an extremely busy hotel all by herself. At one point, I just offered to fill the pool towels because they were out and the poor girl couldn't be split in any more directions||She was very nice but I experienced a major safety concern. The room keys were not working a lot- the reason I was in line at this time to witness this. Not one single time when someone came up and said their keys weren't working did she identify that they were the actual person staying in that room. They just gave her a number and she reset the key and gave it to them. I could have gotten a key to any room in that hotel. ||Likewise, when people were charging their rooms for their snacks, she only asked what room to charge it to. I could have said any number||The pool was absolutely disgusting and we didn't realize it till we were already swimming. I couldn't tell how long it had been since it was cleaned. It was completely cloudy and there was all sorts of things floating in it. We got out and went straight to the shower. My nephew started getting all splotchy.||I couldn't find ice to save my life. The bar staff just never came over to me while I waited at the counter. I had to go up a level and find the machine and it didn't work. We had to go to another floor before we could find it. ||You had to slam the door hard in the bathroom to get it to close||The room had a really weird smell. ||There's no ventilation fan in the bathroom so it just holds smells in there. ||I was going to use the fold out couch but that room has windows that faced the lobby that were frosted, but didn't keep out light, so it didn't get dark in there. You could also hear all the noise coming up from the lobby, even down to conversations, even though we were on the 3rd floor. Even in the bedroom we had to sleep with a loud fan to drown it out. I'm writing this at 1am because it's impossible to sleep. When I called to ask the desk if there were quiet hours at this hotel she said they just can't because there are 3 reunions at the hotel. She didn't have a fan to drown out the noise ||I gave my daughter a bath and 10 minutes later when putting her to bed her feet were filthy from the floors|||What was related to guest population||The majority of the issue with guests was massive amounts of unsupervised kids. They were running wild all over the place. I nearly got shoved over trying to get out of the elevator. They just threw their pool towels on the lobby floor when they were done with them. They were running and screaming and just generally rude. There were no expectations for parents. ||We decided to splurge to come to this hotel because it had an extra living space which we needed, and from the description it looked like a nice safe place to be. But it did not feel safe. My 15 year old who has never said this to me said that she did not feel safe. There was just all sorts of foul language, obnoxious behavior, etc. (Until the big group left) ||Upon checkout we found many cars had their windows smashed in with bricks. The staff was helping vacuum all...

Front desk clerks were all wonderful, despite being overstressed and overworked. At 8:45 pm on Saturday night, this eight-story hotel was 75% full. There was exactly ONE CLERK, zero housekeepers, zero maintenance.

I use a wheelchair. I requested a shower bench THREE TIMES, including once in person. It never came. I had no shower in three nights, four days.

Saturday morning, I called to report a clogged toilet. No response by Saturday evening when we returned to the hotel. Two request for help; no response. My wife went down to the lobby where the sole apologetic clerk told her, "All I have is a plunger." I was successful with the plunger, since there was NO maintenance or housekeeping on Saturday evening.

Remember the services and amenities that made your stays at Embassy Suites unique? They were absent during our recent three nights in Columbus.

"Cooked to order breakfast" is now merely the old limited buffet. "Pandemic" was the claimed reason. However, the cook's station was better isolated by Plexiglas than the buffet. Hotel employees in the area wore masks, would not the cook? Wasn't buffet food cooked by humans in a kitchen? The serving trays in the buffets required two hands to operate. Surely, a cook to prepare the signature "cooked-to-order" breakfast would have been at least as Covid-19 safe as the buffet. (No mention that there was no cooked-to-order until I saw the sign on the cook's station.)

A sign announced that the evening Manager's Reception every evening was cancelled. However, there was NO SIGN to tell of the nightly Happy Hour. We discovered it by accident five minutes after the bar closed on our third and final night.

We never did tie down the restaurant operating hours. Everyone we asked either did not know, or they gave conflicting answers, or they said "I think it's still open." (Of course, weekend hours are different from weekday.) Oh, yes. There was NO room service. Pandemic excuse again.

There are no booklets in the room describing hotel services, amenities, operating hours, or such. The desk clerk claimed these were a contamination issue during the pandemic. (This was July 2021.) When I asked for food delivery, the clerk printed a list for me. I kept asking questions, she kept printing lists (I failed to ask about operating hours for hotel services. They are greatly reduced.) I fail to see the difference between this and providing the same lists to every guest at check-in.

Daily housekeeping has been replaced with "Customized Cleanliness." In other words, the guest must call to request housekeeping. I made FIVE such requests; no response. This policy is announced on a sticker affixed to the bathroom mirror. Masterful promotion, the sticker tries to makes it sound like there is a cleanliness advantage to having no daily housekeeping service! When we checked in, I noticed the toilet bowl was stained gray; still...

Worst experience I've ever had with staff at any business. I wish I were exaggerating. The hotel room itself reeked so badly that my friend and I jokingly referred it as the "urine room" all weekend. I accidentally left a bag with my prescription medications and toiletries and quickly called them the day I checked out. They were reassuring and told me it would be mailed the next day. I called the next day and they said it would be shipped the day after. This continued for six days. After pointing out that they were lying to me and not following through, they told me to talk to the manager, Brian. It took me three days (Wednesday through friday) to get in touch with Brian; he was on break, then at lunch, then they couldn't find him. Each time, they said they would leave him a message that I called and that he would call me back. He never did and they still hadn't shipped my bag 7 days later. Once I was desperate for my medication (and toothbrush!) I finally got ahold of him and it was the most demeaning and petty someone has ever spoken to me, but he did say he would take 50 dollars off my bill for the inconvenience and the three hours total I spent on the phone trying to speak to anyone at this hell hole who could help me. I called the next day to ask when that would be reflected on my account and the person on the phone said "that is not how we do things but I'll talk to Brian and see if he wants to send you money out of his own pocket." I didn't get his name but he identified himself as Brian's superior. Horribly demeaning, unprofessional, and petty behavior towards someone who was just desperate to get their medicine and toiletries back. (PS I offered to drive to Columbus to get my bag at first and they assured me it would be shipped promptly). Highly recommend going anywhere else in Columbus

Editing to respond to the owner: I am not sure why you're still lying; you mailed me not one but two prescription bottles along with my tooth brush, tooth paste, shampoo, conditioner, face wash, and face moisturizer in the package and I'm very thankful to finally have them back. And I wasn't referring to the charge for the Fedex package; Brian had told me on the phone on Friday July 5th that I would be reimbursed 50 dollars for...