Hilton Garden Inn Columbus Easton — Hotel in Columbus

TITLE: HORROR HOTEL||I had a long and early flight from CA to OH. I woke up at 5am. It was a business trip. |After plane ride, car rental, some food, when I make it to my Hilton Gardens Inn Hotel, I am greeted with the front desk who says, "write your name in this white random sheet of paper" because there are no rooms available to be assigned and you have 10 people ahead of you. They said their housekeeping staff did not arrive on 09/16/2025 to cause this delay. |They gave me NO ETA of when I would get one.|In the lobby I saw many more disheveled fellow travelers squatting morosely. “They must be ahead of me”, I thought dejectedly.||I kept checking in every so often and then 3 hours later, quite depressed when I came up to the front desk, they said, "Yes you can go to Room 304". I perk up, pick up my hefty bags and make it to the room. Shockingly the room was locked from inside with a woman yelling back saying this was her room and it should not have been assigned.|I am back down at the front desk. Waiting. |Now I am assigned Room 303.|I make it up with trepidation. The room was indeed devoid of living beings. |I feel delighted. I want to jump into the shower, after 18 hours of my life in outdoors. |Shockingly the shower handle comes off in my hands and falls to the floor! As it clanks to the floor and makes a jarring noise, I can hear my dream of a hot shower going down the drain.|I feel determined to get my shower so I head down to the front desk because the no one picks the phone up when I call. |Once downstairs, front desk assures me that maintenance personnel will show up in 20 minutes. I feel a tiny joy.|Back in my room, I sit waiting for the person to show up.|Guess what, with a click of someone with Keys to the room and a loud noise of suitcase against the door, a man tries to barge into my room. Thank God I had the additional door stopper which stops him.|He says, “I have been assigned this room!” It feels like a twisted Deja Vu where I am the one saying to him, “You have been assigned incorrectly This room is taken!”||As he leaves, I double check my door stoppers, wonder if I should prop my suitcase to back up the door before I go to bed.|Of course it has been over an hour , not just 20 minutes and no maintenance person showed up. |I tried the free wifi in my room which needed my last name and room number. Wifi did NOT work because the room was NOT assigned to me. One more thing that does not work.|I put my head down and soon I was asleep. But not for very long.||At 1:11am and at 4:17am people kept knocking incessantly at my door because they were assigned my room!|How many people can get the same room and how many times will front desk not have a proper process to track which room they are assigning to whom?|I got no rest, a splitting headache and my alarm finally dragging my un-repaired body out of my bed.|A grueling day lay ahead for me at work, I mused. 
But I badly wanted a shower.||I brought myself to the front desk. A different person faced me this morning. I asked them to fix my shower. |“Our maintenance person does not come until 10am!” She said cheerily. Obviously she had a restful night.|“How can get a shower now?” I asked.|“Ok here is a key to dysfunctional room 723 which you can use for showering,” she said.|“Does the shower work in this broken 723 room?” I pursued.|“Yes of course”||I headed upstairs witan a borrowed towel from front desk.|When I tried my key on 723, the door would not open. Try, try, try again , no dice.|I spotted a housekeeping person nearby and made him try his master key.|His key would not open the door of 723 either!||I did not have the energy to go down from 7th floor to 1st to beg for another key and come back to find another unopened door and kill my shower dream.|The housekeeper took pity on me when I asked, “is there any empty room where I can shower?”|He helped open room 701 for me, saving me a down-and-up commute and time to get another key.|In the shower now, I found there was no shampoo and no conditioner.|“Does not matter!”, I said to myself. “At least the shower has warm water”.||10 minutes later, I bounce down to my room on third floor ready to change for the day, and a little upbeat from the shower.|Lo and behold, my room key to my room 303 did not work. Back in my nightmare I was.|Another housekeeper was nearby, another pleading later, she tried her key to my room. Her keys also did not work.|“Are these magical keys that stop working the next day?”, I wondered.||Down I was facing the lady at the front desk. She made me a new key. |I was not convinced anything would work anymore.|“Will you be able to come upstairs with me to make sure that the key works?” I asked|She agreed.||On 3rd floor, when my key worked I was shocked rather than surprised.|As I left for my work that day, I went to the front desk again and reminded them to fix my shower. They said , “Of course it would be done today as soon as the maintenance people show up at 10am”|It was 9:45am when I was leaving for work.|I made it to my work that day after atleast 1.5 hours spent commuting between floors to get a shower.||At 6pm I returned to the hotel and faced a new front desk person who looked like she may be the missing “management”.|I asked politely, “Is the shower to my room fixed?”|“Which room is that?”|“303”, I said|She spent scrolling through her work chat and said “No I don’t see it on my work chat.”|Basically all the promises and no action since morning.|“Can we fix my shower now?”, I asked|“Let me see where Rodrigues is. And he is the best”, she added.|A hunt for Rodrigues ensued.|He was spotted, thank god!|24 hours and 4 reminders later, my shower was fixed.||Day 2, when I took shower in my own room, I found the shampoo and the shower gel bottle completely empty. No one refilled it. But by now I came to realize the kind of hotel I had gotten myself into.||It was almost cruelly hilarious how many things can go wrong to a person who was staying in the hotel only for 2 nights.|For a hotel to not have a plan when these situations happen, to not have a process to manage hotel room assignments correctly, to have showers falling apart and basic room amenities not checked on a daily basis goes to show a lack of quality management.||I would think a million more times if I have to...

TITLE: HORROR HOTEL I had a long and early flight from CA to OH. I woke up at 5am. It was a business trip. After plane ride, car rental, some food, when I make it to my Hilton Gardens Inn Hotel, I am greeted with the front desk who says, "write your name in this white random sheet of paper" because there are no rooms available to be assigned and you have 10 people ahead of you. They said their housekeeping staff did not arrive on 09/16/2025 to cause this delay. They gave me NO ETA of when I would get one. In the lobby I saw many more disheveled fellow travelers squatting morosely. “They must be ahead of me”, I thought dejectedly. I kept checking in every so often and then 3 hours later, quite depressed when I came up to the front desk, they said, "Yes you can go to Room 304". I perk up, pick up my hefty bags and make it to the room. Shockingly the room was locked from inside with a woman yelling back saying this was her room and it should not have been assigned. I am back down at the front desk. Waiting. Now I am assigned Room 303. I make it up with trepidation. The room was indeed devoid of living beings. I feel delighted. I want to jump into the shower, after 18 hours of my life in outdoors. Shockingly the shower handle comes off in my hands and falls to the floor! As it clanks to the floor and makes a jarring noise, I can hear my dream of a hot shower going down the drain. I feel determined to get my shower so I head down to the front desk because the no one picks the phone up when I call. Once downstairs, front desk assures me that maintenance personnel will show up in 20 minutes. I feel a tiny joy. Back in my room, I sit waiting for the person to show up. Guess what, with a click of someone with Keys to the room and a loud noise of suitcase against the door, a man tries to barge into my room. Thank God I had the additional door stopper which stops him. He says, “I have been assigned this room!” It feels like a twisted Deja Vu where I am the one saying to him, “You have been assigned incorrectly This room is taken!” Of course it has been over an hour , not just 20 minutes and no maintenance person showed up. I tried the free wifi in my room which needed my last name and room number. Wifi did NOT work because the room was NOT assigned to me. One more thing that does not work. I put my head down and soon I was asleep. But not for very long. At 1:11am and at 4:17am people kept knocking incessantly at my door because they were assigned my room! How many people can get the same room and how many times will front desk not have a proper process to track which room they are assigning to whom? I got no rest, a splitting headache and my alarm finally dragging my un-repaired body out of my bed. A grueling day lay ahead for me at work, I mused. 
But I badly wanted a shower. I brought myself to the front desk. A different person faced me this morning. I asked them to fix my shower. “Our maintenance person does not come until 10am!” She said cheerily. Obviously she had a restful night. “How can get a shower now?” I asked. “Ok here is a key to dysfunctional room 723 which you can use for showering,” she said.“Does the shower work in this broken 723 room?” I pursued.“Yes of course” I headed upstairs witan a borrowed towel from front desk. When I tried my key on 723, the door would not open. Try, try, try again , no dice. A housekeeper nearby tried his master key and it didn't work either! I did not have the energy to go down from 7th floor to 1st to beg for another key.The housekeeper took pity on me and let me into 701 In the shower now, I found there was no shampoo and no conditioner! Back to my room key to my room 303 did not work! It took 24 hours and 4 reminders to get my room, shower fixed. For a hotel to not have a plan when these situations happen, to not have a process to manage hotel room assignments correctly, to have showers falling apart and basic room amenities not checked goes to show a lack of quality management. I would think a million more times if I have to...

Suffice to say, I will not be back.

The onsite restaurant the hotel boasts about (and that convenience was a primary reason for my stay) is apparently in some kind of a liminal state, wherein it hasn't yet fully failed and closed, but it also is not really operating as what most would consider a "restaurant" to be. I went to the lobby bar for dinner the night of my arrival, they got my drink wrong despite "whiskey and coke" having only two ingredients, they did not have napkins, they had literally one pen that patrons had to share to sign our bills, it was comical.

Breakfast was actually worse - and in retrospect given the events of the night before, it was my fault for going back in at all, but as a rewards member they gave me a $10 discount card off a $17 buffet - and I thought "how hard can a buffet be to get right" and it was going to be both more convenient and cheaper than stopping again after I departed (this was a one night stay to break up the drive on a long road trip). The buffet was very awkwardly positioned, and the food was low in both quality and quantity, and they were always out of coffee (and you had to ask the lone server to go hunt in the kitchen for milk/sweetener/anything for it), but I eventually scavenged together something close enough to a breakfast and asked for the check. The harried server spent 10 minutes refilling coffee dispensers (and apparently dealing with guests who had complaints from prior mornings, and had been promised accommodations she was unable to deliver) and then just entirely vanished for another 5 minutes. By this time I was needing to get going, she was nowhere to be found, and while I felt a bit bad about leaving without formally signing a check and leaving a tip, 1) she knew my name and room number from the voucher and hence could bill me, 2) while I understand it wasn't entirely her fault, the entire experience including service was awful, and 3) she was absent for 15 minutes after the guest requested the check. I expected to find in my emailed bill a line item for something like the remaining $7 the voucher didn't cover, or maybe $10 if she wanted to take advantage of my departure and add a tip for herself. The charge for breakfast was $18. I'm not going to dispute it, I did technically run out on the bill, but I'm also not going back there, and writing this review.

And if you've read this far... if you're an EV driver considering staying there because of the chargers, those are unreliable as well, again because of poor management. I finally figured out, thanks to PlugShare reviews, that two of the chargers are set to allow 48amps of current, but are only connected to 32amp breakers. So plugging in a car that can charge above 32amp reliably blows the breaker in the most frustrating possible way (about a 2-minute fuse before it pops, so your car will stop charging just about the time you get inside and get to your room). This could be solved by either putting a beefier breaker in the electrical panel, or limiting the charging equipment to a speed the panel can actually support. Leaving it in the "we can claim it on the website but it doesn't actually work reliably or as guests expect" state seems to be a theme for this...