Tru by Hilton Ft. Lauderdale Airport — Hotel in Dania Beach

3.5 MAKES SENSE. Let me begin by sharing with you this is the first bad review I have EVER shared on any social media. Because it takes A LOT for me to be upset and disappointed. Michelle the general manager is not fair with the hotel's guests, I figured we should inform the Google community how poorly this property is being managed. I am a manager myself and I know exactly how operations work and I build relationships with all of YOU reading my review only this time around I was a customer of the Hilton brand. My complaint is directed to the Hilton as I am complaining about the General Manager in charge Michelle DaSilva. After spending one night at the Hilton having zero requests I was charged 6 different times on my credit card upon check out. Yes, they charged me the equivalent of 6 nights 158.00 dollars per night, you do the math. Lucky, that was not a debit card or my only aid for funds. However, what if it was? I spoke to the front desk and they advised that everything would fall off. Even though seeing 6 individual charges is highly unusual, I trusted what they said and left with the impression that everything will be corrected. No problem. Mistakes happen! I checked my card two weeks later all the incorrect charges fell off and a few days after that I was wrongfully charged again 2 times for the same hotel stay and valet parking. At this point, I knew this only meant the operations in this hotel are sloppy, unorganized, and the 3.5 makes sense. My fiancé and I called and spoke to Michelle DaSilva, again the general manager, she had no idea of when we stayed so my fiance provided the information to her over the phone which is completely unacceptable because as a general manager she should at least know how to operate the system, understand how to retrieve a past reservation and hotel stay. Anyways after more than 30min with her trying to learn how to locate our reservation info with our help providing all the documentation as proof we only stayed for one night, she then no apology, no sympathy, requested a three-way phone call with my bank as proof that what we are pleading is accurate. Yes, Michelle, your staff and you charged us 2 nights and 2 valet nights (DOUBLE CHARGE) incorrectly after initially charging us 6 times on my credit card upon check out for the initial one, and only night. Somehow she couldn't retrieve any information and she didn't apologize and suggested that we deal with it on our own. No apology, no empathy, no attempt at customer service satisfaction at all. No care about the efforts my fiancé and I made to fix this situation and do what's correct. This is besides the fact that our room was facing a building under construction, loud noise, room keys didn't work and valet was overwhelmed and allowed me to grab my car keys from a pile of keys. At that point, I had access to all the guest's car keys, access to their vehicle, and easily drove off with it. No need for proof of ticket at that point. This is Tru by Hilton's policy, implemented in all the hotels and the sign can be found next to the front desk

"It's Tru you deserve our best every day, a clean comfortable place to stay and service with a smile. If it's not our best, please let us know. We promise to make it right, OR WE'LL COVER YOUR NIGHT."

Michelle is a general manager who compromised the Hilton brand by implementing her own philosophy. I was kind enough I did not become disrespectful, rude, or asked for anything free although, the Hiltons philosophy is extremely different from Michelle's philosophy.

This complaint as proof that she doesn't follow Hilton's policy when a customer is charged incorrectly stealing from me in this case, and did not resolve our issue, made a huge deal out of a situation that has a solution, and instead, she asked us to figure it out on our own. This is the poorest experience I have ever received when staying at ANY hotel, let...

Is the Tru brand Hilton’s super-basic, no-frills hotel chain? Or perhaps it is designed for kids? That would explain the minuscule size of the room — not a whole lot larger than a child’s toy box — and the near-complete lack of amenities. There is no microwave, no coffee or tea maker, none of those tea bag/sugar/stirrer sets, and no ice bucket. There is not even a paper cup or a single glass anywhere in the tiny room! There is no wardrobe, rather you get three hooks and three pegs on a wall, near a ridiculous illustrated sign that reads: “NEED ADDITIONAL STORAGE OPTIONS?” Two stick images show “Decorative Wall Hooks” and “Under the bed.” Very classy — just shove your stuff under the bed, like we did back in the army. There isn’t a desk either, rather a plank on wheels that you could push around the room … if there was any space to do so. But the absence of amenities in the room is as nothing compared to the rudeness of the night clerk, Priscilla. We messaged the hotel earlier in the day to let them know we would be late arrivals — after 10:30 pm. No response. After landing at Fort Lauderdale Airport and retrieving our bags, we called the hotel and pushed option 1 for the shuttle driver. The driver spoke some English, but with a heavy accent. It was difficult to understand him and he kept telling us to walk to “White area, it look like a bus stop.” We could find no such place. We walked some distance, with heavy bags, before calling him again. And then a third time. Each time he told us something different but eventually said: “Stay where you are I come get you.” It had been a good half hour by then, so we called the hotel front desk and said the driver was giving us confusing directions and was there anything that could be done. Understandably we were quite impatient by that point as it was late and we’d been waiting a long time. The clerk, Priscilla, said we were being rude (we were not, we were frustrated by the poor communication) and she hung up on us! Priscilla, a night clerk at Hilton Tru Fort Lauderdale, hung up on Hilton Diamond members! HILTON CORPORATE PLEASE TAKE NOTE. As the Tru shuttle was so completely useless we eventually made our own way to the property after giving a $10 bribe to the nice driver of a shuttle bus from a completely different hotel. Upon arrival we asked the woman at the desk if she was the one who hung up on us. “Yes. I don’t need to listen to people screaming at me,” she barked. While we did express annoyance at the inadequate instructions provided by the driver, we can assure the hotel and Priscillas that had we been angry enough to scream, then the evening would have had a very different ending. When we asked why the shuttle service was so poor, Priscilla first blamed the weather — which was B.S. as the weather was clear and pleasant — and then she blamed it on the fact that “we contract out” the shuttle service. Hilton Tru, you would do yourselves a favor by contracting out Priscilla. ||||This was the second-rudest treatment we have EVER experienced at a Hilton property, in a lifetime of professional travel. We will be sending a formal complaint to Hilton Corporate. In the meantime, DO NOT stay at this awful hotel. In addition to all the above listed issues, it is overpriced and right on top of East Dania Beach Boulevard so, even on a high floor, you near nothing but traffic noise all night. An appalling stay. We would say we received “dismal service,” except for the fact that there was no service at all. Worst travel experience of the year....

I spent a couple hours reading reviews to choose a hotel to stay at the night before our cruise and ultimately chose this one. Overall, the stay was fine, but there were several parts of the experience that did not go smoothly:

-Let me highlight that a man named Jae was the person working the front desk that night (11/30/23), and he was the saving grace of our experience that night. He had to handle that entire check in situation alone (see below), even though I’m sure 0% of it was his fault. He handled it with such composure, grace, and professionalism. I have traveled for work and leisure quite a lot, so I don’t have high expectations for customer service from the 3rd shift front desk person. But Jae stands out amongst all the hotel staff I’ve ever encountered on any shift. He definitely deserves recognition and probably a promotion and a raise.

-One of the main reasons I chose this hotel was because it had decent reviews for the 24/7 airport shuttle. Our flight arrived at midnight. We did have to call twice and waited ~30-45 mins after the first call for the shuttle. If I had known this would be the case, I would have likely chosen a different, cheaper hotel and planned to Uber. Everyone else at the airport waiting for hotel shuttles at the same time as us was picked up before us by their respective hotels. FYI the shuttle this hotel uses does stop at another hotel on the way, which we didn’t mind.

-When we arrived to the hotel, there was a line of 5-6 guests trying to check in. The process was really slow because something was wrong with their internal system, and they also didn’t have enough rooms cleaned and ready. The overnight crew was cleaning rooms, and the person working the desk was trying his best to find rooms that were ready for people, even room types that were not what they originally reserved. A mother/daughter in front of us in line had reserved two queens but had to take a king room. Another family ahead of us got a room, went up to it, found it hadn’t been cleaned or made up at all, and had to come back down to the lobby and wait in line again. We finally got checked in around 1:30am. I am a Hilton Honors member and had already checked in on my phone earlier in the day. Usually you can get a digital key that way, but this hotel doesn’t seem to allow that, so we still had to wait in line for ~30 minutes just to get the physical key cards. Checking in on the app beforehand did seem to help us out though because at least they already had the room reserved for us and didn’t have to find a clean room for us like they had to for everyone else in line.

-The a/c in the room did seem pretty weak. But the room was clean. Though small, the room is designed to make the most of it. We enjoyed the breakfast the following morning.

Overall I think it is a really nice hotel, but there are some logistical problems that caused customers to have to wait unreasonable...