Hilton Des Moines Downtown — Hotel in Des Moines

Recent stay at the downtown Des Moines was one of the worst experiences I have ever had a hotel. Check in time was 3:00 pm and did not gain access to our room until 4:00 pm. We kept being told our room was marked clean but no one available to inspect it. Also we paid the $25.00 per night parking fee but asked that on Sunday for checkout if we could keep our car in the parking lot until 2:00 pm and was informed that we would have to pay an extra $25.00 if we did that since checkout time was noon. This was after we waited an hour for our room that we paid over $400.00 per night and received no compensation for not having access to our room for the full amount of time we had it reserved.

The Hilton then had a worker names Caleb that had an agenda to make our stay as uncomfortable and miserable as possible. He confronted us originally about having outside alcohol in the "lobby". At the Hilton Downtown Des Moines their lobby extends to the entire hotel except in your room. In case anyone is wondering. So the only place on the property you can have outside alcohol is in your room. Our original confrontation with Caleb occurred on the second floor open area as far away from the bar area as possible. He told us we could not have the alcohol in that area and needed to get rid of it or go to our rooms.

We chose to go to our rooms. A short time after Caleb came to visit us again in our rooms and told us that our doors had to be latched at all times. We had the door propped open slightly because our children were across the hall in a different person in our groups room.

Again the next day Caleb came to our rooms again and chose to confront as we were going to head down to the lobby for supper and drinks. Stating once again that the doors needed to remain closed at all times. One of the rooms we were staying in closer was actually broken so you had to physically close the door. The door had been left open as one adult had gone from one room to the other to grab something. He then proceeded to stand outside of the door and call maintenance and would not leave. He was actually blocking the doorway preventing people from being able to exit the room.

We then went to the front desk and expressed our concerns as it was obvious this worker Caleb was harassing us at this point. All these confrontations happened between the hours of 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm.

We were a group of 35-50 year old adults with kids age ranges 5-14 years old. We have collectively stayed in many hotels and never been treated this way. When I pay over $400 a night for a hotel room I expect to be treated with respect and not harassed non stop. Our group comes to Des Moines the same weekend every year and books about 20 rooms within our group for the weekend. We all collectively decided that we will never go back to this hotel.

I would suggest any of the area hotels if you are group of people traveling to an event downtown. Somewhere that actually treats their guests kindly and...

Buyer Beware If I could give this 0 stars, I would. Be careful when booking through a third party but this review extends to the hotel experience so please read on. My partner and I made a reservation via a third party as we were driving back from a long road trip and needed somewhere to sleep before resuming our trip. We reserved a room at this hotel because we just wanted a room ready for us when we got to our destination instead of looking around for hotels. Upon arrival, the receptionist told us we had to request a refund from the third party we used to make the reservation because they cancelled it due to us being a “no show” and wanted to charge us a much higher price for the night. The issue here is that if we had booked it for the next day, they wouldn’t have allowed us to check in until 3pm and if we booked it for the previous day like we did, we would’ve needed to check in before midnight. Neither of these are an option however for anyone needing a room after midnight but before 3pm. That’s why we reserved it thinking that’s the whole point of a reservation. However, that’s against their policy. Fine, then just cancel and refund. But no. They’re ok with taking the money but not giving you access to the room you just paid for. When we called the third party for the refund, they said they needed approval from the hotel which was opposite of what the hotel said. So long story short, neither party wants to give back the refund and they hang up the phone on you if you try to get your money back. This is so unethical. Taking advantage of people with some fine print “policy” just to make an extra buck without any expense to them is the legal version of robbery. If you don’t support bad business/unethical business practices, don’t do business here. They will keep giving you the same corporate cookie cutter response that an AI could’ve written; ie “unfortunately, our policy…” you know how it goes. We were left without our money and without a room all night after driving for 14 hours all because of a technical rule. So that’s why I’d give it zero stars. Because I can’t rate the room without seeing it, I can’t rate the customer service without getting any, and I couldn’t even walk away with my money at least. This is what happens when you put sales people as receptionists. They will use whatever fine print they can so you’d pay up more because they get nothing out of it otherwise. They don’t see you as a human being, just a cash grab. That’s how desensitized some people have become. So please don’t fall prey to these unethical practices. I wish I hadn’t. Learn from my experience so at least the money I lost feels like it helped others...

This was the worst experience I’ve ever had with a Hotel from Top to Bottom! When we went to our room, which was “ready”, there were dirty socks on the floor and candy wrappers in between the mattress and box spring. If it was vacuumed and the sheets were changed, I feel like this definitely should have been caught. I told the front desk and they changed our rooms. When we went in the 2nd room and went to go get in the bed, there were two big stains on the sheets. With what had happened in the first room, and having young kids with us, we were pretty disgusted. I took photos of the 2nd room sheets and asked if they would refund me my money if we checked out. There wasn’t a manager on duty, which I thought was weird, so asked if they would have one call me. On our way down to check out, I was talking to two other guests and they had someone in their group that had to change room because their “clean” room was dirty. The only hotel we could find was 20 minutes away in West Des Moines. (Hilton doesn’t think that’s a big inconvenience.) I got an email from Andrew saying he was sorry. I finally called the hotel and spoke to a lady named Ryan and she was Andrew’s boss. Ryan was VERY arrogant and rude. I told her with the huge inconvenience we had, I feel like a free stay or discount was needed and her response was, “We issued a refund and I feel like that’s sufficient.” Finally, I called Hilton’s 1-800 number and their customer service supervisor, Ed Moly, stated the same thing. I informed him the big issue wasn’t the compensation, it was the service from Ryan. He pretty much disregarded that. This made my family’s little get away stink! We checked into another Hotel and after that, we were finally able to enjoy our vacation besides the extra driving we had to do because of this. This is the first time out of all the hotels I’ve stayed in, I’ve left and asked for a refund. I would not recommend this Hotel to anyone. Not only because of the cleanliness, but because of the horrible customer service if there is an issue. That horrible customer service comes from the top.

UPDATE: It’s kind of odd that the owner responds with “we would like to investigate this further” and then gives me the number to the same hotel where I had to deal with Ryan, who again is very arrogant, but doesn’t give me a name or anything to ask for, so I’ll probably end up talking to Ryan again. Plus, the customer service supervisor, Ed, said there’s nothing they’ll do, so who does that email go to? I’ll gladly call and speak to a district manager, but I need a name. Once again, still...