Hilton Orrington/Evanston — Hotel in Evanston Township

Parking: there was no valet attendant outside. I left my car on the curb and went inside to the valet desk. Waited for 5 minutes. No attendant came. When I went to the lobby to request that a front desk representative call the valet attendant on my behalf they directed me back to the valet desk.

Check-In: I received a room assignment on the 8th floor. Bedding had holes and stains. Returned to the lobby to explain the situation. There was no apology from the front desk staff and a new room was assigned. Went into the new room on the 7th floor. The room reeked of cigarette smoke. Went back down to the lobby and there were 3 front desk representatives that exchanged looks and sighed when I explained that the second room smelled of cigarette smoke. I requested new accommodations and I was asked if I would like to check out. I requested a new room. I was given a choice between a room next to the elevator and a room next to the ice machine. I asked if the staff can make any accommodations given the inconvenience. At this point, still no apology has been offered by any of the front desk staff. At this point, I requested to purchase a bottle of wine that I can unwind with. The front desk staff informed me of the price, then directed me to the lobby bar to get glassware, noting that they "may be open". I once again requested that this unfortunate series of events, still without apology, to be made right. One of the male front desk attendants informed me that "the manager on shift will adjust the room rate".

Property: The bar area was disorganized and in disarray. The bartender was kind and when I informed him that he has been the most friendly staff I've encountered to date, I was politely informed that he is not an employee of Hilton, rather a friend of the caterer.

Amenities: In the bathroom was a small sliver of blue bar soap, Crabtree & Evelyn lotion (what I usually find in Doubletree) and Neutrogena shampoo (what I usually find in HGI properties). Disarray of mismatched products are disheartening. The following morning, I went to the bar area for coffee. There were no coffee cups available.

Check out: I received the folio via e-mail. Room rate had not been adjusted.

Valet: The valet desk picked up my call within 2 rings and the car was available within 5 minutes. I got into the car and my car smelled of what could only be described as sweaty feet. I drove from Evanston back to Ann Arbor, Michigan, a 4.25 hour ride with 2 hours in the rain, with the windows down.

Never in my years of traveling for work and pleasure have I experienced such poor hospitality from any property, let alone a Hilton property.

There was not one staff that welcomed me as a guest, let alone as a HHonors member, thanks me for the stay, or offer an apology or any level of empathy for the issues and inconveniences noted and shared with the staff. A very basic level of hospitality from property greeting, politeness, cleanliness and organization of the property would be...

My husband and I stayed here to attend a conference. This hotel is AWEFUL. I don't have experience with Hilton's, but we chose it as this was where the conference was held and we had a group rate. The rate was INSANE for the horrible quality of the rooms available to the group. We were given a room on the third floor. Half the rooms on that floor don't have full windows, but tiny shutters for a small window that is at level with a roof. It felt dark, dank and claustrophobic. When we got in the room, I noticed the door was nearly impossible to open, then we realized we could not close it without significant effort and having to slam it. Also, all the furniture in the room was beat up and thrashed and the carpets were stained. The room rate was $169 plus tax! This was worse than a crappy motel. They literally charge you $20/night extra for a room with a mini fridge. Because of the door to our room, I asked to switch rooms, something I've literally never done before. It really was so bad. The new room was moderately better and at least had windows, but there are cheaper hotels in this market for nicer. 4 stars is laughable. MAYBE 2. The shower does not get hot. I am a cold human being, and taking a shower made me shiver for 10 minutes after. The toilet didn't flush properly even though it sounded like a jet taking off. The whole thing was horrible. ||Our reservation was for 3 nights, but since it was kind of a bust, we decided to check out a day early. Not once when told the front desk that we would be checking out a day early did they mention an early cancelation fee. We booked a much cheaper and so much nicer room by the airport since we had an early flight. We made the amendment to our reservation the day before we checked out, then we went to the desk to check out. They never even touched our reservation. Today I get an email that we just checked out even though we've already flown home, and a receipt for the entire amount. So, both times I went to the front desk they did literally nothing. So I call the number and sit on hold, yay. I manage to get a refund for the night we literally were at a different hotel (and told the front desk and checked out and they never did anything), but a $75 early cancelation fee. So, they didn't even seem to turn the room over as my app said we checked out at noon, the very end of our original cancelation. They could have turned the room around and made money, but instead charge me a fee. ||I don't know if this is what Hiltons are usually like, but I'll pass from now on. There is no way that this place should be listed anywhere as 4 stars. It was barely economy and overpriced by a long shot. Just...

Regrettable Customer Service

I must comment on the terribly off-putting attitude of this hotel's late-night, Front Desk Manager, which was anything but serviceable.

I mistakenly booked a room for three nights for a business colleague, that I wished to pay for in advance so that my guest could check-in smoothly. Unfortunately, I chose the "pay at the property" option when booking, not realizing what difficulty that would cause me. The 3rd party hotel booking website wouldn't allow me to pay for the room via credit card over the phone. Nor would the hotel when I called them directly to explain the situation. So, I decided to go to the location and take care of the charges the evening prior to my guest's arrival.

After I explained what I wanted to do at the hotel's front desk, I was met with a most callous refusal to accept my credit card and was told that I would have to return upon the guest's arrival the next day to pay for the room. I explained that this was an extreme inconvenience, especially because I was there NOW (at the time) to do that very thing. I was told that I could have filled out a credit card authorization form seven days prior to arrival–an irrelevant, most unhelpful bit of information, given the circumstances. In addition to being unhelpful, the person (Evening Front Desk Manager) was extremely rude and patronizing, obviously taking some kind of twisted pleasure in denying me assistance. But perhaps I'm giving them too much credit. Maybe they weren't sophisticated at all, or just inept at problem solving. It seems to me that a viable 'customer service' workaround would have been to suggest taking my credit card information, adding it to the reservation folio, and running my card upon the guest's arrival.

Hopefully someone effectual, who cares will read this, take note of the date (the evening of August 9, 2023) and will add this incident to what I venture to guess is a growing history of behavior of this nature by this employee. Meanwhile, I will NOT be doing any more business with this hotel, because I just remembered that the last time the very same guest stayed there (about six months ago), he was accosted by hotel security, who asked that he present his room key upon entering the hotel. Take a guess what race the guest is? And no, he's middle-aged and was definitely not...