Tru by Hilton Traverse City — Hotel in Garfield Township

It was disappointing and I will not be recommending Tru by Hilton Traverse City in my Google review.

First of all, the hotel itself is situated alongside an abandoned car dealership, and the surrounding property and grounds look messy and unkept. The hotel sign out by the main road doesn't light up at night, nor do (I believe) the street lights leading from the main road to the hotel.

Second, we had two issues I spoke with manager Kaylee about.

We got down to breakfast at about 8:50 on a Friday, when it closes at 9:00 AM. The pancake maker was out of pancake batter. As we and others were getting our breakfast items, they started taking everything away. I got cold cereal in my bowl at about 8:57 and by the time I went for milk, it was gone. I asked one of the staff about it and was told the breakfast closes at 9:00. I told her that when I got my cereal it was 8:57 and I wanted milk. She did, grudgingly, get me some milk. I mean they were like ants on sugar as soon as the clock hit 9:00. We appreciate there has to be a deadline, but you should at least accommodate those who are still in line getting their breakfast. Poor customer service, no customer focus. After the breakfast incident, I could see them talking about me (come on, you can tell when this is happening). Tacky!

The wifi throughout the hotel sucked so bad as to almost never work, and we were unable to use it to complete an important business video call on Friday. Also, though this was surprising for being near-downtown Traverse City, the area around the hotel gets very poor cell coverage from Verizon. Not Hilton's fault, but important to know. Fortunately we were able to make the video call using our mobile phone as a hotspot. Inconvenient, unreliable. Sucky!

In general, while the front desk staff were not unfriendly, neither were they friendly or welcoming. On the other hand, the housekeeping staff were quite friendly.

In conclusion, not a good first impression - which you only get a chance to make once. We can't offer a recommendation for Tru by Hilton Traverse City. We should have stayed at our tried and true Holiday Inn Express Traverse City, where we have always had a good experience.

UPDATE: I received a personal email from the hotel manager in response to my review apologizing for the experience, and outlining plans of correction. He refunded us for one of the two nights of our stay and sent us a voucher for a free one night stay in the future - neither of which we requested or were expecting. We'll have to take...

We arrived on a Friday afternoon. Our room was ready even though we arrived slightly before official check-in time begins.

The lady behind the counter greeted us warmly and prepared our keys. We had a room on the fourth floor (out of four floors).

As we walked through the lobby to the elevators, I noticed there were two foosball tables along with several seating options. Near the elevators, I was able to see into a small exercise room, but we didn’t use it during our stay. That area also featured an ice machine (another one is in the third floor), and they placed small ice buckets beside it. We also appreciated the water fountain by the ice machine, which had a water bottle refill station.

We had a king bed in our room. The room isn’t big by any means, and they don’t really have much storage available so we lived out of suitcases. They do have four hooks on the wall and an area with some hangers, but nothing in drawers or closets. The room also had a small fridge.

The bathroom only had a shower, but like everything else, it was clean, which shouldn’t be surprising since the hotel opened in early 2023.

My wife and I like the room to be dark when we sleep, and if you’re the same way, you’ll be glad to know that the roller shade features thick material to block out light and it sits in a track so that light doesn’t slip in through the sides.

Breakfast was offered in morning with standard fare: some sort of egg, sausage patties, pancakes and so forth.

The only thing I didn’t care for was the bottles for soap, shampoo, conditioner and body wash. But that’s a minor quibble.

The hotel does have plenty of free parking, particularly in back, which also had a nice outside seating area.

As for location, the hotel sits far back from the road, so we never heard any traffic. There are a number of restaurants and shops nearby, but many of them are chains. McDonald’s is the closest place to eat. Downtown Traverse City was about 10 minutes for us, but if traffic is heavy, that could be much longer.

One last note: we had planned to do laundry, and I was surprised to find out they didn’t have any laundry room available. You have to take your clothes to a local laundromat. Fortunately, we had enough clothes for our time there, so we didn’t have to spend anytime elsewhere doing laundry.

I can’t speak to the value based on price, though, since we used some points for our stay.

I would recommend the Tru. If my wife and I return to this area, this will be one of the...

This one breaks my heart, because all they had to do was simply verify verify VERIFY that the room was clean! That’s it! That’s all!! I think you know where I’m going with this review, right? Here we go….|I booked this hotel at the last minute, since we found out at the last minute that we needed a place to stay for my significant other’s family reunion. We had already been up since 6 AM that morning and had drove roughly 6 hours that day all the way from Chicago. We were just finishing our family reunion and needless to say we were just wanted to get to our hotel and just go to sleep. So we arrive at the hotel and I was greeted by Brooklyn. I had read the reviews prior to arrival to the hotel. All the reviews that I read where that everyone seemed nice, but the hotel could use some serious help in the cleanliness department. ||So I walk up to the front desk and as I’m checking in, I say, without even hesitating “ I need for the room to be clean. No dirty countertops or sheets, no excess hair, none of that stuff. I just need for the room to be clean.” Brooklyn replied, “ all of our rooms are inspected and checked.” Given how assured and confident he sounded, I went ahead and went to the room once he gave me my key. Upon walking into the room, I am mediately notice hair on the floor. I next approach the bed and lift up the duvet. That’s where I noticed strands of hair throughout the bed. Angry and grossed out, I am mediately marched downstairs, approached Brooklyn, requested to cancel my reservation and demanded i get a refund. What absolutely perplexed me was the shear hubris that Brooklyn display to me earlier. He was so sure of himself that the room is so clean and yet it was absolutely filthy!! it was just as I said earlier about one of the hotels that I spoke to after this particular hotel grossed me out: the guest service in most hotels has absolutely gone downhill as of late. In fact, stay tuned for another review that I have coming up. In the meantime, we will add the Tru by Hilton in Traverse City to the list of unrecommended hotels to stay at...