The Diplomat Beach Resort Hollywood, Curio Collection by Hilton — Hotel in Hollywood

We really wanted to like this place... Before we booked it this time we have kept our eye on it for about 3 years... I hate writing a bad review because if you don't have anything nice to say you should just keep it to yourself... However... For the price and area you're in I feel like honesty is the best policy and you can't please everyone in the hospitality industry, so I think it's fair to put all of that out there on a platform like this so that the hotel can possibly take Google reviews like this to add in their meetings to better serve their clients who are loyal like we are. We are diamond members on full leisure travel. I hate when people use that phrase to brag. In this sense we love all of the hotels offerings typically because it's the experience of it that gives you the desire to stay loyal and keep coming back to the brand and they are very good to you, instead of staying outside of the brand. To me instead of bragging about it, the statement in and of itself gives you the professional opinion of knowing the brand standard because we are staying so much we know the difference than someone who simply stays in VRBO or any other hotel brand or platform. So when I say diamond member, we just know what the heck we're talking about.

Let's start with... The entrance is beautiful and it's going to make it's own statement when you come in!! The Grand entrance was GRAND!!🎉 From there they did give us a nice upgrade for being brand loyal and it was a very beautiful view from the 30th floor overlooking the ocean 😍 but it ended there with the pros.... They are under construction and they are way over booked!!! So that means the pool and beach were over crowded and packed like sardines to capacity. The infinity pool was closed 2 days of our 5 so as you can imagine the noise even at the regular lower pool and it was stinky and double packed with people and kids overflowing out of the hot tub. It seemed to be the hot spot for kiddie daycare... The gym was always packed and kids were in there in flip flops pretending like they were doing gymnastics and I reported that immediately... Twice my husband's beach chair left unattended for maybe 15 minutes, was swiped both times because there was absolutely no space. Not to mention, the keys would deactivate numerous times and the line at the front desk was very long because of it happening so much to other people and the wait to have security come was just as long to let you in... They were quite happy to let a bed go unmade and you had to beg the front desk for fresh towels and wash rags ... Again because they are at Max capacity obviously. The main lobby bar had maybe 4 other people at it when we both sat down and there were at least 6 people behind the bar and we didn't get friendly service and it took 6+ minutes before they even asked us if we needed a drink... probably very over worked employees it seems because they are at Max capacity and being over worked and overwhelmed... Not a typical Hilton experience. The shower was hit or miss on hot water but if you kept it on the one setting it seemed to turn too hot and surge and then go super cold for 3-5 minutes before surging to hot again.... Very strange. We travel with our own fan for white noise typically and thank goodness because the one morning I got up around 6:30 for the yoga/Pilates on the beach it just so happened it's not nice and peaceful and listening to the ocean while you sip your coffee on vacation. It's loud obnoxious construction noise that early.... MIND YOU, THEY DIDN'T HAVE THAT MENTIONED WHEN WE BOOKED, NOR WAS IT ON THE BOOKING ON THE APP LIKE THEY TYPICALLY DO TO UPDATE YOU IF THERE IS ANYTHING HAPPENING ON SITE!! Like I said, we really wanted to like this resort and it has potential to be a luxury hotel... But I would save my points or my money and stay at a nicer property if possible. This isn't it, until the management can crack down. I hope they truly bring this up in their meetings and want to change so much of this otherwise, it's just a lost cause to write a review that's...

I can honestly say that this is the worst managed hotel in which I’ve ever stayed. To put that in perspective, I’ve average 90 to 100 nights away from home each year over the last 29 years, and have stayed at literally hundreds of hotels over those three decades. The Diplomat is now, and has been for dozens of years, the absolutely worst managed hotel ever.

Obviously, I don’t choose to come here. There are two annual industry conferences held here that I am compelled to attend.

Truthfully, it used to be a decent place about 25 years ago. But management changed hands 15 or 20 years ago and it all started falling apart.

The biggest problem is they never have rooms ready to turn over. Check in time is 4PM. (Don’t get me started on the 4PM check in, 11AM check out, so you’re paying almost $500 per night for a 19-hour “day”). Over the years, I’ve arrived and they don’t have rooms ready at 4PM. I think it’s fair to say that has happened to me at least 8 to 12 times. One year, knowing their inability to have rooms available, I went to dinner with some colleagues before attempting to check in. I arrived at the hotel only for them to tell me, “It’s 9PM. We didn’t think you were coming. We sold your room to someone who just walked in!” They then put me in a cab to a much cheaper hotel a mile down the road for the night.

Let’s put that in perspective, too: I was booked for an 8-night stay, and the room was prepaid. They sold a room that my company had already paid for because they were so nakedly money-hungry that they just couldn’t take the room rate THEY HAD ALREADY BEEN PAID FOR—absolutely no loss to the hotel even if I didn’t show up until 9AM the next day-but instead sold it to someone else out of pure, unmitigated greed.

Another year, I arrived mid-afternoon and checked in. They didn’t have a room for me…fair enough, it WAS before check in time…so they told me they’d contact me on my cell when my room was ready. Check in time was 4PM. They finally had a room for me at 10PM.

What makes this incredibly unfair (and honestly, should be illegal) is that the hotel policy is to charge guests $50 PER HOUR for every hour after the 11AM checkout that they are late checking out. So they take $50/hour from guests who check out late, but provide ZERO compensation to guests who can’t have a room for two, three, four, five, six hours after check in.

That raises the question, where does that $50/hr collected from late checkouts go? To the guests who can’t check in, as compensation? Absolutely not. It goes into the pockets of the hotel’s management, and zero compensation is offered to guests who are being screwed by this absolutely mismanaged dump.

They get mad when a guest “steals” room time from them, but don’t give a “F” when they steal from guests seemingly every day. That time when I didn’t get a room until 10PM? By their policy, they stole $300 from my company. Was any compensation provided? Absolutely not. Put that in perspective: a 19-hour day and the hotel steals almost a full third of that and blithely acts like they’ve done nothing wrong.

I won’t go into seeing trash in the halls not being picked up for multiple days in a row. I won’t go into the bottles of Evian water available for you to drink in the room at the low, low cost of $9 per bottle (I went around the corner to a Publix on Hallandale Boulevard and bought a SIX-PACK for $8 total). I won’t go into the check-in line being 30 to 40 people deep on any given afternoon because the hotel is too cheap to hire enough front desk attendants (clearly the same cause for them never having rooms available at 4PM for check-in…too greedy and money-hungry to hire enough housekeeping staff).

Basically, the Dip operates as a place whose primary concern is to extract as much money from the guests as possible while simultaneously providing as little services as possible.

The management has taken a once decent hotel and turned it into a trashy hellhole not worthy of being a Motel 6, let alone a Hilton-flag property. STAY...

First, my husband is paying for an upgrade from a partial ocean view to an ocean front with balcony. We wanted a balcony so we could sit outside together during the times my husband was not at his conference.

Maybe it would have been appropriate for the front desk to tell my husband that practically all day, every day there would be very loud jackhammers banging and large machinery grinding. It is unbearable and you cannot sit outside and even talk to each other. Horrible.

Then, during the brief instances that the jackhammers and machinery have momentarily ceased, the person or persons in the room below our room have smoked nonstop cigars on their patio. The thick repulsive smoke wafts directly up to our balcony - making it impossible to sit outside and enjoy the brief instances without construction noise.

There is also a lot of marijuana being smoked - which also is extremely annoying. Perhaps you should explain to “guests” that non-smoking includes marijuana.

This hotel boasts that it is a 100% smoke-free facility. I can attest to the fact that it is definitely 100% NOT!

So, I finally called downstairs to the desk and asked them if they could try to stop our neighbor below from smoking cigars and marijuana. The cigar smoke is finally gone - but the constant marijuana smoke is not! This is ridiculous.

So yesterday I got tired of sitting in the room with the balcony door closed. I thought I would go take a walk on the beach. I got downstairs to the door and was stopped by a security guard asking me where my wrist-band was. I knew nothing about a wrist-band.

I explained that I just wanted to go outside and take a walk. He said that I could not go outside without a wrist band. He said that we should have been given wrist-bands when we checked in. We were not given any wrist-bands when we checked in.

The guard told me to go to the front desk and maybe they could give me a wrist-band. So, I went to the front desk. I gave the gentleman my name and room number. I asked him if I could please have a wrist-band so I could simply go outside and take a walk.

The gentleman at the desk said that we should have been given wrist-bands when we checked in. I - again - explained that we were NOT given any wrist-bands when we checked in. The gentleman seemed to be very suspicious of me. He made me feel badly for even ASKING for the apparently extremely important, likely platinum embossed, plastic hospital wrist-band!

Was he afraid I would sell the plastic hospital wrist-band it on the Black Market? I was really upset by the treatment I received. I almost left the front desk to return to the marijuana and cigar smoke jackhammer banging “sanctuary” of our room. The desk clerk reluctantly agreed to let me have a wrist-band. He affixed the hospital style wrist-band tightly to my wrist. I said thank you and left.

Simply going outside for a walk at a “resort” should not be so stressful or complicated. I am not a kid. I am a 50 year old, well dressed woman. Why was I made to feel like I was doing something underhanded? I’ve never even gotten a speeding ticket!

When it was time for us to leave the “resort” to go to dinner that evening, I cut the ridiculous hospital wrist-band off my wrist. I asked my husband again if he was given any wrist-bands upon check in. He again said he was not and knew nothing about wrist-bands. He was not happy when I told him the whole story about trying to go outside for a walk.

So - since I cannot go outside or to the pool since I cut off the ugly hospital wrist-band in order to go to dinner without looking like an escaped hospital patient, here I sit in our stuffy room with the balcony door closed. I refuse to go back to the front desk and ask for another one - as I would likely be given the Third Degree all over again. I tried to sit on the balcony - I tried to endure the loud construction noise - but the skunky marijuana smoke forced me back inside.

I cannot...