Valley Hotel Homewood Birmingham, Curio Collection by Hilton — Hotel in Homewood

We spent a very stressful October weekend in this nearly empty, nearly new hotel. Already, it is showing neglect. In our room, the vent fan in the bathroom was coming out of the ceiling, the intake air vent in the guest room was covered in lint, and the shower was full of mildew. However, the worst of our stay revolved around the double payment collected by the hotel for our two room nights and unprofessional management of correcting the issue.

Below is a step by step description of our reservation and payment at this property. They actually have a person whose job is guest satisfaction. In my opinion, they need to look up the meaning of the word “satisfaction.”

Pre-paid through Amex travel to receive $400 in credits. Only receive the credits if follow their terms/conditions to the letter. Paid $736.80

Checked in and was told we had to swipe to pay for room. No one knew anything about our reservation type. We asked a number of questions and got all the wrong answers. Pending charges of $663.12 put on our card.

Later, we checked our Amex account and found both charges. Spoke with Cindy, who said she would call back. Never heard from her. No missed call or vm on phone.

I called back to Front Desk and spoke with another rep. She told me that there was nothing that could be done until Sheena Owens arrived on Monday. Also told me that our initial payment to Amex (prepayment which qualified us for the $400 promo) was reversed. I asked for something in writing that this would be fixed. Never received it.

At this point we have paid $700/night for the room, which was over rack for this date.

Spoke with Ms. Owens as we drove home. Not very apologetic. Said she would fix things. I had to ask specifically about a number of aspects of the transaction and if she would make it right if their cancelling our initial pre-payment voided or promotion eligibility. Asked for her contact info. Did not feel very valued as an elite Hilton Honors member or as a guest who had been charged twice for the same room. a. Never received a folio b. She offered to comp the difference between our incidentals and the credits we received (gold: $24 + Amex: $100). It was only $15.05. But she never followed through on it.

Emailed her on Tuesday with a pdf of a very confusing Hilton folio which I had to find online as well as a pdf of our Amex account with yet another unexplained charge by the property. It was a charge for $89.05--- the method of card entry was noted as “manually”.

Never heard from her.

How is this guest satisfaction? We spent a great deal of our time “relaxing and unwinding” in Birmingham trying to get our bill fixed. The hotel barred $663 charges from being able to be made to our card for several days.

We come to town fairly often; we used to be regulars at the Redmont. It’s gone through a couple of GM changes in the last few months and has gone considerably downhill. It no longer has that special vibe it had when it opened.

We’ve been looking for a new place to run away to. On the surface, this property looked great. (really, with the same color scheme and décor, how could it not?) However, we had a week of frustration as a result of a 2 night stay.

We should have been offered something to compensate us for our considerable inconvenience. We were offered a whole $15. We didn’t even receive that.

HILARIOUS. THIS MUST BE THE NEW THING. Companies with bad reviews are responding, as they did in my case. "we want to make it right". Yet, when I attempt to contact them via both methods they suggest, I do not hear back. At all. So, they look really good, right? They look like...

We had one of our nieces’ wedding rehearsal dinner there and many of her future in-laws and friends were staying there. After the rehearsal dinner, some of us decided to go down to the lobby on the first floor to sit and talk. We were not particularly being loud or obnoxious or anything. Just sitting at a hotel lounge and having conversations just like hotel guests would do. Then the lady at the front desk yelled at us as if we were her students and she’s our teacher, saying that we were being too loud and that we need to quiet down because she can’t hear customers on the phone. We didn’t say anything the first time and tried to talk little quieter. Then, after about 10 minutes, the lady yelled at us again saying that we were being too loud. Once again, we were not particularly being loud or obnoxious at all. Just having some conversations. I just never had that kind of experience at any hotels anywhere - a front desk clerk telling (yelling at) guests to quiet down at the lobby. I mean isn’t that what hotel lobby is for? For guests to sit and have conversations? Then, I tried to talk to her to see what is going on but she would not talk to me by saying that she’s too busy talking to her customers on the phone. I tried to politely ask her who’s the manager on duty is but she would not give me his/her name or the contact information - I guess I can look it up myself. By then, we all decided that it’s not worth it and just went up to our rooms. I asked her name but she kept on waving her finger while she’s talking to someone on the phone and walking away from me. She was hiding her name tag with her arm so I couldn’t see her name either. It’s probably one of the most unpleasant experiences we’ve ever had staying at a hotel. I actually don’t want to give any stars at all. The management needs to train the employees better. Where is the customer service. We were not there to serve them. It’s the other way around. Do not stay...

Go to Marriot Autograph collection...

The location is a win, great views from our Suite in room 301. Loved location as distance to almost anything is perfect.

Room was disgusting...

The room was rough, we had 4 burnt out light bulbs and plastoc streamers from some previous guest. We had to request the bulbs be replaced. The light bar over the dry bar/coffee mirror thing doesn't work, the USB outlet on the left side of the bed do not work, our shower seat is missing a leg, the soap dispensers in the shower do not rebound after each pump, the light in the closet doesn't turn on, and the bassinet for our son was from a 1970s hospital.

One of the two non Tesla EV chargers don't work, and when I parked my.car with Valet I asked specifically to have it charged for the night. I took my son upstairs for bed and came down to help the valet driver park and plug in the Rivian T1 I was driving. We discovered one of their chargers was down and he said the BMW currently plugged in was fully charged so he would grab the keys and swap the charger to my truck.

Truck never got charged...

My wife took the "do not disturb" sign off the door at 10:30 and went to walk the town with our son. When she got back she was told there was no one who could clean the room. We had to go ask for clean towels 3 times before finally getting some...

The furniture is hard, especially that blue couch and everything seemed setup to look like a nice hotel but underneath it was no better than a regular 2 or 3 star hotel.

This was our first time staying with Hilton, we were hopefull the curio collection would be as nice and fun as Marriott's Autograph Collection. We checked out and switched to the Marriott to finish our stay...

Really disappointed, the people were all nice, but the service was poor and the execution made us feel like a burden rather...