The Waters Hot Springs, Tapestry Collection by Hilton — Hotel in Hot Springs

I stayed here the weekend of 3/13/2021 and hope to give a comprehensive review for future travelers. I'll break down the reasons why I would not stay here again.

The first problem I hit is truthfully not specific to this hotel but to Hilton in general. I booked a 2 queen room about a week prior for $303+6k points. I tried calling Hilton support multiple times such that I could apply add'l points to the reservation to lower my out of pocket cost. Between 3-4 calls, I was on hold a total of at least 2 hours. I tried calling the actual hotel - they don't do anything related to points. Chat rep said he couldn't do anything related to points. Finally got someone on the phone morning of check-in (at which time it's too late to cancel for free), and was told he basically could do nothing for me. He connected me to an adv. customer support rep who told me it could be done, but they'd have to cancel my reservation, hope it popped back up in the system, and the rate might be different than what I booked it at. Why can I not just apply more points to an existing reservation? Maybe my fault, dunno, but it seems like technologically it should be pretty easy to do.

At the hotel itself, it's a nightmare trying to pull up to load/unload bags with only 3 street spots available out front. If you want to skip the hassle, it's $18 for valet, which isn't terrible, but certainly not cheap. They're nice enough to let you park down there and check in and run your bags up before coming down to move your car. The hotel interior is nice with marble/granite and tile throughout, which is aesthetically pleasing. The rooms do have a couple cool quirks like the showers but otherwise are normal hotel rooms. Ours was clean, which was nice, but the beds/sheets/pillows, etc. are pretty normal. I feel like paying the $303 was moreso for the hotel interior and not the rooms. Likely not worth the price, unless you really want to be downtown to enjoy the nightlife.

One weird experience was Saturday night trying to get on the list for the rooftop bar. Girl in the lobby told us she recommended going somewhere else as it was packed up top and the wait list was full. Brother insisted on taking the elevator up anyways, to which I hesitantly obliged, only to see at least 4 open tables, likely more on the other side. Why the stark rec to go elsewhere then? Waitress was pretty snarky, though still fairly nice. $20 for 2 glasses of Josh cab.

I was told upon check-in that guests get a bottle of water free each day. I was a little frustrated at the $303 rate still so I was happy to find my first day bottle in the room upon check-in. It's just a normal bottle of Mountain Valley water. She mentioned that upon check-out I could grab a second bottle of water so I tried, just to squeeze a little bit more of the stay and was denied, even as a Gold Elite Hilton member. Is the $1.50 bottle of water really squeezing margins enough that I can't get a second upon check-out? Oh well, no biggie.

Worst part of the stay may have been the breakfast. I was hoping that the two free breakfasts check-out morning as Gold Elite member would soften the $303 blow. They're not doing hot breakfast because of Covid which is totally fine, and have opted for the grab-and-go breakfast bags. In mine was a bottle of Ozarka, a green apple with a few brown spots, a Nature Valley granola bar, and one of those plastic wrapped pastries that's probably pretty good but has an endless shelf life and is like 400 calories. Probably about a $4 breakfast bag. I know Covid has hit hard but make no mistake that this is a nice hotel charging premium rates. I've stayed in 4- and 5-star hotels in more interesting places that are similar in price, and the best breakfast they can do here is a grab bag of cheap stuff. Really disappointing.

All in all, the trip was fine. All hotel staff was generally nice, and there were no massive red flags like bugs in room. But this is no dingy Hilton Inn Express, this is a nice, premium hotel. I expected a lot more for $303+ a night and was disappointed. Will not...

Cant believe I paid around $350 a night for this place even with Hilton Honors discount. My husband Hurtado and I were visiting from dallas, we wanted a chill weekend getaway. We were willing to shell out for the best location hotel we could find, which was this. The walls are so thin you hear all your neighbors, plus on the 3rd floor we could hear the employees outside on the first floor yapping everytime they took their smoke break. Bathroom door (like many others have complained) doesn't close all the way, and it makes it impossible to use the restroom privately even if you hold it closed with your hand because so much sound comes out from the gap between the door and wall. Also when you close it you get dusted with paint chips from it scraping against the rail.

The shower door is nonexistant and everytime we took a shower it was soaking wet, even with towels thrown on the floor to soak it up. Twice I took a shower and water pressure would completely disappear for a few seconds at a time and it wouldn't get very hot. Although admittedly this only happened a few times, the other times I showered it was hot with good pressure.

What really drove me up the wall though were simple things. The night we arrived the receptionist was in plain clothes and some furry jacket, I legit didn't even think she was an employee until she finally acknowledged us. She wasn't very welcoming at all like I'd expect at a nicer hotel.

I have stayed in some rough hotels before, and you can at least get coffee and water in the lobby. There was 2 waters in our room and 2 kcups. I opened the kurig to make coffee and it was NASTY there were hairs inside the water resevour and little brown grains of something in it (pictured) If you know how these hotel machines are laid out you know its impossible that it is coffee grounds, and its not a detachable resevour, so I literally had to unplug the whole machine and try to fit the thing under the bathroom sink to wash it out several times as I watched a lot of stuff came out of it. Finally after about 8 rinses I held my nose and was brave to make myself a coffee (I'm still alive and well, so maybe I shouldn't complain that much) The next day I asked for more bottled water (and not the fancy spring water bottle they give you when you arrive) but they told me they do not give out waters. I asked if they had water anywhere in the lobby and they told me no I had to go to the grocery store down the street. I couldn't believe they don't even have any fresh water in the lobby nor would they give me water bottles for our 3 night stay.

Also the same with coffee. I went down in the morning to get coffee since we used our ration of 2 kcups and the lobby doesn't provide any morning coffee, only option is to buy the overpriced drip coffee from the attached restaurant. My brother in christ the most basic Super 8 and Holiday Inn has coffee in the lobby in the mornings.

No parking available. We arrived at 930 on a Friday night so our only option after a long drive was to drive up and down the street until we found parking or shell out over what I think was $30 a night for valet (plus tip of course) I wish I would've known this first. There was also offered a free city parking lot down the street, but no guarantees it wasn't full plus they lock vehicles up at night so you can't leave after a certain hour. Every single hotel in this city has parking, including the embassy suites that I should've booked.

What I will say is the valets were always so nice, always helped me when I needed directions and were just always very pleasant, more so than front desk for sure.

No parking, large but mediocre room, no water and no coffee, this isn't a 5 star hotel in Chicago or NYC we are in Hot Springs and yall gotta chill. Was this the worst hotel in the world? No. Do I think it's worth anywhere near what we paid for the amenities and service that was offered?...

By the time we left we stayed here 9 nights. A few positives before the long and extensive list of negatives. The renovation design on this is nice. The staff, to a person, were very kind, courteous, and earnest to do well. However their training, management, and policies seem to be the real issue. Along with staffing. Our room had housekeeping less than half of our 9 days. We had three straight with no appearance of a housekeeper. Management’s continued response was a very nice but clear “it is all your fault”. They believed everything their staff said but failed to check out our claims. One day, the second with no housekeeping, we literally left town! We left at 10 am. Took the do not disturb sign down and nothing happened. Each day the only response from the front desk was that we left the do not disturb up too long. In other words it is our fault. No attempt to ask or try to find accommodation. None. As I said we like how they renovated although right near our door is an old temporary screen with old chairs and tables just thrown behind it. (Pictures and videos below). The bathrooms have sliding doors that literally will wake the dead when you open it. Whoever designed them never stayed a night here. You spend the whole night knowing when just about anyone on your floor uses the bathroom. The bathrooms are small but in ours not one picture yet a huge wall with not one towel bar or any hooks. It is like they just quit at some point, opened the hotel and gave up. There was not one hook of any kind in our whole room. Of course if you don’t get clean towels everyday maybe this was thier plan. We have hard wood floors which are quaint but loud. If you get up in the night everyone you are with is getting up too. Also the paint on these floors is chipping off so we have paint chips all over our clothes. In the bed. Everywhere. (Pictures below). I also give you a photo of our view out our window. Now other than the noises inside the room I mentioned above, we found our room to be amazingly quiet from outside noise. You can stand in the lobby at night and literally not see a staff member for long periods of time. Valet workers do hustle but on the weekends there are not enough of them and we waited on a Saturday and Sunday for our car 35 minutes one day and almost 45 the next. Weekdays were far better. There is a free parking garage two blocks away in which you can enter before 10 pm and after 6 am and leave anytime. You will save a lot of time and money using it if you can. We are Gold Honors members. This was never mentioned. We were not told, as is supposed to happen, that we have a daily credit or something. Nothing. In fact when I called 48 hours before we arrived just to say our flight would be later and with the drive we would be late I was told by the front desk and I quote, “you may want to try to get here sooner or call that day to make sure you get the room you reserved” EXCUSE ME! This place had $3300 of my money for two months prepaid and yet I was told I needed to get there early or call ahead to make sure I get the room I reserved! Just ridiculous. And to top it off when I checked out they attempted to charge me for the entire stay again. I will not be staying there again. I suggest you do the same

Addendum 11/1/23 SO, I decided not to call the hotel believing they could not do anything to make this better and perhaps could do a lot to make it worse. Even without calling back, today, THEY CALLED ME, to say they needed a valid credit card from me to pay for my incidentals! Amazing. Even after their clerk and I went through all of this upon check out, at great inconvenience to me. This is simply a poorly run place with no sense of customer care at all. They cannot find their own butts...