Hilton Garden Inn Jacksonville Airport — Hotel in Jacksonville

I wish I could give zero stars. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS HOTEL OR ANY OTHER HILTON BRAND HOTELS. I cannot believe the experience that my family and I had this past weekend. We stayed in two rooms for two nights. I have been a longtime Hilton Honors member and I never stayed at a Hilton Garden. I am also a Project Manager and had to go to Jacksonville (4 hour drive away from my home) for the weekend for a project and decided to take my family with me. My mom had a stroke 9 months ago so she needed a room with the seat in the shower. This is the only reason why I chose the Hilton Garden as they were the only Hilton in the area with shower accommodations she needed. I usually stay at DoubleTree or Hampton. After this experience, I’m going to create an account with Marriott Bonvoy as I was advised by my colleague that the service and rooms are better. First, when we arrived and walked to the elevator, there was a fan plugged in blowing up towards a leaking ceiling with cords all out in the hallway that my mom almost tripped over during our stay. Then my wife and I took my mom to her room first and the smell was horrible. It smelled like a dirty vacuum was used to vacuum the floor. Moving on to me and my wife’s room, I remembered that this was a pet friendly hotel because our room smelled like wet dogs were still in there and the dog hair that’s vacuumed up must have taken over the vacuum and the housekeepers must be immune to the smell. Our rooms smelled so bad. Nothing against pet owners but as a Hilton hotel you should know how to maintain the smell of pets if you’re pet friendly. We had to go purchase wax warmers and plug in air fresheners for both rooms. Hilton, you should be able to get rid of the smell or at least have the decency to have select rooms for people without pets. It was disgusting and uncomfortable to have to deal with that smell for two nights. Luckily I made plans around my meetings for our days there but my mom wasn’t feeling up to going out a lot and stayed back at her room. My mom had her heater turned on for the first night and second day until around 7pm and she needed me to come make sure she had her heater turned on correctly. Come to find out, the heater was broken so I called the front desk and they had maintenance come and check it out. Imagine it being cold outside and all you want is the heat you paid for to warm your body but instead you’re forced to deal with cold air blowing on you. The maintenance guy had to install a new heater in her room. The beds were all squeaky and very uncomfortable. Felt like we were sleeping on bricks. We tossed and turned all night. We did not get any rest and woke up to back aches. Who wants to deal with things like this when they’re trying to handle business? To make things worse, on the day of check out, I went and took a few things to my car around 8am-8:30am. I go back to my room and my key does not work. My wife let me in. Come to find out, all three of my room keys and my mom’s two room keys all did not work. I asked the guy at the front desk why this happened and he just said he didn’t know and he apologized. He didn’t even offer to reactivate our keys. I left my daughter in the room so she could let us back into the room. If check out is at 11am, why disable our keys hours before check out? Who’s to say what time they disabled them. I understand they were booked because I literally booked the last room with a seat in the shower but come on Hilton. This was THE WORST experience I’ve EVER had at a hotel and for it to be a Hilton hotel just made it worse. I used to hold Hilton to a higher standard. Now I don’t. They’re just like any other regular basic cheap hotel. Nothing special about the Hilton anymore. We ended up leaving at 9:30am after packing. I swear this was an experience I’ll never forget and it’s time for me to look into another hotel brand. Again, I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS HOTEL OR ANY OTHER HILTON BRAND HOTELS. This Hilton Garden made me feel like I was in the ghetto and not in a hotel room that cost over $150 a night. Shame...

Within 30 minutes, of checking in, we discovered the room was getting colder and found the AC unit set to 66 degrees. We tried to adjust the temp, turn the unit off, everything on the panel of the unit and nothing responded. front desk told me to adjust the unit using the thermostat on the wall. There was no thermostat on the wall. They sent a maintenance technician up who unplugged it, plugged it back in and still couldn’t get it to work. He determined we needed to move to another room and we were moved to another room.

Used the bathroom discovered the toilet would not flush, the water swirled around and around but nothing would flush down. Another call to the front desk and they dispatched someone to come up and fix it. The individual they sent up was able to barely get the toilet to flush and said they needed to send someone else up later to totally resolve the problem. This begs the question of how do the individuals who cleaned that room could have cleaned a toilet that would not flush? Anyhow, someone came up later that morning and determined he needed to “check the stack down below as often times that is where the problem lies.”. We really didn’t have any issue with the toilet after mid-day on Friday.

Friday night about 11:30 pm we woke up to loud noises above us, something that sounded like a whirlpool tub being run and people banging around. I got up, got dressed and was heading down to the lobby when my wife texted and said the noise stopped but the water draining was noisy, we figured that would stop as soon as the water drained from the tub so I never made it down to the lobby to report anything.

Saturday morning, we woke up to a loud floor drying fan running in the hallway right outside our room. Coincidence with the whirlpool tub issue the night before? On our way out on Saturday morning, I stopped at the desk and asked about it and was told that yes, there were rooms above us with whirlpool tubs and that they were going to “take the room out of inventory” for the duration of our stay. Or was it perhaps something bigger considering the floor drying fan on the 4th floor?

Saturday we went out and about, returned to the hotel about 6:40 pm and changed to go out for dinner. We returned from dinner about 10:15, we opened the door and discovered standing water in the room from the doorway to the carpet but only partway into the bathroom (determining the toilet issue from before wasn’t the cause).

I went down to the front desk and told the person what had transpired. He of course apologized and said he would move us to yet another room and comp that night on our bill (which he did and we appreciated). I was getting agitated about all this when I was talking to him but was not being rude or cursing. I asked him about the floor drying unit outside our door and the whirlpool issue from the fifth floor. He claimed he knew nothing about any of that or why there was a floor drying unit at all. I grabbed the new room keys (room 329), told him we were getting really annoyed with this hotel and started walking back towards the elevator when he said “You can check out early if you would like.” I turned around and went back to the desk and said “what did you say?” He repeated we could check out early if we would like. My reply (and the only time I cursed at him) was “Are you f'n kidding me? Where are we supposed to go.”. Turned around and went back upstairs to once again pack up our stuff and move to the third room in as many days.

I reached out to the hotel General Manager about this situation and have not heard a word from him or...

As diamond members, we were very disappointed. When you are on vacation, you want to feel a little bit spoiled or at least relaxed. We’ve stayed here every October for many years, but will not be back. 1st room was not really handicap accessible as you had to step over into the tub. My balance won’t allow that. Moved to a new room. Blinds didn’t work & the door to the room wouldn’t shut. It also smelled very bad. Probably mold. Next room smelled just as bad, maybe worse. Blinds didn’t work. Guy came to “fix” it. Lolol Nice guy, but my goodness. He just rolled them up by hand & held them up somehow by sticking the ends into the sides. He said let us know when you want them down, & I’ll come roll them down. I told him my husband could do it. That was actually humorous. The bedding had holes & one of the washcloths had a stain on it. It looked like blood or chocolate. The handicap room made me wanna cry if it wasn’t so hysterical. You had to step over & into the tub, which again I cannot do because of my balance, & I am after all handicap. The seat was on one end of the shower. The shower head up high on the other end. The water flow would not get anywhere near the seat. There was no lower shower head to angle where you needed it. Also a teeny tiny sink to share with my husband. My makeup & other personal items ended up soaked. The door of the ice machine room down the hall wouldn’t close, & it had some big plastic bag or something taped over the outside door handle. The inside of the door & handle were sticky. Only 1 elevator worked, & it was dirty, as was the hand sanitizer dispenser on the wall. At 2:00 a.m. on our 2nd and thankfully last night, someone was beating on our door. Scared the bajeeses out of me. My husband was getting together with some karate friends at another hotel nearby. I had to call him to come back. Lastly, a few hundred feet from the door at the bus waiting area there were some drug heads passed out, which kind of gives an unsafe appearance. The eating area seemed nice, and so were the most of the staff. I just don’t understand why the owner doesn’t do something about all of these issues. Until they do, they will continue to lose guests. I truly believe most of the good reviews over the last year were for a different Hilton Garden in Jacksonville. I almost made that mistake leaving the bad review for the nicer hotel. This is not representative at all...