Hilton Garden Inn Monterey — Hotel in Monterey

I travel for work frequently, and there are plenty of times I've stayed at hotels with poor facilities that are over performing with what they've got. This place is unfortunately the exact opposite.||The hotel could be nice. The bones are great. But the abject failure of management is blatant throughout the hotel. No one cares about this place, least of all the people running the place. ||Let's start at the start. Check-in was slow, but fine. The place is understaffed, but who isn't at this point? After waiting for check-in I was given a map on where to park and directions to my room. There was no available parking in the garage where they told me to park (despite paying for it), so I parked outside in a lot I found nextdoor. I made it to the hotel and tried to get in the elevator, but the button wouldn't light up and the elevator wouldn't come. The maids said the elevator only came "sometimes" and that the buttons don't work. Eventually it arrived, and sure enough the 3rd floor button would not work. Eventually someone called it and I got there, and made it into my room. ||It was a nice enough room, but when I tried to go out on the porch the screen door was jammed and would not move. Upon further investigation I found that the screen was bent out of place, rusted, and stuck. With a lot of force I was able to move it and escape to the porch. The view was great, and the space was nice. It was hot, so I turned down the air conditioning, which didn't work. I called the front desk, but no one answered. It was time for dinner so I left the porch door open and met my colleagues for food. ||Once I got home, the air conditioning still wouldn't turn on, so I called the front desk again. But again no one answered. I decided sleeping with the porch door open was better anyway. It's absurd that a Hilton wouldn't have working AC, but I suppose it worked out. ||The next morning I got out of bed and scraped my calf on a shard of metal that was sticking out from the bedframe that I believe was intended to be there to hold the box springs in place. Bleeding, I tried to hop in the shower. I put the floor mat on the ground, only to see it was stained. I wasn't sure what brown mess was on my towel, so I grabbed a bath towel and used that instead. When I turned on the shower I hilariously found out that the water pressure was less powerful than the bathroom sink. I tried adjusting the shower head itself to find a better setup, but it didn't work in any setup. (Before anyone responds, this isn't a "California low flow shower head" issue. I travel in California extensively and have never seen anything this absurd.) The water flow was so bad that I had to borrow the shower of a colleague to get ready. ||Dejected and ready to leave, I called the front desk to report the parking issue, elevator, screen door, towel stain, bed frame injury, and water pressure issue, but shockingly no one answered. But I then went downstairs and found no one at the front desk, so I guess that explains why. ||Bottom line, no one cares about this hotel. Least of all management. I'm sure I'll get a "sorry you had a bad experience" message at some point, but if they cared they'd fix their facilities rather than artificially respond here. There are a lot of great places to stay in Monterey, but this is absolutely not...

The previous 2 Hilton Garden Inn properites we stayed in California were great! This property is definitely not supposed to be a Hilton property. The customer service, appearance, odor, dark and dingy looks of this hotel are makes it more of a motel 6. We booked the 2 rooms on Expedia and checked in 1 hour later at the front desk. The front desk lady appeared very rude when she was explaining directions to me on how to get to my room which was very awkwardly located at the back of the hotel. The moment I opened the door, I was overpowered by a very unpleasant odor, I checked the next room and it was the same unpleasant odor. The rooms were very dated and old as well (think of beds and carpets from the 1990s). I immediately returned to the front desk and let the manager on duty know that I was unsatisfied with the rooms and they both had a very strong unpleasant odor. She shrugged her shoulders and said “sorry I can’t do anything, you booked your rooms through a third party”. I was totally shocked by her answer and body language. I got into my suv and called Expedia. They called the hotel on my behalf and I was told that the hotel did not want to issue a refund and that there was nothing Expedia could do either, but would offer me a $25 coupon. After speaking to an Expedia manager, she upgraded the offer to a $200 coupon, keep in mind I paid $370 for 2 rooms. I politely requested that she rebook me at another hotel and I was ok paying the difference. The Expedia agent told me that she was not able to make a booking for me but would be happy to write a report about the issue I encountered and would be happy to apply a $200 coupon to my account for future use. I’m obviously not ok with this because I paid $370. Needless to say, I ended up booking a two rooms at Hyatt Regency across the street, and it’s a night and day difference. Needless to say I will not be staying at Hilton again because their hotel standards (Hilton Garden Inn) and experience is grossly inconsistent between different cities and the night manager on duty in Monterey was extremely rude.

Do not make the same mistake I did and book here. This is definitely not a 3 star property, maybe a 1 or 2 star at best. Once I return home I will be calling my credit card company and requesting a refund for the Expedia/Hilton...

The smell of the hallways should have been my first clue. It smells like an assisted living facility. My dad's in one, so no ill intent meant when I say this. It's just a fact. I suspect it's whatever cleaning solutions that they use?? But when we got to the room, the smell was present too. I opened the screen door to try to air it out, but my husband and I soon realized it was in the sheets too. I actually couldn't sleep in the smell. After tossing and turning for hours, I walked to the car to try to catch some sleep. Mind you this is at 5 something in the morning. As I sit in the car, the smell has clung to my clothes so I'm still smelling it. Whatever they're using to clean the sheets they should stop.

Also there was a booger smeared on the wall, and some kind of something on the edge of the bed. Both were disgusting and easily visible. My 7-year-old son spotted the booger also. How the cleaning staff missed it, I don't understand. And I didn't clean it either. I'm not doing that. One of the towels I pulled out to shower with, had a big, bright neon green stain on it and a smaller orange stain. I'm guessing a kid got to it?? But it was noticeable enough that housekeeping shouldn't have included it in the rotation.

Getting on the elevator to go to my first floor room, the flooring is taped down with clear packing tape, which doesn't even cover the massive hole in the flooring. Why??? It looks like it's been there for a while too.

And lastly, as we waited to get in the elevator, a family came out but also a worker with a big old bag of trash with them. It's a very small elevator car. Somehow it didn't look right that the guests rode in the same elevator with a big bag of trash. I understand that the workers have to do their job and it's a massive job and I'm sure they do their best to do it well. But the hospitality expectant part of me, thinks that the worker should have allowed the family to go down on their own and just waited for the elevator. It's just a part of the guest experience.

The smell really ruined my stay and my night and my sleep. Hopefully this won't be most people's experience but it definitely was mine and I definitely won't be...