Hilton Garden Inn New York/Manhattan-Midtown East — Hotel in New York

Hilton Gardens Review When you go to a Hilton, even a Hilton “Gardens”, you expect a certain level of quality and professionalism. I found both lacking at this hotel. It’s an odd building with only 8 rooms per floor and two tiny elevators that were frequently overwhelmed. The lobby is also tiny with just a couple of places to hang out. There is an attached restaurant, more on that later. The location is quite good, being a short walk to Grand Central and Central Park and a short subway ride to Times Square and the Empire State Building. The room was quite nice, esp for NYC. We had two queen beds, and enough storage space for 3 people for 5 days, although the furniture is looking a bit scuffed up and tired. The bathroom was nicely appointed, very clean and one of the best showers I've ever been in – lots of water pressure and fast hot water. There were 3 of us, but only had 2 bath towels. Fortunately the linen cart was left permanently in the hallway (Just like a Motel 6!) so we could help ourselves to anything we wanted. Apparently there is no place to store the linens, or the vacuum which also lived in the hallway the whole 5 days we were there. Some reviews criticized the beds which we found to be OK. They were a bit hard, and in need of a pillow top mattress or memory foam, but overall not too bad. A/C and ventilation were pretty good. Daily housekeeping is not done at this hotel, even at the close to $500 a night price. (It was a popular week thanks to NYU graduation.) You had to ask for it, and there was a tiny sticker on the wall mirror to that effect. When I asked at the front desk, I was told they needed 24 hours advance notice. I did this, but still didn't get the room cleaned the next day either. I am not sure how they feel they can justify almost $500 and not offer daily housekeeping service as standard. A bigger problem was that our toilet was cycling on and off constantly. It took SIX communications with the front desk (Including one directly with the maintenance person.) to get someone to look at it, and then they didn't actually fix the problem completely. The common floors were always dusty and/or dirty, even first thing in the morning when one would expect the cleaning crew had just finished. Then there’s the restaurant. I asked the front desk for a breakfast menu as the one in the room was for evening room service only. He rattled off what they offered, which didn't help me, so I went in after they had just closed and asked again for a menu from two different people. I was told twice they were closed. One person started reciting the menu to me again, until I stopped them and asked to see an actual menu. It’s $22 for a “breakfast buffet”, plus a few a la carte items like a b-fast sandwich, French Toast and pancakes. When we finally decided to try it, it took 15 minutes for anyone to notice us, even though we walked right past the manager when we entered. The buffet was terrible with scrambled eggs some sad looking pancakes and turkey sausage. They were out of bacon, (And pork sausage) so I asked for sausage on my b-fast sandwich, and got ham. The eggs had zero flavor, the cheese was barely melted and the roll was a couple days old. I sent ½ of it back. (Got no credit.) My guests had the French toast and pancakes which they said were OK. For me, hotels are all about value. For a lesser price, you expect less. Admittedly, we were paying a premium for the time of year. Prices are down quite a bit now, but I think you could get better value from other places. Hilton should not put their name on a facility unless they are going to live up their well earned reputation.

07/23 - After several weeks of back and forth, I sent an email to their customer support line as well as the CEO, and THAT finally got a result. I dealt with a very nice lady who listened carefully to my story and promised to have the hotel Manager call me which she did. So the story has a happy ending, although it...

Me and my husband stayed at this property for one night before Christmas. The stay was absolutely horrible. It started from the moment when we came to have dinner at the restaurant on property and were told that the chief called out, so they were closed. Being a Gold Hilton member and having Food&Beverage credit, made us upset to not being able to use it for dinner. Breakfast in this hotel is not complimentary, so we figured we would use the FB credit towards breakfast at least. But here comes the worst part: in the morning we came down to the breakfast, there was not a single person in the „restaurant”, nobody met us or asked us anything, so we approached the front desk asking how do we use the FB credit and was hastily told if we’re Gold members, just charge it to the room. We came back to the restaurant, still no one, but one employee. We approached and gave our room number still not knowing how much we need to pay for breakfast or maybe it's complimentary for Gold members. Breakfast was of the utmost horrible quality. We had to go find cutlery too because tables weren’t served properly. We barely ate because food tasted horribly. Not a single Hilton I’ve stayed served such a terrible breakfast which is not even complimentary, even for Hilton Honor members. That experience costed $47 minus $20 F&B credit that we had. We were absolutely shocked! No one could tell us the price and how it all worked, there was just one sign hanging in the corner saying that breakfast buffet is $21.99 plus taxes. Pure scam! We went back to the front desk with a complaint, and were met by the most incompetent manager on duty who wasn’t apologetic at all. Furthermore, he had a smile on his face when we asked for manager on duty. We asked the refund of $27 that we had to pay out of our pocket, not even saying about compensation that we should’ve received. All we heard from the person at the front desk: you ate breakfast, I can’t refund. I worked in Hilton before, and very well know that it takes a couple of seconds to refund a guest, especially being a manager. That person at the front desk was absolutely wrong chosen for that position and doesn’t even deserve to work in a customer service. Don’t waste your money staying in...

The first time I stayed at this hotel, I very much enjoyed it! Because of that experience, I decided to book another stay some months later. Due to a flight delay I made it to the hotel at 6am and needed to check out by 12pm. I was only going to be staying for a few hours.

This is quite a long story and so I’ll cover the main points of contention. When I arrived to check in I was told that by a front desk attendant that I had no reservation and was not checked in. This was odd for a few reasons, one being that I spoke with KC/Casey hours before I got to my destination and he assured me that I my hotel stay was confirmed. Another reason is that, how is it possible to check in if you never arrived to check in and I did not have a digital key? The front desk attendant, began to double down on this by saying he could only assume that I made a reservation at a different Hilton. What? Your job is not to assume! Additionally, his tone of voice, line of questioning, and overall condescension almost caused me to walk out of the hotel. After a minute or two, the reservation was found, he passively said sorry and blamed this glitch on his colleague’s(KC/Casey)lack of follow through. I felt that was completely unprofessional!

Fast forward, I’m in my room and it’s not a room that I was pleased with, but I was exhausted and just needed to sleep. As I’m pulling back the covers I see a stain on the sheets that I initially think is chocolate. However, as I inspect further, I’m pretty sure chocolate does not dry like that. It’s likely that this was blood, maybe wine. See photo below. Again, I was exhausted so I moved the blanket and used sheets only.

Lastly, as I was ready to check out and make complaints, but the line was very long and I had to get to an appointment by 12:30pm. A different front desk attendant asked that if anyone needed to check out, just leave your cards and they’ll get to it.

This was such a draining stay from start to finish. What’s really upsetting is that I really enjoyed my first stay and felt great about returning. However, I can’t say that I’ll be booking another stay...