Hilton Garden Inn Queens/JFK Airport — Hotel in New York

DO NOT STAY HERE. Incredibly scary experience, story below…

I probably would’ve rated this hotel a 2.5 to 3 if it wasn’t for “the incident” that happened while we were sleeping that scared the living hell out of us. An incident where I honestly thought our lives were in danger.

My wife and I slept here after a long day of overseas travel. We were exhausted and jet-lagged, and got to bed early…around 9 pm.

Around midnight, while we are dead asleep, there suddenly is incredibly loud banging on our hotel door. It’s not a courteous knock, it’s a violent knock. Hard pounding on the door for 10 seconds at a time…a few seconds pause, then more hard pounding. It sounded like someone is trying to break in. The whole door is shaking very loudly.

This super loud banging goes off and on for about two minutes. Whoever is loudly banging on our door is not saying anything. My wife and I are frozen in fear in bed.

Then whoever is outside tries to force himself into our room. There is even louder bangs against our door, as if someone is throwing their body at it. This was all so incredibly scary for my wife and I, woken up from a deep sleep, and stuck in our room thinking we’re about to be mugged (or worse).

I run over to the door and yell “What are you doing?! We’re sleeping!”

It stops for a few seconds then a man says “housekeeping”.

Totally confused I yell back “What do you want, we’re sleeping!”

He again says “housekeeping”

I again say “what do you want?”

He then says “sorry” and walks away.

I never opened the door so I didn’t see what this person looked like. And I didn’t get close enough to the door to look through the peephole, because honestly I wasn’t sure if the person on the other side had a gun; they could’ve shot through the door. So I cautiously stayed back.

At this point I was feeling a whole range of emotions: scared, irate, confused, heart racing.

Of course there is no way to directly get ahold of the front desk, but I eventually ended up getting to them after calling the Hilton call center and demanding they transfer me to the hotels front desk.

Once transferred, I tell the front desk lady what just happened and demanding to know what the hell is going on.

She seems confused, and then says she’ll ask the housekeeping guy (who was outside). After a minute or two she comes back on the phone and says he was delivering towels to a room and must have got the wrong room number.

I didn’t know what to believe. Also the way this housekeeper was violently banging on the door and then trying to force himself in at midnight was just beyond unacceptable. Nothing more from the front desk besides a basic “sorry about that”.

I honestly have never been so scared in a hotel room in my life. My heart was racing the entire rest of the night and I barely slept.

So, do NOT stay at this hotel unless you want to be woken up from a deep sleep by the hotel staff trying to break down your door.

Typing this all back out again has my blood boiling. I seriously was beyond scared and thought our door was gonna be broken down and we were gonna be...

stayed for one night, July 23rd. Room was not cleaned properly, there were food crumbs on the bedside table and the floor. The bed had a shoe mark or something? The bathroom door took lots of strength to pull closed and push open. It’s a ADA room, with a walk in shower, it wouldn’t have been a problem but I was sharing a room with a friend. That night I had taken my nightly meds and shortly after the only room next to my room 237, was blasting music. I called down to the desk and asked if someone could ask the room 239 to turn down the music because I could hear it perfectly clear. The guy said someone would go up and check on it. I waited twenty minutes before calling again because no one had come up, I would have seen a shadow from the light coming in from the hall. I call again, same guy answers and he says, I called the room, they said they were not playing music. I told them if they would have come up to the room as they said they would to me, they would hear it blasting. The guy told me to hold on and he’d get a manager and the call drops. I call back after waiting a moment to see if someone would call me and a new guy answered and I explain what’s going on. Nothing was achieved with that phone call. I ended up getting up to walk closer to the wall to make sure it was not coming from a room above me. As I got up I was very dizzy from my nightly meds that I take and ended up smacking my head into the wall right by the thermostat. I finally get next to the wall and filmed showing you can hear the music and then slowly made my way to the door in hopes I wouldn’t injure myself any further. I opened the door and it was even louder in the hallway. I then filmed again as proof if I needed it. I finally get back to my bed, I call again and explain what just happened to me thanks to them being too lazy to do what they promised by going to the room in the first place and tell them someone needs to come up and take care of this. Someone finally came up, knocked and the music and talking stops. They knock two more times and leave because they did not open the door. Next morning while checking out I asked to talk to someone about what had happened the night before my friend had arrived from her late flight and the front desk lady said, yes night audit said you called once and they got it taken care of and then explained everything and how I had to get up and ended up smacking my head into the wall and no one cared I hurt myself even she brushed it off like it was nothing. She said she’d refund me half my points and it would show on my account after 3 business days. After a week I reached out through a chat option with Hilton and they said they’d have someone follow up and they’d submit a claim and someone would email me in again, 3 days. I got an email with a confirmation number and here we are over two weeks from my stay and no points have been added and no one has followed up. Poor hospitality. I was hoping to post something positive about them helping resolve the whole matter but at this point clearly...

Terrible Experience – Do Not Recommend

The only positive about this hotel is its proximity to the airport, but even that isn’t worth the awful experience I had during my stay.

I booked a double room for three people for a two-night stay, expecting a comfortable experience while attending an event out of town. Instead, my stay was a complete nightmare.

Upon arriving Friday evening, I discovered that the shower water was black—absolutely filthy. Since we were in a rush, I quickly informed the front desk, only to be told that because I had a service pet, they couldn’t do anything until I returned. After coming back from my event late that night, I was told the engineer had left, and nothing could be done. The front desk attendant offered me a single room instead, which obviously wouldn't accommodate three people. When I asked for another double room, I was told they had no more available and was instead offered a free breakfast—who would want to eat at a hotel under construction with dirty water running through the pipes?

To make things worse, the front desk staff was rude and completely incompetent. When I requested to speak to a manager, I was told it was late, and the manager was asleep—and that they wouldn’t be waking her. After calling the hotel’s main guest services, they initially refused to help because my stay was still in progress. Eventually, they convinced the front desk to allow us to stay in our double room while using a single room just for showering—a ridiculous and inconvenient solution.

The next day, the water cleared up slightly, but the shower and tub were left covered in dirt and soot, making them unusable. Despite informing the front desk, no one ever came to clean it. The drains in both rooms were slow, making showers impossible. By then, the hotel forced us to give up the single room, leaving us without a functioning shower for the remainder of our stay.

On top of all this, the hotel was under construction, with loud work beginning at 8 AM. To make matters worse, housekeeping staff gathered in the hallways talking loudly between 9-11 AM, disturbing any chance of rest.

Beyond the awful service and plumbing issues, the hotel itself is in a terrible location. While it’s near the airport, it’s also right next to a waste facility in a dirty, smelly, industrial area. Parking is extremely limited, and they have the nerve to charge $40 a night for a tiny lot. The airport shuttle doesn’t even take you directly to your terminal—instead, it only drops you at the airport train station, adding another layer of inconvenience.

This was a horrible experience from start to finish. The staff was rude, unhelpful, and completely unempathetic. I would never stay here again and strongly do not recommend this...