Hampton Inn & Suites Newport/Cincinnati — Hotel in Newport

Made a reservation Hampton Inn & Suites Newport/Cincinnati using my Hilton Honors account back in April. Checked on the app the day of (June 21st) and received my room number/digital key. Got to the hotel and received my parking pass from the front desk and then headed up to our room. I tried to use the digital key I received on the app and it would not work. I went down to the desk to get physical keys explaining that my digital one did not work. The manager was at the desk and he made a snarky remark about the system being down so "duh the digital key wouldn't work" - as if I knew they were having a systems issue. I then returned to the room and was able to successfully get into the room where another family had clearly unpacked their belongings. I went to the front desk to get this resolved. The manager immediately became flustered. He blamed me for using the app instead of checking-in in person. He was rude, unprofessional, and inappropriate - sighing, literally huffing and puffing, cussing and making smart remarks to myself, other customers and staff members. Since the system was down they were using a notepad to check people in/out and apparently weren't all using the same sheet of paper as between the three employees there, none could confirm how many rooms were booked vs actually had people in it. I was told the hotel was sold out and that there were no other rooms available. He stomped around for bit commenting that the one security guard needed to check each room individually to see if there was actually a customer in there or not. He would disappear and them come back after about 10 minutes. During this time another family checked out because they felt unsafe as someone else was assigned to their room after they checked in, and had walked in on her family. Also multiple customers were attempting to get snack items from the "Suite Shop" but were rudly provided with the "if you checked in here at the desk then you know our systems are down and you can only pay cash" message by the manager. After an hour of waiting, approaching midnight, I asked for assistance with seeing what other Hilton properties had any available rooms and/or the number for customer service. I was refused this information. My husband then spent another 15 minutes calling around to see where there was any availability. The only option with a room avaimable was anotjer Hampton location, 25 minutes away. They told us to ask for our reservation to be transferred - Newport/Cincinnati stated they could not do that. We then asked the Newport/Cincinnati location to cancel our reservation and provide a refund of the points so that we could use them for the new reservation. We were told that they could not do that currently as the systems were down and I would have to wait for the General Manager to come in and manually correct this. I left my contact info and was told I would receive a phone call and that our cancelation fee/room fee would be refunded. We proceeded to the other Hampton location, where we had to pay out of pocket and finally got checked in around 1am. I never received a call from the General Manager. Since then I have been on the phone with customer service multiple times for a total of 4 hours where I asked for a refund for the out of pocket cost as getting a different room at a different location was out of our control. I was never checked out of the Newport/Cincinnatilocation - even though i never actually stayed there. I was told my incident had been escalated and that the GM would give me a call to rectify my issue. Again, I never received a call. After the 7th call to customer service today a member of the customer care team refunded my points instead of giving a refund saying the points were not worth as much as what I had to pay out of pocket. I explained that the price was due to a last minute booking I was forced into and that if I had used points, that it would have cost less than my original booking as the location wasn't as desired. I was...

Caution! DO NOT STAY HERE!!! We stayed at this location for the 3rd time in 3 years. Serious decline in hospitality!!! Air conditioning was not functioning on our floor. AC was network controlled and restricted at 75°. Had to call the front desk to have it lowered - infuriating. Could not get to sleep until after 1130 pm with 3 kids and an early rise. Room floors and walls were dirty. Had to wipe down both and it was disgusting. Had to wear our flip-flops to keep our feet clean. Addressed it and asked why I didn’t call to have them cleaned. I wasn’t in the mood for the staff gaslighting attempt. Novel idea…it’s actually housekeeping’s JOB to ensure this is done - not mine. Im paying for a service that was actually subpar to poor. Also, stained mattress and previous water damage to bathroom door (see photos). Door got stuck and I had to put my full weight into the door to free myself.

I was then hit with a $10 parking fee. REALLY?! You charge parking fees to YOUR customers? Absurdity. When did this go into affect? 2023. Trip advisor stating FREE.

Since originally posting this review, the area has become significantly dirty and run down. Garbage on sidewalks in town including paper towels, tissues, bottles, prescription meds, etc. Also, it seems as tho the riff-raff has moved in & destroying what was once nice - go figure. Not a chance we will be back to this hotel. Dropped from 5 stars to 2. Requesting partial refund since our stay was less than exceptional. 2 stars. Breakfast however was very good.

Update 2 days later: attempted to speak to General Manager Heidi Smith 4 times. No call backs and left messages. Dropped rating to 1 star for no communication. Calling corporate and demanding full refund for my time and hassle. Stay away from this hotel!! It went from being great to complete garbage in as little as 3 years!!!

Update: Tried calling front desk to see if I could speak with the GM again. I asked questions as to why she never returned my calls. I also asked for the name of her supervisor in an attempt to escalate the complaint. The male employee refused to provide it or explanation why GM was not returning calls. I then demanded his name to include him in the complaint. He refused and hung up on me. I called back yet again. This time, another employee answered. Initially, he refused to provide supervisor names. However, after explaining the issue and my logic behind it, he said he would be contacting the GM directly and provided the name of the vice president of operations (Valerie Orr). Still waiting on a call from the GM.

The customer service is deplorable at this hotel. All employees involved should be reprimanded. The employee who hung up on me should be terminated. As a biz owner, I’m appalled at their behavior. 100% confident this is not in line with Hampton Inn’s standards of conduct or practices. I’ll be escalating this to the Vice President within the week. STAY AWAY FROM THIS HOTEL AT ALL COSTS!

Update 2 weeks later:

Hotel is a lost cause. VPO emailed back (no phone calls) and continued the gaslighting. The level to which their customer service has fallen is astonishing. We will NEVER stay at another Hampton or Hilton. EVER. Congrats for reaching the top 2 worst customer service experiences. Just like LOWES, we update annually. Haven’t been back to Lowe’s for over 3 years. Have zero plans of ever returning.

Seems to be a reoccurring problem since a similar level of service occurred while staying at the Cleveland Hilton 1 year prior. Hilton/Hampton is no longer associated with staying in class… it’s more like trash. We will be staying in Air B’n b’s from now on. These hotel chains are a dying breed especially Hilton/Hampton.

Update: 2025; We are holding true with our promise of never returning to Hilton. Air B&B is the way to go. Don’t stay in a hotel when you can stay in the quiet and comfort of a home and cook your own meals. Adios big box store hotels because you are a thing...

We recently stayed at the Hampton Inn in Newport. We’ve stayed here before and it’s a nice hotel in a great location. Several families from our little league team decided to go to a Reds game and then Kings Island afterwards. ||||After a great afternoon at the ballpark, we checked into the hotel. They had overbooked and one of the families was told they were being “upgraded” to a room with one king sized bed. However, there were 4 members in that family. So one bed wouldn’t work. When it was brought to the front desk’s attention, the worker became aggressive and announced that the family was “really pissing him off”. Our friend turned around to make sure he had heard correctly, and the worker came out from behind the desk as if he wanted to hit our friend. This all happened in front of our kids and a lobby full of families with kids, checking in after the game. ||||Our friends, being responsible adults, walked away from the situation and went to their room. Later, when our friend was retrieving luggage from his car, the front desk worker was outside and came at our friend, telling him “I have your room number. Me and my boys know where you are tonight”. Thankfully, the security guard happened to be outside and witnessed the entire exchange. We immediately went to the front desk to ask to speak to the manager. The girl worker, Ivy, could barely keep her eyes open because she was so high. She told us the manager was unavailable. So we asked to speak to the manager’s manager. We didn’t feel safe staying in the hotel where the male front desk worker had all of our personal information AND our room numbers. Our kids were with us and were hysterical at this point. ||||Ivy then called the manager herself and after speaking to her (not allowing us to speak to her) she said she was checking all of us out of our rooms and we were never allowed on their property again and she would be calling the police. We had done nothing wrong. None of us had even raised our voice! We were debating filing a police report on the male worker, and here the female worker was threatening to call the cops ON US. If I hadn’t witnessed it myself, I wouldn’t have believed what an absurd situation it was. We are all well respected professionals and family people. Our lawyer was with us and we had him come down to the front desk to witness the events that transpired. The security guard was standing at the front desk when Ivy told us we needed to leave and he (thankfully) tried to de-escalate the situation. He knew the worker had been in the wrong and that we, the guests, had done absolutely nothing wrong. He kept telling Ivy that asking us to leave was not the right answer. She then called the manager back and let us speak to her ourselves. Once the manager got involved and heard the actual story (and not the one Ivy told her to cover for her friend, the male worker Tyler), she was very apologetic. However, nothing was done to move our rooms and Tyler still had our room numbers. Imagine trying to console children so that they could sleep when they’re terrified that they’re going to be attacked in the middle of the night by a crazed front desk employee. I have NEVER experienced anything like this. ||||Please, please, please do not stay at this hotel. It’s a great location but it is definitely not worth what all we went through. What was supposed to be a fun afternoon at the ballpark followed by an evening at the amusement park turned into the absolute worst hotel experience of our lives. Our kids were too hysterical to even go to Kings Island after the events of the evening. ||||There are too many great hotels in the Cincinnati area. You can definitely find one that does not leave your kids terrified and...