Embassy Suites by Hilton Parsippany — Hotel in Parsippany-Troy Hills

Hilton should be ashamed to have their name attached to this property. If I were them I would drop this property. They are tarnishing the image and standards one would expect from the Embassy Suites brand. To start we checked in to find out you need reservations to use the pool. Told we could get in at 8pm-9pm. Ok, so wait 2 hours for the pool. That is easy to explain to two young kids who were ready to get in the room and throw bathing suits on right away, since the sole purpose of booking this property was to get them some pool time. But, whatever we can grab food and wait it out.

We arrived to our room to find it was 86 degrees in the room and the air was turned off. Odd, I thought. So I turned the thermostat on and continued to unpack. About 5 mins later noticed jt had not cooled down at all, check the vents and no air is coming out. I called maintenance and he came up to look at it. He informed me the motor was blown and he would ask the front desk what to do. He came back 40 mins later stating no other rooms were available and the only option was box fans.

We went down to the lobby restaurant and ordered food. The food came out rather quickly as we were the only guests in there. We ate and went to the front desk to get our wristbands for the pool. I mentioned how we were informed we would be in a hot room with just box fans, was told yes sorry we have no other rooms. I inquired if they felt me paying full price for that room was justified, was told he couldn't do anything I would need to speak to a manager in the morning. I guess there is no manager on duty on a Saturday night at 8pm when the entire hotel is sold out. That seems like a solid management plan.

We arrived to the pool area, walked in and saw a security guard checking wristbands and guarding the pool towels. I showed him our bands and asked for 3 towels for us. He said we could only get towels when we leave. What kind of ridiculous rule is that? I have never been at a pool where one doesn't put a towel down on their chair to sit. But, ok, we moved on and found a spot. I then proceeded to attempt to enter the pool with my two kids, only to find the water was absolutely freezing. Like maybe 65 degrees cold. You would have thought they pulled the air conditioner out of my room to pump into the pool water. The pool was also dangerously dirty and cloudy. You couldn't see more than 2 inches down. This is not up to health code standards by any means. I went chest deep and immediately got out, it was too cold. Both my kids jumped in and realized it was way too cold. My youngest was 1 jump and done. My oldest pretended it was fine for 15 minutes before giving up. When my youngest got out he was shivering cold and I said I'll go get you and myself a towel. I went up to the "Towel Guard" and asked for 2 towels. His response was "Are you leaving?". I said, well not yet, but my son is shivering from how cold the water is, but my other one is still swimming. He gave me 2 towels. About 10 min later my other son said he was done, so I went up to get another towel. The Guard responded with "I already gave you 2 towels, you don't get any extra". I said "that was for me and my other son, I need one for my older son as he is done now". His response was "You are telling me you are a party of 3?" I said "yes". His response was "No that's bullshit you are just trying to get extra towels. Prove it, bring your whole party up here". Just an absolutely rude, condescending tone, and blatant disrespect of the guests he is servicing. So I made my freezing child walk all the way over and beg the almighty towel God for another towel. He reluctantly gave us another towel. I was seething with anger, and I wasn't the only one. He treated everyone with the same lack of respect, until it became heated (not the pool, the hostility towards him) between him and another group. This led the guard to lose his cool and demand everyone get out of the pool and leave at around 8:25. He also called the cops on that group. Just don't stay here it...

The place was a huge disappointment.

There were literally kids with like every family and they just spent the whole time walking the inside shared halls and paths like they were at a park. Kids, parents with kids, women with baby strollers... Walking and running all night long. Keep in mind, our room was on the second floor and instead of a wall separating us from the hall, there was mostly a window with curtain. So people are constantly walking past your window, kids are constantly running back and forth playing and yelling like it was a huge indoor playground they had booked for one party and the waterfall feature was heard throughout the night. No peace. No quiet. I ordered food and had to go downstairs to get it because he wasn't allowed up. I saw one elevator and from my room I had to go in one direction to get on it and the opposite once I got downstairs to get to the front desk. There were stairs on the opposite side but walking with a small child through all that and back with food was a mess without also having to take the steps. At least a hundred strangers walked past my door in the short amount of time I was there, but the guy with the bag of food and my name and room number couldn't be one of them.

When I got downstairs, I asked if there were quiet ours (I have never asked this at a hotel before). It was around 8:30 at the time. I was told quiet hours were typically after 10pm but if a particular floor was too loud, they could send security to patrol and make sure all kids were accompanied by parents. I never even mentioned families or kids. I asked, "Are there quiet hours here??" and that was the response. So they are aware the kids are unruly and that was the automatic response. I said "no its not one floor its the whole place but you already see that. Okay, thank you." When you are on the 2nd floor, you just walk out your room and look down and see the first floor. So if a kid is yelling in the shared hall on the 2nd floor, you can hear it on the 4th floor... just like the waterfall. It's one open space until you enter your room... and then you can still hear everything. It's like being at an overpriced cheap motel. Mind you, it didn't get quiet at 10pm OR midnight.

As for the room: The bed was honestly extremely cozy and so were the pillows, the sofa was not and grossed me out to sit on so we stayed in the bedroom after eating and doing some coloring at the table. The furniture in general was old and outdated. The sofa fabric was ripped in the living room area of the suite and the wooden furniture all had scratched wear and tear. When my daughter finished eating dinner and brushing her teeth, I went to get a fresh washcloth to wash her face and the back of the dry FOLDED wash cloth (which wasn't even the top one because I used the top one when we arrived to dry my hands after washing them and it was hanging on the shower rod)... anyway the "new" washcloth had 2 areas with feces on it. I called for replacement. A couple hours later someone came with new towels. We didn't even shower there the next morning, we just left. The only bug I saw just seemed to be some type of tiny gnat or fruit fly or something in the bathroom. No bedbugs or roaches or anything. The carpet had a dampness to it which may have been from vacuuming with a wet vacuum, but it was off putting and I kept my shoes on and had my daughter do the same except for when we went to bed. I would never stay at this place again. It was rated 8/10 I believe. I paid $216 for a night and then had to pay an extra $17.95 (daily fee) from the room to access decent wifi for netflix (I brought my firestick). Anyway, it definitely felt like a $60/night hotel but with a loud waterfall and without the bugs. Same exact vibes. And being around 98% of the same type of people who were everywhere but acted like you were invisible just felt like I got stranded at a secret retreat I wasn't invited to. As someone who has traveled A LOT for work, I can honestly say this is the worst bug free (almost bug free) hotel experience I have ever had....

Upon checking in, I was told by the front desk attendant that there was an extra $300 incidental charge added on to the full room charge. When I asked what that was for he told me it was for if we used things in the room. When I asked him to elaborate on what that meant, he could not clarify. He did also add that right off the bat $45 would go towards the parking fee of $15 per night. Was very surprised that a hotel was charging for parking. When parking here is overly plentiful. Additionally, I had to be at the front desk for several issues Over the course of that first night, and I heard him tell several different people several different prices for parking. One person was told it was a six dollar charge, one person was told it was a one dollar charge, so I’m not sure how I was saddled with the $15 charge for parking.

While he was checking us in he was visibly agitated and trying to rush through our transaction. Perhaps this is why he could not explain what the $300 charge was for, because he was too busy trying to get through our transaction to get to the next person. While I was waiting patiently to be helped with one of our many issues, I noticed that somebody popped their head out from the back, looked at the large line of people and popped her head back into the back. When it was my turn to be helped by him, I asked him who that person was, and why they weren’t helping him man the desk. He told me that was the manager. When I asked for their name, he reluctantly gave it to me, and it was Aparna Ravi.

Once we got to the room it was absolutely filthy. Please see pictures for a better idea. I am not picky when it comes to hotel rooms. As long as the surfaces are clean for the most part, I come prepared with disinfecting wipes and disinfecting spray, and I take care of that stuff myself. I usually check for bedbugs, and that is what I’m mostly concerned with, when we pulled out the couch bed to check where my son would be sleeping, we found a dirty Band-Aid and a pile of crumbs. Then we started noticing the switch plate covers were disgusting with fingerprints. The chairs were covered with a layer of grime there were smears of what look like chocolate or poop all over the walls, and there were dings all over the doors. When I called Jason, he was able to send somebody up to vacuum, but as we spent a few more minutes in the room, it was quickly apparent that it was unsatisfactory, and unable to be stated without being cleaned further. Our disinfecting wipes were not quite doing the trick.

Jason was able to transfer us to another room that the head of housekeeping had taken another look at and so up we went to the fourth floor. When we got to the next room, the level of clean was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, however it was tolerable with some Lysol spray, and some vigorous wiping with Clorox wipes. We did notice quite quickly that the shower was leaking both into the bathroom and onto the other side into the bedroom. I did not want to call Jason again because I had already been on the phone with him several times by that point, so I figured I would just get back to him the next day with that but the floor was quite wet after showers.

Also, if you look in the pictures, there is a device above the door that is still undetermined what is. When I asked a member of housekeeping what it was, he told me it was an air freshener. The smell of the room would quickly determine if that was an untruth. A Google image search would tell me that this could possibly be some sort of electronic transmitter, possibly a doorbell, possibly something for temperature control, hopefully not a camera but can we really be sure?

We also noticed that our phone was not working. To their merit, they did some send somebody up to try and fix it. However, this was not repairable so we are in a room that cannot connect to the front desk in anyway, short of us going down from the fourth floor to the front desk and hopefully there won’t be any emergencies while we are...