Hilton Philadelphia at Penn's Landing — Hotel in Philadelphia

This was the worst hotel experience I've had in my entire life. I'm an avid traveler for both work and fun and have stayed at hundreds of hotels with this by far, being the worst. My fiance (Now husband) and I were getting married (eloping w/ 5 guests) in Philly at Christ Church on 5/3/25. When we saw that this hotel was only .4 miles from our venue, we figured it was a no brainer and didn't think to look at reviews since it was a waterfront Hilton property. We reserved a room for ourselves from 4/30 - 5/5. We booked through booking.com and were in frequent communication with the property as we kept them updated of our plans/arrival time. We called the property/front desk as we hit the road from our home in Syracuse NY to let them know we'd be arriving between 9 - 10PM. They said "no problem" and never mentioned anything about the room we booked being unavailable. We arrived at 9:52PM on the dot but, upon checking in, we were told that the King suite we booked on the 10th floor or higher with a river view was no longer available and that they could put us in a room with two Queen beds instead. My husband and I can ONLY sleep in the same bed if it's a king which is why we go out of our way and put special emphasis on making sure we have a King bed whenever we travel. I calmly tried to talk out this issue with the front desk but Ann Thomas, didn't want to be calm and cordial back. I truly hope that this whole interaction is on video somewhere. First, she yelled at me and told me that if we were getting married, we should have booked a room block. Unnecessary. We were eloping and only needed one room. We were then told that the room we booked wasn't guaranteed because we used booking.com. I've been using booking.com for 12 years or so and have never had that issue. I asked when she would have a King room available and at first, she told me that she wouldn't know until the next day and when I pressed her asking if her system showed her when people were checking out and when rooms would be available. She checked and told us that the next King room she had available would be 5/4. When I asked her why she said she wouldn't know until the next day but was just able to check just now, she got very flustered. I finally was ready to take the L and just go with the room with the 2 Queen beds and just make the most of it. THEN she charged us the same amount that I was going to pay for the deluxe King room we had originally reserved which was DOUBLE the price of the Queen room according to their website. I was told that the hold on my card was on there now and couldn't be rectified until check out. The next morning I go down to Ellis Coffee shop around 6AM. The hotel website says it opens at 6AM but upon getting down there, was told it really opens at 6:30AM. When I told the front desk, I was just told "I don't control what is on the website". Since I was on their website, I decided to see what rooms would be available if I were to book "direct" with them as I was told the night before that not booking direct was one of the issues. TONS of King rooms were available on the website. When I also pointed that out to the front desk I was told "Again, I don't control what's on the website, but I can check inventory for you". TONS of King rooms were available. I was told we could switch to one (thank God) BUT since they were so incredibly sold out just the night before I assumed I'd have to wait for someone to check out and for the room to get turned over. NOPE. It was ready right then and there at 6:15AM on 5/1. That means I was completely lied to the night before. No one slept in that room if it was available at 6:15AM. So we moved into a King room. Again, room was dirty, outdated, falling apart and the A/C DID NOT WORK. My best friend checked into her room on 5/2 and was treated similarlly like she was an inconvenience. Her room was dirty and her A/C didn't work. My Dad had the same exact experience when he checked in on 5/2. His A/C didn't work. Did not get even one good night of sleep the whole stay due to rooms being...

To call what they do hospitality would be laughable. Upon entry into our hotel room our bathroom was disgusting (black stuff on the floor and rust in the tub). I will admit the location/views are the one positive of this experience.

That first night we called in room service as it was advertised on their website. We were informed they actually don't have room service and that we would have to schlep down to the hotel restaurant and bring it back to our room if we wanted. While it was annoying they falsely advertised, it wasn't the biggest deal, except for the fact the elevators we're malfunctioning all weekend and when we asked at one point to take the stairs we we're scoffed at and told stairs are not allowed to be used! What bothered me the most was I couldn't even order over the phone!! I had to go down to the restaurant to order, then go back up, then wait and guess when the food was done so I could go back down to pick it up.

The coup de gras of this trip was when I called early the following morning to ask about room cleaning. I was told all room cleanings have a deadline of 5pm and WILL GET DONE.

After an amazing day enjoying Philly where we just wanted to shower and lay down in a clean bed we get home at 6pm to see our room in the exact state we left it! I called reception to ask why this happened, to which there was no answer other than poor management. They then proceeded to say we will look into getting your room cleaned, but we can't guarantee it and we don't know when we will know. This is where I started to get fed up due to their clear complacency toward their GUESTS, you know the people who pay to be there. In addition, we had dinner plans and we're worried if we tried to shower the cleaning people would finally arrive and we would never get our room cleaned.

After about an hour of waiting a lady comes to follow up about our cleaning to which we explain we want the room to be fully cleaned. She understands and leaves... or so we thought. 10 minutes later a lady shows up and throws towels in my face and begins to leave, I ask her if she is going to clean but she says she doesn't clean only brings towels and to call reception again. I am livid at this point and storm back downstairs. The manager then gaslights me by saying the towel and cleaning lady are independent due to them being "union workers" and the cleaning lady will be up shortly.

30 more minutes pass and nothing. I return to reception to find out the previous manager had left!! The new manager then has to be caught up on everything and finally gets the janitorial manager to come. He proceeds to tell me they spoke to us and asked if we wanted a cleaning and that we responded we only wanted towels... I couldn't beleive what I was hearing because I spent the whole evening up until that point trying to get the room cleaned plus that meant the original manager lied to my face when she said a different cleaning person was coming.

Finally the janitorial manager tells me the same thing I have heard before, that he doesn't know when or if he will be able to clean my room that night. He also tells me I should definitely shower because he likely won't be able to clean for at least 30 more minutes anyways. I go back to my room to shower, within 5 minutes my girlfriend is banging on the bathroom door saying the janitorial manager is here! So after advising me to shower, he shows up early forcing me to rush out of the shower. As I was trying to quickly leave the shower he told my girlfriend he was leaving and he ignored her pleas to stay causing her to cry!! What a disgusting establishment this is.

Last but not least they are selling two 16 oz water bottles for $12 and I was able to buy a 50 oz water for $0.75 accross the street. I am paying hundreds of dollars to stay at a "4-star hotel" and how do they repay you for being a patron they upcharge! Absolutley insane, they have ruined hilton for me I can't believe it is legal to be this awful at running a hotel. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SELL THE HOTEL TO SOMEONE WHO KNOWS HOW TO...

I want to start off my review by saying that most of my frustration stems from the experience we had when contrasted with the amount that we paid for our stay. This was not a motel or some random Holiday Inn. This place is supposed to be a little nicer, and was priced as such.

My wife and I booked this stay for our first wedding anniversary since we love Philly and wanted to explore the city. We’d normally never pay this much for a hotel but we decided to splurge a little since it was a special occasion. We also paid a little extra for a high floor room with a view of the city.

My first red flag should have been when I checked in and they had no record of us having booked a high floor room. Thankfully there was one available and they gave it to us, so it worked out.

It was pretty much all downhill from there. Upon our check-in, they gave us the option to pay for one or two days of parking, at $37 per day. Given the amount paid for the hotel, it is insane to me that parking isn’t included. Additionally, I was hoping to try to find free or cheap street parking for the duration of my stay. This was essentially not possible with them basically requiring me to pay for parking.

The room itself was gross. The view was admittedly very nice, but there were finger streaks on all the windows, grime on the light switches and all around the tub, and our bed sheet had a big rip in it. I truly have no idea if they clean the room between guests. Certainly doesn’t seem like they did this time.

The entire time we were there (3 days, 2 nights) we didn’t get housekeeping once. We left the room early on the 2nd morning and returned late in the day to find it hadn’t been touched. Our sheets weren’t changed and we didn’t get any new towels. As a result, we had to go down to the front desk (they weren’t answering the phone) to get new towels, and we had to wait about 15 minutes for the guy to go grab them.

Some other things that frustrated me about our stay: the breakfast was not included. $20 per person for mediocre food, no thanks. The complimentary “coffee” in the rooms literally tasted like dirt. I’m not picky, but I couldn’t even finish a cup. And the shampoos and lotions were insanely watered down and ineffective. Throughout the stay, I just felt like everything was done extremely cheaply, and they were trying to cut costs and nickel-and-dime us at every turn. Again, at the price of this hotel, seriously?

The cherry on top was that someone from the hotel reached out during and after our stay to make sure we were enjoying the visit. I expressed all of these concerns to her during the stay and no effort was made to rectify anything. Basically just “oops, sorry, we’ll try to do better!” After the stay ended, I spoke with her on the phone. She insisted she would pass along my concerns to her manager and he would reach out to me to discuss the situation within a couple of days and see what could be done to fix it. It’s been over a week and no one has called or emailed me, and she is no longer returning my messages.

It’s pretty much on par with the entire experience that I had. Super disappointing, but at this point, no longer surprising.

If this was a business trip where my stay was being paid for by my company, I wouldn’t have this many complaints, and I wouldn’t take the time to write this. But it’s an absolute shame that a special weekend was overshadowed by this experience.

All in all, the view was great, but the service was terrible, the staff was terrible, the housekeeping was nonexistent. I will never stay here again and I would recommend you look elsewhere. You...