Hampton Inn & Suites Raleigh/Crabtree Valley — Hotel in Raleigh

In June, I made a reservation for the Hampton Inn and Suites—Raleigh/Crabtree Valley. I received several confirmations over the following week and just past the cancellation point, my credit card was charged for the reservation. So, as I understood it, I had a confirmed reservation that I could no longer cancel without charge. In fact, I received an email stating that I could check in with Contactless Arrival. I did not want to do that and preferred to check in personally.||I do not check email every second, and I had a busy schedule on the day we were checking in. At approximately 3 PM or so, I happened to check my email and saw that I had had an email at 2:00PM indicating a reservation at the Hilton Garden Inn for that evening. I was concerned that I had somehow made a reservation at the wrong hotel. I had specifically considered the Hilton Garden Inn, which when I made the reservation, was actually charging less than the Hampton. We actually preferred the Hampton for a number of reasons, even though it was more expensive. I then saw an email which appeared later (2:04PM) stating that our Hampton reservation had been cancelled and we had a reservation at the Hilton Garden Inn next door.||We tried calling the Hampton Inn front desk. The first time, the person who answered the phone said they needed to transfer us and dropped our call. The second time, the person said they needed to transfer us, and we ended up talking to the front desk at the Hilton Garden Inn. They put us on hold and never returned. We became very concerned and left our planned activities to go to the hotels directly.||We waited in the check-in line at the Hampton where the front desk personnel were checking in several couples and groups of people. When they got to us, they clearly did not want to talk and said something about a smell in part of the building and they had no King rooms. They did not offer us any other options but told us we needed to go next door.||The Hilton Garden Inn did check us in under a new reservation made by the Hampton. The person behind the desk tried to help us and offered extra points, but we were still charged the Hampton rate we had arranged. By now, the Hilton Garden Inn was charging more, but as I noted above, when we originally made our Hampton reservation, they were charging less.||My Hilton Honors Account incorrectly stated that I canceled my reservation late which is not true. As noted I did not cancel, and the reservation was cancelled by Hampton.||We were very upset by this entire process and have the following complaints:||1. We do not read our emails every second of the day. The notices we received were only via email. We never received a text or phone call advising us of what was going on.|2. We were told we were getting an upgrade by going to the HGI, but we did not consider it to be one. We were given no other options for rooms at the Hampton.|3. The Hampton Inn was checking in lots of people and there was no indication of a problem in any part of the building. In fact, the parking lots around the hotels were full.|4. The attitude of the Hampton front desk was dismissive, and I could not help but wonder if it was because we had a Senior discount on the room and they decided they could get more by giving our room away at a higher rate.|We have been long-time users of Hilton Hotels, and this episode has undermined our confidence in the chain. In fact, we always make our reservations directly through the Hilton website, but the person we spoke to at the Hampton front desk asked me if we booked our reservation through another company, even though she was purportedly looking at our reservation on her screen.|We expect Hilton to do better by it’s customers, particularly those who have been loyal to the brand over time. Disappointing is an understatement for the entire process regarding this experience...

If I could give this place zero stars, I would. The stay, itself, was not great. We don’t often get the chance to take trips without our small child so we were very much looking forward to some time to relax, watch some tv and sleep in late(r) than we normally do. We checked in and discovered that the internet wasn’t connecting to our TV. We called the front desk and they sent up a guy who insisted on looking at our AC, which was working fine. He said there was nothing he could do about the internet and left. We had a show to go to, so we left, hoping the issue would be resolved upon our return. When it was not, we called back to the front desk and the woman I spoke with seemed to have no idea what to do. She gave us the number for the Hampton Inn’s internet service provider and told me to call them myself. Which seemed very unprofessional. After 30 minutes on the phone, the tech was unable to resolve the issue, so we just decided to go to sleep, thinking at least we would have a relaxing morning. When we attempted to close the “black out” curtains, we realized that they were attached directly to the ceiling, and not on a track and that they ONLY CLOSED HALFWAY! WHAT?? So fast forward to 6AM and it’s like waking up on the surface of the sun. So bright in there, there was no sleeping in. So we packed up and left. On our way out, I attempted to address our issues with the front desk clerk. She offered us “Hilton points” on our next stay. Ummmmm…. No. There won’t be a next stay. She gave me the number for the front desk supervisor, Alesia Jouvert, and after I had left several messages with no reply, I asked to be connected to her boss, the assistant general manager. Mike listened politely and told me he would call me back after he “got to the bottom of it”. No reply for several days. Subsequent messages were not acknowledged and so I asked to be connected to HIS supervisor, the general manager, Jen Watson. To date, I have left her three messages, all of which have gone unanswered. And every time I have to be placed on hold to wait for someone to not answer my call, I get to listen to the hold music that includes a description of the “Hampton Inn Guarantee” that stipulates that if you are, for any reason, unhappy with your stay, then “you don’t pay”. HA!! The Hampton Inn doesn’t care one bit about you or the quality of your stay. Do yourself a favor and miss this place. The rooms are sub-standard and the management is atrocious. Spend your money...

We arrived around 2:30 ish pm and needed to get to our room, order LYFT and go to a meeting scheduled for 5:00 pm. The desk person said check in time is 4:00 but would ck to see if a room had been cleaned and ready for occupancy. He verified one was ready and allowed us to go to that room. We were appreciative of the cleaning staff and the desk person. All the hotel employees were friendly and courteous. The desk personnel even helped me with getting a Lyft app set up on my phone. The breakfast buffet was really good and extensive. There was always a line to cook waffles which caused a back up and slow moving line. Maybe have more waffle irons available. I wanted to order food from a nearby Panera Bread but the desk personnel called and/or looked up on line to find it had closed. She suggested if I placed an order thru the Panera Bread app, the person who drives the shuttle could take me to a different Panera Bread a little further away to pick up the food. I accepted her offer, bought the driver a snack and gave her a tip. I was able to have a wonderful mid afternoon meal. The beds were very comfortable. I like the bathroom door with "cloudy" glass which allows light in for use of the bathroom overnight. I like the use of attached to the wall containers of bath soap, etc. which definitely cuts down on use of smaller containers partially used and thrown away. One important thing we suggest is the street sign for Arrow Street be much larger. Not being locals, the area was unfamiliar with us, there is heavy traffic and the Arrow Street sign is very hard to see. Otherwise, we were very happy staying...