Hampton Inn & Suites San Antonio/Northeast I-35 — Hotel in San Antonio

Off the charts! This Hampton Inn is setting the bar for all comparable properties! The customer service and overall experience is unmatched at the price-point. They offer a great continental breakfast with unique items, such as prime rib hash. There is an indoor pool & hot tub as well as a considerable fitness center. The business lounge is adequate and their snack/drink options are on par. In the room, the bed is perfect and they have everything you need for a long business stay. My only complaints about the accommodations are 1) the TV is out of date and does not have a digital channel guide 2) the tub is standard-size/small.

What sets this location far apart from the rest is the front desk team and their attention to detail. They provide a warm welcome and friendly service. With my room key, I was handed a hand-signed letter from the general manager, Jay, explaining the property's unique attributes and outlined the various amenities available. It was well written and relevant. A few moments after I unpacked my luggage, I received a phone call from the front desk inquiring if everything was to my satisfaction and if there was anything I needed - I have only experienced this kind of service at locations where the price tag is triple. There was also a nightly social-hour held in the lobby with complimentary appetizers & drinks.

I would be amiss if I continued to lush about this Hampton Inn and did not expose one truly awful event that took place while I was there. On my first night, I walked the property taking photos for this Google review as I do at most hotels I frequent. Suddenly, a man aggressively rushed up to me in an intimidating way, yelling and maintaining an uncomfortable physical presence. As it turns out, he is the nightly security guard and he was concerned about the photos I took of the awning/entrance. He corralled me into a fixed location in the dining area while boisterously calling for a manager. The entire time he continued to condescendingly repeat himself, "YOU CANT DO THAT! THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING HERE!" Over and over, so many times I started counting and reached 15 before a manager approached.

Doing his best to de-escalate the disruption, the manager asked the guard what was happening. The guard, named Fred, proceeded to explain how he caught me taking photos after which the manager assured Fred that everything is okay because he recognized me as a guest who checked in a short time earlier. Fred's reaction stunned the manager & I both, when he became highly agitated and started publicly berating me with comments about my appearance - "he's wearing a hoodie and has a backpack for chrissakes." Nevermind the fact that my hoodie is a Lululemon pull-over, my bag is an Anvanda hand-made Italian lesther Swedish messenger-style, and I wear a new Rolex Submariner.. Fred was belligerent.

Again, the manager petitions Fred to allow him to handle the situation. Fred throws his hands up and walks away - only to return yelling "YOU BETTER BACK ME UP! BETTER NOT UNDERMINE ME! BACK ME UP ON THIS! I WONT HAVE YOU UNDOING WHAT I SAID!" At this point I'm certain this is a reality TV show where I am going to win a prize for remaining calm during an outrageous display of behavior. No such luck.

The rest is a blur of apologies and desire to put the whole thing behind us. After parting ways, I recognize how sorry I felt for the manager because he surely had never been embarrassed to that extreme before. That is why I do not count this against my Google rating of 5 stars for this property. In the end, I will stay here again soon and hope...

I only write reviews for two reasons, the experience was above and beyond, or the experience was well below expectations, the latter is the case for this review. When I do stay at Hilton properties I stay there for one main reason, I can go straight to my room and avoid the whole check in process because of the digital key on the app. The digital key for whatever reason did not function when I arrived, so had to go "check" in at the desk, which really defeats the purpose of a digital key. The young lady at the desk was friendly-ish, but her attire didn't allude to the fact that she was at work. If she wasn't standing behind the desk, I would have assumed she was another guest. Everything at this hotel is on the verge of being broke or broken. My room (403) was a representation of that fact. I don't have the patience to list the entire list of things that were wrong, but furniture was broken, stains were present all over the couch and even some on the "fresh" pillowcases, and everything was well worn or dilapidated (well beyond normal wear and tear). The door to the room would not close without applied force, I am a 220 lb man that had to aggressively lean into the door to get it to close. This was a common theme on floor 4, as most of the doors did not seem too self-close as they should. Cleaning; like art, is subjective to your viewpoint. My viewpoint was that cleaning here is not a top priority as nothing in my room felt or appeared clean. The "fog smear" on the window didn't allow for refreshing views of the local scenery. Side note: when I checked out, I noticed a sign that stated that housekeeping is only on site every other day and that clean towels had to be requested at the front desk if needed during the cleaning crews "off" days - I found this very odd, but there was a gentleman getting fresh towels at the front desk when I checked out, so I guess to some this is acceptable. The pool at the hotel appeared nice, though the lights must be broken because I swam in the dark with only the actual underwater pool lights on for illumination. Probably for the best, can't scrutinize what you can't see. I had planned to stay three nights but left after only one. I travel extensively for work and don't often stay at Hiltons anymore due to issues like this. I would be ashamed as a Hilton to have my name representing this property. My recommendation, drive two more miles down the road and stay at the Holiday Inn near Buffalo Wild Wings. The Hampton Inn charged me just shy of $160 after taxes and fees, the Holiday Inn down the road was about $30 cheaper and much, much nicer and far cleaner. Just my two cents, stay where you choose, but I will not stay again at this location nor recommend others from my company stay...

Pros - Double queen room was spacious, nicely decorated. Lots of places to eat in the vicinity, In n Out, Jack in the Box, Taco Bell, McDonald's and so on.

Cons - Not on the best side of town. Room was hot. Air conditioner unit was not large enough/powerful enough to keep the room at a comfortable temperature. Staff brought up a box fan but room was so hot I spent a good portion of the first night lying on the floor in front of the fan. On one day our dirty towels weren't collected, when I called down and asked for 8 towels (we are a family of 6) the front desk person sent the repair guy up to our room with ONE towel. When repair guy came back with the requested 8 towels he seemed upset and brusquely asked for our dirties like we were trying to steal them or something. Housekeeping had decided to bypass our room that day so we had plenty of used towels to give him. On the last night of our stay we went to use the pool, as we had every night, they had treated the pool that afternoon and there was so much chlorine in the pool that after 5-10 minutes we all had to get out and 2 kids started throwing up. Our oldest wasn't able to stop throwing up even after rinsing off the chlorine. It was awful. Wanted to do laundry, after tracking down some quarters (apparently there's a shortage) we found out the dryer was broken. They initially gave us a list of laundromats (just what you want to spend your vacation doing). The next day I called the front desk asking if the dryer was fixed yet or if it would be possible to use the hotel's dryer and the guy sounded very confused, saying he had no idea it wasn't working (it had the sign on it for 4 days). Once the repair guy was called out it was repaired in about 5 minutes. I have known metal more absorbent than their towels but that is a minor complaint compared to the rest of our stay. I would not stay here again, the staff didn't really seem too bothered about our concerns. After the first night with the room temp we were ready to change hotels but almost everywhere was...