Hilton Garden Inn San Mateo — Hotel in San Mateo

I'm impressed. Not overall, I have some complaints, but the staff of this hotel NAILED. IT.

I was staying here during recovery three days after a surgery, and it was difficult for me to walk or carry anything. I had to drag most of my stuff into the hotel lobby, but I was slightly out of sight of the front desk. As soon as I hobbled into view of the concierge, she asked if I was OK, what she could do to make checking in easier, and called two employees who picked up everything save my heavy purse for me, which I insisted on carrying anyway.

As is something of an unfortunate (and indeed, unpleasant) reality of surgical recovery, I had some medical waste items with me, and despite best efforts, left a little bit of blood spotting on sheets and towels. I wasn't sure what to expect after I returned to the hotel room in the evening, not sure how they'd handle things, or if anything would be moved or accidentally disposed of.

Clean sheets, fresh towels, a clean room, and me feeling refreshed and totally ready to crash out.

No, none of these things should be unusual, but it seems in the hotel world, they are sometimes.

Here are my complaints, and these are important for some guests.

Reviews I've seen complain of a musty smell in the rooms, as well as HVAC units that will propagate that smell. This is true, there is a definitive mustiness to the hotel rooms, and to a lesser extent, the hallways. The rooms aren't so bad, though, and I have a very sensitive nose, and I get used to it and don't even notice it in fairly short order. You only notice when you return to the room after any length of absence.

Another complaint I have is that I was in a room right above their event space, and there was pounding music going til 11:30. Stuck on EST in PST, that sucked pretty badly. Still, I called the front desk and asked if they could ask the DJ to lower the bass - the sound of the music wouldn't be altered for the partiers, even for the beat impaired, but it would dramatically change how it transmitted through the building. To my everlasting relief, they did. Not enough, sadly, but enough so that I could concentrate a bit and find something to do while I waited for the party to end. This is also a huge credit to the staff - most wouldn't pass the request along, and the ones that did wouldn't see to it that it got done. Huge marks.

This place isn't perfect, but I have to say, the staff more than made up for it. If I stayed here again, I might consider bringing some Febreeze and some sort of odor removing plugin for the room, but those are minor investments that would dramatically alter the few negatives here. The staff kicked this one out of the park, and they took this from a two or three star review to a five.

Thanks Hilton Garden San Mateo staff, you...

I'm not sure I've ever had a worse experience staying at a Hilton property. We had reserved a double Queen room. When we arrived we were told no double queen rooms were available because every single one was under renovation. We were offered a king room with a rollaway bed. Right away we said this offer was unacceptable. We told the front desk worker, Sean, that this was an unacceptable change, and he told us that we made our reservation too early and double queens were not an option for reservations now. We asked why we weren't contacted to be informed that our reservation had to be changed and were told that they were not responsible for letting us know.

We asked for a change in our accommodation to give us the two beds we reserved and were told since we booked through points no change to the reservation was possible. This is not what I've ever experienced at any Hilton property. I perceived this as the first of many lies Sean made to us. I asked for my Hilton Diamond member upgrade to a suite and was told that he cannot upgrade our reservation because it's booked with points. This also seemed to be a lie. When I pushed the matter he said no suites were available, which probably was also a lie. Finally we agreed to the king room and asked for comped breakfast. Sean said that only his manager could do that. When we asked for the manager he said the manager was not available, also a lie.

When we got to our room the entire hallway and room smelled strongly of paint. We quickly got headaches and felt ill. We called Hilton Diamond help line, who called Sean, and miraculously a double queen room, that didn't smell like paint, was available.

We asked for comped breakfast again for our inconvenience and were told that his manager, who now could be contacted, said that matter was considered "resolved" despite the hour we wasted trying to resolve it.

I have never felt less valued as a Diamond member. I have never had a worse experience at any Hilton property. At the very least we should have been contacted to tell us no double queen room was available. We should never have been placed on a floor of the building that smelled like wet paint. We should not have had to call the diamond desk to resolve our issue. We should have been given breakfast comped at our request for our inconvenience.

The room was mostly clean and acceptable, but the service...

Me and some family stayed here for almost a week in several rooms. First of all I would like to go over the overall location. This hotel is NOT in the crowded San Fran area. Therefore this hotel is in a less crowded part of the Bay Area. Overall I think that it is a very nice spot. Me and my family drove to the Golden Gate Bridge from the hotel. However because of the crazy traffic it took us more than an hour to get there. But if you go in a less busy time you might be able to get there faster. So overall great location for a less crowded stay and ok to go to the main city.

Next I am going over the service. First when we checked in the staff was very nice. Honestly the lobby looked very nice considering it is a 3-star hotel. The lobby looked like a 4 star hotel. One day our key stopped working and they fixed it for us right away. The breakfast people and people at the restaurant are also super nice and always will help to any need you ask for.

However, there are some downsides. The room that I had stayed in has 2 queen beds which were very comfortable. But there were some stains on the towels which we didn’t use because of that. Also the walls seemed to have spilled coffee or something like that. The shower was small but was pretty nice but the faucet was not putting out the right water pressure. Also the ac had something weird. Me and the other person in the room both got headaches in the room. We now believe that it could have been mold in the ac vent. The main point is that we got sick from the room which is not from outside. Now I know that the is seems quite bad but if we had told them I am sure they would look for mold and give us a new room.

Overall I am giving this hotel 4 stars because I think that it provided a great stay and a quiet but nice location with excellent service. The reason that it is not 5 stars is because of the partially dirty room and possible mold. I hope this review was helpful. (It took a long...