Home2 Suites by Hilton Sanford Orlando North — Hotel in Sanford

As a Hilton Honors Diamond member I enjoy staying at different properties across the Hilton portfolio. A trip involving the west coast of Florida and riding Auto Train out of Sanford brought me to this property. Despite this being a relatively new hotel, my trip was less than what I expect from Home2 Suites or any Hilton brand hotel.||As I always do, I check-in the day before arrival on the app. However, the usual function of choosing a room was not available, and it just said to see the front desk upon arrival. Had I been able to do so, I would have grabbed a room on the side of the hotel away from I-4. || I got there fairly early, and mentioned that the pre-check-in did not work. The man at the desk just said nonchalantly that it doesn't work. OK... so the room I got turned out to be at the end of the hall, as close as one could be to the freeway noise. I wondered to myself as I entered the room that if Diamond members rate a noisy room by the highway, then where do they put lower tier members or non-members? In the center lane of the highway? Obviously this didn't matter despite my declaring my status to obtain my complimentary water.||My room has a view not only of I-4, but some fountains and a bunch of bright signs that announce the various hotels and restaurants in this area. The room was ample size, enough room for my belongings. Bathroom was OK, no issues there. TV, WiFi, and climate control worked fine. They better, for a new property.||Granted this hotel is in a very congested area near major highways and intersections. There are many businesses just in the parking area by the hotel; in fact the hotel itself is hard to find the first time one arrives. I found myself entering through the parking lot of another adjacent hotel, and leaving through a McDonald's parking lot.||Sleep was broken, as trucks using their shifting features to brake polluted my room with their noise.||I never got to try the breakfast because unlike other hotels including other Home2 Suites, it was taken away at 9 AM, and I showed up at 9:30 thinking I had until 10.||Overall, this place rates a Never Again from me. One must wonder what they were thinking in locating this place so close to a major interstate highway and on-ramp. Maybe it's convenient, but is it worth it to sacrifice comfort? And why would a new property not be able to comply with the company standard of room choice for loyal HH members? I don't know if the other end of the hotel would have been any quieter, but at least there would have been some more distance between my bed and the source...

Here are some facts that you need to know about this place when making a decision:||1. Housekeeping only comes every other day. I did not know this when we checked in, and since we used the two insulated cups, we went to the McDonalds the next day. The person at the desk told me all Hiltons are like that, and I am not sure I agree. I had to get towels myself as there weren't enough towels for 2 days. |2. Both elevators, when they work, are the slowest. |3. I like the kitchen thing. Our room even had a dishwasher.|4. The breakfast was pretty good, ant there was a variety of items offered. The person that was the attendant was very nice.|5. There really isn't a real easy way to get into this place. You should look for the McDonalds to get there. I asked the clerk at the desk for an easy way to get there when we got back from our day and he said he just cuts through McDonalds. So we did that for the time we were there. That was a little weird.|6. The shower didn't have anything on the floor that would prevent someone from slipping and falling. That being said, it was very very clean. The bathroom had plastic dispensers filled with soap and etc. That kind of skeeved me out, so we got a bar of soap at the local Publix. Unless you are used to using those things, bring your own soap. There were no bars of soap in our room.|7. Again, maybe it's me, but this room had no laundry bag. I realize it's designed for people to stay in for a while, but I thought there would be a laundry bag. In addition there were no envelopes for tips for housekeeping, no list of channels on the TV, no directions for anything really. The person at the desk never told me the wireless password and I forgot to ask.|8. The desk clerks were very nice. While I would describe the check in process as brief, the clerk was nice. They greeted us every night that we stayed there, and I thought that was pretty cool.|9. Really Important! There are zero lights in the parking lot. We put our truck in the Holiday Inn Express next door. It was lit. Seriously, the Hilton lot is totally dark.|10. Looking at I-4 being so close, I asked for a room away from I-4. It was still really noisy. State Road 46 is not as bad. I recommend asking for that side of the building. ||Bottom line, it's a nice place, very clean, and I would go there again. I hope this helps someone to not be as surprised as we were about some things. Overall, a...

Our stay was good for the most part, however, we had a very unpleasant experience with one of the employees. We had back-to-back reservations on Friday and Saturday. We checked in on Friday with Miguel and were very happy with his service. We let him know that we would be staying again on Saturday and hoped to stay in the same room and he said there was no problem and that everything was set up.

However, on Saturday, one of our guests needed to access the room to get ready for a wedding we were attending. She tried the keycard and it did not work so she went to the desk for help. We do not have the name of the employee that assisted her, but bad interactions were had with said employee. Our guest called me to let me know that I needed to check us in again because we were staying on an employee rate. That alone was a problem because we checked in on Friday and let Miguel know that we needed the same room and we were never told that we would need to check in again on Saturday, which was not available as I was attending a wedding and would not have time to check in before the other guest needed access to the room.

The other guest called me to let me know of the issue and handed the phone to an unnamed employee. I spoke with the employee for a few minutes and was met with a very unfriendly attitude and was told that I needed to go check in even though Miguel said we were okay the day prior. We were not happy with the interactions over the phone or in person with this employee. At some point, the employee hung up the phone on me while we were still talking. I was not happy with this at all as I am a guest, and it was extremely rude. He also told our other guest that we were going to have serious problems, making a threat towards us.

Other than that, our stay was good, but that experience with the unnamed employee was very upsetting and put a damper on what was otherwise...