Hotel Zessa Orange County Airport, a DoubleTree by Hilton — Hotel in Santa Ana

This hotel is licensed by Hilton, but is actually operated by another company.

I would not recommend staying here unless there is a good reason, because the stay is very stressful for the following reasons, and the hotel staff is not motivated.

1. There is no one at the front desk.

Even at 4pm check-in, there are only 2 people. There is always a line of guests. I have never seen a hotel that makes guests wait so long.

2. Lack of hospitality

When I checked in, Mario, the person in charge, asked me for a deposit, and since the credit card was in my wife's name, he asked me to call my wife internationally and have her sign an email. Unfortunately, it was late at night in my home country, so I had to kill time near the front desk until I could get in touch with my wife. I wondered how they could force this on a guest who had arrived after a long flight of over 12 hours and was sleep-deprived and dizzy. I can't believe they would hold up check-in for a small deposit.

3. Weak WIFI

Free WiFi is available, but the signal is weak and some devices do not connect immediately. Every morning, when I tried to check the news online, my iPad would not connect for about 30 minutes, which was frustrating.

4. The check-in staff did not check the accommodation plan The plan included breakfast, but a breakfast voucher was not provided at check-in by staff, Mario. I found this out during breakfast on the second day, and when I immediately checked with the front desk, they replied, "The hotel system shows that the plan does not include breakfast." So I showed them my reservation confirmation, and they finally issued me a breakfast voucher. I told them to cancel the breakfast charge, but when I checked with the front desk the next day just to be sure, it had not been canceled. Hotel manager, is it this hotel's policy to cause stress to guests?

5. For some reason, the band's music echoed until late at night During my stay, it seemed that a children's birthday party (an event organized by the hotel) was held, and loud music echoed throughout the hotel until midnight. I dozed off listening to the bass rhythm in my dreams amid the echoing sounds, but I wonder how the other guests were feeling?

6. No electric kettle in the room

There was a coffee maker in the room, but no electric kettle, which was very inconvenient. I drink tea every morning, so I asked the front desk if I could borrow one, but they said they don't have one.

7. Rooms on the highway side are subject to traffic noise

In rooms on the highway side, the traffic noise is quite a concern.

When I asked Mario at the front desk if I could move rooms, he said that the only large rooms of the same type were on the highway side. Here again, I was painfully aware of the poor hospitality.

If you are concerned about noise, I recommend that you request a room facing the hotel entrance.

7. The bathtub tap won't close

There is a bathtub, but for some reason the tap won't close. As a result, hot water doesn't fill up. I asked a staff member to check, but he said, "It's broken and won't close." He said, "All the rooms have the same type of tap, so it won't be the same even if you move rooms," so I gave up, but then I moved rooms because of the traffic noise, and the bathtub tap in that room closed properly. I am completely exhausted.

As mentioned above, this is not a customer friendly hotel and there is no welcoming atmosphere for guests. Therefore, I will never stay at this hotel again. I am surprised that the reviews are not as bad as...

The hotel staff that were at the desk when we came to check in were incredibly unprepared and unable to check us in smoothly. Our stay was provided through an agency I'm contracted with that had completely prepaid for our room. We were told only $150.00 security deposit was necessary at the time of check in. We arrived late in the evening on 9/11/2022 probably around 11pm. The woman desk agent said we just needed to pay that security deposit. Which I was confused because it was just the security deposit being charged--Or so I thought. The desk agent suggested we needed to call our banks for approval since we traveled out of state. After getting my bank on the phone, they informed me DoubleTree attempted to charge an unauthorized $900.00 and not just the $150.00 security deposit. I immediately confronted the woman about this because it came off very misleading. She then began to tell me she knew she was charging my card that amount because the credit card on file (Provided by my agency) was declined for insufficient funds. This threw us for a loop, so we paid for 1 night just so we could go to bed after flying all day just to give us some time to figure this out in the morning when I could speak to my agency during their business hours about their card being declined. In the morning, we got an alert from the bank that the hotel charged us again for ANOTHER NIGHT completely unauthorized. We called the front desk in the morning to dispute this charge and the man said there was no notes on file about another company paying for the room and that there was nothing he could do to reverse the charge. We were treated like we were liars and quite frankly we were treated like pest. At 8am I got in contact with the agency that booked this hotel with us and come to find out they faxed the hotel a completed signed credit card authorization form on Friday, 9/09/2022, just 2 days before our arrival. So essentially it came to light that we could have checked into our room with no issue on the 11th, but the agents at the desk read our reservation incorrectly. The morning desk agent Issac was extremely apologetic for this inconvenience however we had to explain to Issac that we came here on business and had a maximum paradigm of $500.00. And now that the hotel charged our card our twice over our entire company paradigm was spent. Now we were unable to purchase any food or transportation until the refund came through. Issac said the best he could do was provide breakfast vouchers but they still did not compensate for lunch and dinner. I am overall disappointed in our experience and how we were treated by staff. Issac and Tanisha were courteous and made up for the hateful staff we dealt with in the beginning. I also want to add they were unable to offer housekeeping for our stay and right outside door of room 425 (our room) smelled pungent of pee, or urine. Additionally, one elevator was down for our entire stay as well. I told my company to never book me another double tree again for that horrible experience. Nothing is worse then being thousands of miles from home and being...

First off, this review is for their event services, not the rooms itself.

I had booked this hotel for my wedding in late November. Starting from the beginning, the experience was not too bad, they gave me a decent price, were not to difficult to work with.

Then, the day of the wedding arrived. We were supposed to be given a bridal suite. When i got to the hotel in the morning, they had no record of a room under my name. I had to sit there and wait for 30 min at front desk for them to figure out the room situation. It didn't help that the front desk didn't even know who the event coordinator was who's name i mentioned, I feel like people who work in the same hotel should know each other (just my opinion). Anyways, after we got the room, we got ready for the event. The event looked good, everything was going well. The hotel was skimping on the punch as they had small bowls and it wasn't enough to accommodate all guests, or so I heard, I was the groom on stage so I wasn't paying attention to all these small things.

Small things aside, when the night completely turned around was when they decided to shut off the air. You can imagine that a ball room with 300+ people with no air got very hot. It probably got as hot as 90 degrees in there. Everyone was sweating, including myself and my bride (our pictures all look sweaty). Many guests also complained that it was very hot. Eventually, my bride began to feel light headed, and with everyone complaining, i got pretty angry. I tried to find the event coordinator, but found that she had left around dinner time so i had really no one to tell. I went to front desk and told them to do something. After about 30 min, it just got hotter and hotter. People started to leave and my bride had to be rushed out because she was about to faint. I went and spoke with the front desk again, gave them a piece of my mind. But there was no one there that was in charge. The man at the front desk took my number and told me that the GM was going to call me tomorrow.

Tomorrow happen, a week happen, and 2 weeks happen, I never heard a word from the hotel. I checked my Credit Card and noticed they had charged my card that I used for the deposit for the full amount. I never got an invoice as to how many guests they charged me for, I never got a call from the GM, I never even got a call from the event coordinator. Every time I try to call the event staff, the phone goes to Voice Mail and I seem to never get a call back. I feel like they are trying to avoid me.

I would not recommend to use this hotel for any event, not even to my worst enemy. They were very unprofessional, and i was very unsatisfied. They ruined my wedding. I would look elsewhere for any events. There are many hotels in OC area, so don't settle...