Hilton Pensacola Beach — Hotel in Santa Rosa Island

Overall, this is a great place. I only say this just for the location. We arrived early, around 12:45 knowing that check in usually is not until 4. So, we let the front desk know we arrived, the woman at the desk gave us a parking pass for our car and said she would call if the room was ready any earlier. That never came. 4pm came and I went to the front desk just to be told that it still wasn't ready. I get early check in isn't a guarantee, but you have someone who was there 3 hours early and their room still isn't ready by the check in time? It took the concierge or the man who takes the bags up to the rooms to go up and check on the status of our room before we were finally given access at 4:40. I wrote his name down because I specifically wanted to recognize him, but I lost it. He needs a raise. That man is a hard worker and one of the best employees we met over our 6 night stay. Tanya in the restaurant (breakfast) was awesome too. When we were finally called up to the front desk to check-in they had to charge our card for incidentals. We pre-paid for our room so the only thing they needed to charge was the $50 incidental charge. However, they attempted to charge $2000 (our 6 night stay), but because we lock our cards when we arent using them it didnt go through, and she ran it before I had time to unlock it. Thankfully! I explained that we pre-paid and she said, oh I apologize I will re-run for the $50. All good at this point. Finally get into our room after 5. We stayed in the gulfront, bunkbed, double queen room. Room is nothing special, alittle dated and could use some maintenance. But, the view is amazing and that is what we came for. We were on the 11th floor so you can see everything. Wake up the next morning and get an alert on my card that an attempt from Hilton for $1700 was attempted and declined. This is the exact reason we lock our cards. I go down to the front desk and the gentleman said, I do see that and I am sorry. Apparently when we checked in at 12:45 the day before, it wasn't entered properly and the pre-payment wasn't processed correctly when we checked in. If we didn't lock our cards we would have been dealing with that for a second time within a 24 hour period. |The view is great! We thought the outdoor pool was heated according to the website, but it is not. It's frigid. Not even close to being heated. The indoor pool is, but I didn't come to Florida to swim indoors. We didn't get in the hot tub but maybe once because its packed with kids playing catch or goofing off. We are travelling with an 8 year old so I get it. My thought is that the kids wouldn't feel the need to be in the hot tub if the pool was actually heated as advertised. |We have stayed at many Hiltons, and it's really unfortunate that they don't even offer complimentary coffee in the mornings considering what you pay per night. We don't like Starbucks coffee. The only option is to either spend $6 per medium coffee there or spend $25/person on the breakfast buffet, which we did twice and is not worth it in our opinon. I even asked if I could buy a coffee from the bar inside during breakfast hours and was told I had to go to Starbucks. |We ate at the pool bar on the day of arrival and the day before we left. It's okay, nothing crazy. Some of the employees are fantastic, others not so much. |We wanted to do laundry the night before we left. There are two washers and two dryers. So, we did two loads of laundry. One of the dryers was not working and we found that out after the fact. So, it took almost 4 hours to do two loads of laundry. |A lot of Hilton hotels that we have stayed at offer some sort of market, but there was nothing but the store with beach stuff, some drinks and a few cold medicines. |We must have been staying next to Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg because we got a contact high just from sitting on our balcony. If we opened our sliding glass door the whole room smelled like it. I have no issues with it, but I would like to sit on a balcony that I paid a lot of money for without having to deal with it since its supposed to be a smoke free hotel. That was mentioned to the front desk after day 2 and nothing was done. |We did do the Easter Brunch which I think is great for kids. Is it worth $70 per person, Absolutely not! |Location is great because you can easily walk to everything. We did rent a car but didn't use it much. |All in all, we would stay here again for the location only, but with that said there are other hotels right next to this one. Which, reminds me to mention that we watched multiple people, many times walk from the hampton inn next door just to use the pool at hilton. Granted, same brand, but if thats the case then why isn't it mentioned during check-in that we could use that other hotel space too? You are given no wristbands or anything and to be honest anyone off the street could come in and access the hotel. |We...

Every bad review unfortunately is true. This is the first time I booked a trip and ignored the reviews. This property and the hassles that come with it are NOT worth the price. I will start with the very FEW positives. Christine the front desk lady, THE BEST! Should be the manager!! She was the only helpful and kind employee we encountered nearly out entire stay. The walking distance to the pier and restaurants. The beds were very comfortable. Now lets get to the truth. Our stay was a nightmare and that is an understatement. We are a special needs family and we have spent the past year in and out of the hospital. My son wanted to see the Blue Angels but due to his illness, I needed an easy way back to the room if he needed to go. That and we are Hilton Honors members. We have never had an issue. Called to confirm our reservation and upgrade the day before and again the day of. Whoever was taking information, took somethings down, like my daughters name and the second car arriving, just not the upgrade. The rude gentleman who "tried" to check me in then passed me off to the condescending manager who then blamed corporate for the confusion and told me to take it up with them. I did. The first gentleman was so kind and helpful. Was told to call back. The lady who answered the corporate line said, nope not helping you, gave me an email address if I "wanted" to contact someone else and hung up on me. I emailed. Was passed BACK to the resort. This went on for WEEKS being passed back and forth. Did I mention I was called a liar by no more than 3 employees in ONE day??!! Literally had the manager tell me why would main reservation line offer you an upgrade to a Jr suite when they knew we were booked? DO I LOOK LIKE I KNOW??! They then tried to charge me for our special needs dog. $75 a night. Christine fixed this even though I showed the original person, the service dog's official id. Not emotional. FULL OUT SERVICE! DO NOT pay for valet!! We paid for 2 cars. We spent more time getting our own vehicles than they did. They were never at the table with keys. Everyone was having to go in the box, which isn't locked by the way, and get their keys. Not just us! Did I mention they lost our car! Literally was walking the parking lot and garage with my husband going, the car isn't where we put it??! Or the one on night shift that shrugged his shoulders at my husband and said I don't know what I'm supposed to do get your keys and go find your car. Starbucks does not have a full menu and closes anytime they want. We went 4 times and they were gone. They said they are allowed to close if they don't have enough business? Then why have hours posted? Do not eat at the restaurant. Food was horrible. Literally inedible! Make sure you wash yourself immediately if you get in the hot tub. My son got a rash. There was food floating in it and some sorta sludge all on the top. You could skim it off. The kids pool is great, accept there is no protection for the little ones. It's a foot deep, babies in there, special needs kids, and the attendant was allowing grown kids to run these little ones over. Watched a teen hit a baby in the head with a football running through it and she just stood there on their phone. Parents fighting because teens were messing around in the baby pool. Why have a baby pool if it's not safe for little ones? What is the point of telling us we have to "Wear" pool bands to get access to the pool and have a pool attendant if the attendant is never there and it's a free for all? There is a huge pool to the right of the children's pool. I get there is no lifeguard but why post rules if no rules are going to be followed? Everyone uses the baby pool to wipe sand off their feet so be advised parents, it's full of sand. Saw a baby get a handful and choked. There are only 2 elevators for the main hotel. YOU WILL WAIT along time for an elevator! Our room had mold in it, blood on the door frame and our "Clean" drinking glasses had some sorta green "Goo" in the bottom of them. This was as we checked in. The manager gave us one breakfast for them, but never gave us anything to drink out of like she promised would be sent back to our room the next morning. Everyday we asked, everyday we didn't get any. Her answer was always, we're really busy right now, we will send someone up. It needs updating and the halls smell of wet dog. After weeks of having to email back and forth, for "All" our trouble, the refunded us one nights stay and gave us rewards points. In my opinion it wasn't compensation enough for all we went through due to their incompetent staff and miss management. We will return to Pensacola next year. We will NEVER...

This was the worst hotel stay, not one employee seemed to care. We’ve stayed at this Hilton 2x prior. The 1st time we had major issues but they were eventually handled & I chalked it up to bad housekeeping-dried vomit on floor, toenail clippings on bed & pubic hairs in shower. No one to clean it. I ended up getting supplies & cleaning it myself. This time we landed in the AM, got to the hotel. We asked them hold our bags while we ate lunch/shopped. The guy @ the desk said he’d text if our room was ready before check in. Around 3 we stopped to see if it was ready. It was not so we sat at the bar. 4pm room still wasn’t ready, they were “short staffed” & it should be ready by 430. At 430, still not ready. I messaged the hotel in the app asking a manager call me. That never happened. At 5, still not ready. I asked to speak to a manager but was told they were on a call/couldn’t speak. We said we’d wait. Manager ever came up. We saw multiple others having the same issue. We were now missing reservations. We were tired, sweaty & needed to shower. Finally a room was ready @ 515. Went to the room & it was filthy. Sand on floor, garbage between the couch/wall, hairs in shower/on curtain, food crumbs on the bed, refrigerator smelled. My husband tried to call the desk but phone didn’t work. He went down & they said they’d send someone up. Cleaning crew came/cleaned but w/minimal supplies. The person in charge apologized, said it was unacceptable. However, it still felt dirty to me. Balcony was stained/dirty, curtains broken, blow dryer bag was full of mold spots & when I laid down, you could see the stains (mold?) on the lamp. At that point I just wanted to leave. After back & forth the person @ desk said they’d only charge us for the 1 night. We barely slept & were upset bc this ruined our vacation. At 630am we walked to the desk, explained to the AM manager what happened & asked if we could have a different room instead of leaving. He said they didn’t have any more of our room type available. I said we can downgrade. He tried saying it was an upgrade, which if it was, I’m a diamond member & received upgrades at other hiltons. However I knew it wasn’t so I brought up the info & showed him it was a less expensive room. He walked away came back & said he’d be able to switch. He wanted to check it first to make sure it was clean. We waited. Finally came back & had a room. Said he looked it over & there were no issues. We asked for a luggage cart to move rooms & he said they don’t give them out but he’d have someone come up w/one to help. We went up to the nasty room & started packing. No one ever came to help move rooms so we did it all ourselves. The new room was still not great. More hair on the shower walls, microwave was dirty & thermostat didn’t work. We tried to call maintenance but again, the phone in the room didn’t work. Tried calling from our cell phones to the desk but no answer. Husband went downstairs. They sent someone up to fix the AC. I got my own sanitizing wipes & cleaned the shower, microwave. While in the bathroom I saw the toilet was running. It never stopped the entire stay. I was done with trying to have issues fixed, I didn’t bother calling. Didn’t want to waste more time in the room. There was also a hole in the wall next to the bed. Every room there needs to be rehabbed/deep cleaned. They smell & frankly are dirty. Staff at the desk do not make you feel welcome. Zero consideration for being a Hiltons diamond member. Never a hello/goodbye as we walked past the desk. They avoid eye contact. Breakfast-awful. Food-overpriced. They try to be fancy but fall short. The restaurant is disgustingly warm all times of the day. Pool water never felt clean-sandy & grimy. Hot tub was a joke w/kids jumping into it. Cabanas are dated, furniture is dirty. The stations to rinse off sand when you leave the beach don’t work. No apology for the room not being ready, the dirty room/inconvenience of having to switch w/no help from bellhop. This was our last trip we’ll ever take to Hilton...