Hilton Santa Cruz/Scotts Valley — Hotel in Scotts Valley

Update - 6/5/25 I'm updating my review as I stayed in one of their "Pure Wellness" rooms at the end of May 2025. It was cleaner than than the regular room I reserved during my first trip. The room was mostly clean (because we found hairs on a pillow) and also has an air filter. I encountered three issues: we found hairs on one of the pillows and the pillow case was dirty as it someone rolled wheels or something and I ended up not using it. The other issue was that the room was very warm despite of having the a/c lowered to 66°F but for some reason the room temp stayed on 77°F (there were three of us in the room). At 1:30 a.m. I woke up sweating and called front desk to report that the room was too warm and the lady said she will come and check...she never showed up, but we heard noises outside the room and the room started to feel cooler after that. The last issue is that we discovered that in one of the Pure Wellness rooms near ours, there was a guest with two dogs. I mentioned this to the front desk via text message and they said they will deep clean it and aware of the situation. These guests booked this room due to some "mix up". Pets are not allowed to stay in the Pure Wellness rooms as these rooms are for people with allergies.

I still like this hotel and will probably stay in their Pure Wellness room as my son suffers from seasonal/pet allergies. The air filter is nice to have and gives me a sense of clean and purified air.

Jan 2025 - We stayed here for two nights. I have zero complaints about the staff, they all deserve 10+ stars.

Before I describe my complaint, I want to disclose that front desk made it right for me, but I still need to post this so management can fix/review their processes for future guests or my future stays.

My complaint is for the room we reserved. When we went to the room I found two empty glasses of wine sitting outside our room. Whether it was from the previous guests or from the other rooms who decided to leave it outside our door, it wasn't picked up until the next day when we added our Starbucks cups so it can be noticed.

I, unfortunately have a "clinic eye" and while I don't expect spotless for any hotel room (no matter how cheap or expensive) at least I expect it to be clean or give me a sense of being cleaned.

When I travel, I carry disinfecting wipes because I like to clean all surfaces, including toilet seat.

This is the first time I go into a Hilton hotel and didn't find the room properly cleaned or at least that looked clean. I found coffee stains on the floor near the fridge, crumbs on the coffee station, fridge was dirty inside (food stains and hair), bathroom sink and surrounding areas with stains from either washing hands with soap or from brushing teeth, dust/dry grass near the transition from tile to carpet, no "privacy" door sign, and empty shower gel and conditioner (found out in the middle of showering). I had to call front desk after showering (glad I had my soap so I could finish showering) and housekeeping brought the bottles, but just handed them to me and did not replace the empty ones.

I checked the bed and the sheets appeared to be clean (didn't find hairs that didn't belong to us).

If I had a vaccum with me I would have vaccumed the whole room.

I believe that the majority of people staying at hotels look for these two major things: room cleanliness and customer service.

We also like to reuse our towels and prefer not to have our room tidied by housekeeping but because our room didn't have or was missing the privacy door sign, hk came in and provided clean towels and made the bed for us (which we didn't mind, but again we like to reuse towels to help save water).

We feel that the location was nice and close to the places we wanted to go, and the area was very quiet. We are thinking about coming back to this hotel and hopefully this review helps management improve the experience for our future stays and for other guests.

The guests who took the room after us at least will have every surface...

Got a room upgrade that was supposed to face the forest but it was on the fifth floor facing the parking lot and the roof of the main building. I commented on that as I had so many additional random charges on my one night stay the next day when I went to the check in desk to address all the extra random charges. They did tell me that they keep an extra $100 hold until I check out, I agreed to that AND I didn’t realize until I checked in that they charge you $10 a day for parking and there was hardly any parking available as they had one whole parking lot closed off to any guests. For some reason, they couldn’t really explain why there was another $90.50 charge to my card and an additional random $9.50 in addition to the agreed upon $100 hold. Also, I would have been prepared for the parking charge had their phones been working at that location. The day before I checked and the day of my check in I tried calling them all day then called an Honors customer service at the main number and she tried calling and she couldn’t get through so there was no way of calling them to see if they received my upgrade or what was covered for the upgrade, etc etc Really, does it make a difference being an Honors member any more? Having to walk so far to my room from my car and paying $10 a day on top of that, to a room that should’ve had a forest view isn’t worth it..it’s not a metro area like San Franciscoand there’s plenty of parking space if they hadn’t closed off a huge parking lot for no apparent reason. As I was walking back to my car I smelled heavy cigarette smoke, there’s a designated smoking place for guests but is close to the rooms but there were two women on the 6th floor on their balcony that actually faces the forest, with the slider door to the room wide open. I watched them both sitting on their patio chairs smoking away with the smoke going back into the room cause the door is wide open 😒 That balcony room is an upgrade and faces the forest and thinking about if I had the room next door I would have to contend with their selfish smoking with their slider door open. I feel sorry for Anyone else checking into that room after they leave if they are non smokers, which most of us are. The restaurant service for dinner was not good at all. I wanted to pay cash on my dinner and not put it on my room charge because they add on so much when you do that. It was an expensive dinner for what I got.. steak way over cooked, cut into thin slices and maybe 6 slices with some strange gooey sauce on top and oh what slow and lousy service and not professional at all..I gave the server cash and he kept saying he didn’t have change but I wasn’t going to pay him 50% for gratuity since it certainly wasn’t worth 20% which is what I was going to give him anyway.. So he pretty much was not going to find me the rest of my change from my bill. What has happened to Hilton? Is this really what guests should expect? So taking a shower in my room… water came out as a trickle! It took forever to wash my hair or get the shampoo out and I could hear the housekeeping trying clean the shower next door and then my shower temperature and trickle stream was affected by that next door. I expect these sort of experiences from a motel but this is supposed to be an upscale Hilton. I wished I had stayed up the mountain at another hotel that I know of and have stayed in before and would be less $ and more comfortable beds, showers that work properly.. with tubs and half the cost and they don’t charge for parking. Honors rewards? Is this how you reward us? The manager sort of rolls his eyes when you tell him that you’re a member. Update; So I called the number that the Hilton rep that replied on this review wrote that I could call the number below to be assisted further and they refuse to help and I now have an extra random charge...

This was a nightmare of a hotel to stay at, I would recommend you steer clear of this hotel to avoid the headaches.

They are way overpriced

They do not have have smart televisions so you are limited to very few options for shows and you cannot connect to Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, etc. and you cannot mirror your device to the screen.

Their public computers are in the open so if you have sensitive information for business you need to check on everyone can see it.

The outlets, at least in our room, were very loose and our chargers kept slipping out, this seems like a potential electrical fire hazard.

The buffet, which is included in most other Hilton hotels, was an additional charge and the options are limited in comparison to other Hiltons. Not only that, but they double charged us for the buffet. As a silver member I prepaid for every day to include the breakfast buffet and was provided vouchers which I gave to the hostess when they provided our bill each morning. The staff also took it upon themselves to provide a tip that was not authorized that they felt they deserved. I called to discuss the overcharge and they assured me it would be corrected, all they did was rearrange the bill to eliminate the wording of being charged double for the buffet so that it looked like they were removing the charges, but they still double charged us. I now have a pending dispute with my bank for these ridiculous charges.

In the bathrooms of the hotel rooms they have motion sensor lights, which is the most idiotic place to have them. Not only that, but the timers are set for the minimum duration, I guess so they can save money. The lights kept turning off at the worst times such as while using the restroom or showering. I have a number of medical conditions and was left in complete darkness while showering, this is absolutely unacceptable and a huge liability. Luckily my wife was in our hotel room so I banged on the walls in a panic until she was able to help me. We told the front desk and they seemed to brush it off like it was a non issue and sent a “maintenance” person to “fix” the timing on the sensor, but he didn’t do anything, literally, he walked in, looked at the sensor, did something on his phone and walked out, nothing was done.

Since the problem with the sensor persisted, we fixed it ourselves and I feel we should have a healthy discount for the inconvenience and having the hassle of fixing the timer of the sensor ourselves. If you are brave enough to stay at this hotel and have this problem too, pry the bottom button portion of the light off and turn the timer dial all the way clockwise, this will max out the timer, then just replace the cover for the button. The sensors were also caked with dirt so I also cleaned them while I had them off, another thing I shouldn’t have to do.

Attitudes seemed mediocre and like guests were put on the back burner and as though there was little concern to address my complaints and requests, though I’m sure the staff is underpaid so they probably have little incentive.

To summarize, if I were to consider staying here again, they need to change to smart televisions, get rid of the motion sensor switches in the bathrooms, either don’t charge extra for the buffet or charge less and stop double charging and feeling entitled to give themselves tips, they need to move the public computers to a more discreet location, and they need to do a more regular deep cleaning especially of the bathrooms, oh and the hvac system wouldn’t get to the set temperature so that needs to be...