Hilton Garden Inn Williamsburg — Hotel in Williamsburg

Halfway through a 2-day stay during the course of a honeymoon roadtrip, we entered the lobby of the hotel to find ourselves greeted by Amanda who flatly stated "You failed to disclose that you had a cat, and so, unfortunately, we're going to have to charge an additional fine of $250 to your room." No questions, just straight into accusation.

Fair enough, we did bring 2 cats with us. However, as the website did state (as was captured via screenshot), pets were allowed at the property, up to 2, either cats or dogs. When we pointed this out, we were told that they'd changed their policy and had not yet updated the website. How were we to know that?

Well, according to the hotel, we should have brought the animals to the front desk for inspection when we'd checked-in the previous evening. Of course, that's not listed in any policy (we downloaded the policies), but as the GM rudely told us in follow-up conversation, "It's just common sense."

Side note: a few days later, they updated the website to reflect "NO CATS." That's neat. Yay for screen-capture and metadata.

We had checked-in electronically, but apparently this particular Hilton doesn't think that's sufficient, and indeed thinks that if you do so, when brining pets, you're actively attempting to trick them by not submitting your pets to inspection. Clever. Of course, never mind the fact that the animals had been declared when we registered for the stay online, and were carried in right past two smiling employees, one an assistant manager, along with a litter box. Sure, I suppose we're being tricky.

So finally, after the unpleasant confrontation, we received a room call from the front desk stating that after we checked-out, and the room had been inspected, we would receive the $200 back. In the meantime, we'd called corporate and filed a complaint. Corporate customer service stated that they'd never heard of that specific $200 fine, that electronic check-in was common across properties and not discouraged, and that the entire confrontation seemed unwarranted. Corporate would follow-up shortly.

Side note: That second day, after being accused of lying to the hotel about our cats, we stayed in for the night. We skipped the entirety of our second afternoon of outings in Williamsburg because we were uncomfortable leaving our pets alone in the room when we were so clearly being told that we were not wanted there. It should be noted that we were were also told that if we checked out that day, it was past check-out and so we would be billed in full for the room. So... we stayed.

Lo and behold, several days pass after checking out, the charge hadn't been reversed and we hadn't yet heard anything, so we called the hotel. They now claimed that our cats had urinated all over the carpet and the upholstery and that they were keeping the penalty charge. The GM said the stains were right there in front of the door as soon as they entered. When asked if they had photographs of the stains she said, "Well, they weren't visible." Of course, when told that we had made a recording of the entire hotel room before we left, she said she was done talking and hung up.

Another side-note: Apparently, according to the GM, the cats urinated "all over the room" while we were sitting in it? She, of course, didn't know that we'd stayed in the whole second day due to the hostility of her front-desk employee.

Not only were they accusatory and hostile at the outset, they resorted to outright lying rather than giving an inch toward conceding that they'd made a mistake.

SO, now we wait on corporate resolution. Both the GM and the front-desk attendant are hostile and disingenuous and, for whatever reason, hell-bent on placing $200 over the security of their own jobs.

We're diamond members, stay at Hiltons with great frequency and never travel without our cats. The Hilton Garden Inn in Williamsburg is the one and only time we've had such a...

All parking except for diamond members is around back. So either you have to walk all the way around the building or you have to enter through the fitness center entrance which has multiple doors that you have to use a card on.. So if you have luggage it's annoying. And the steps prevent you from using a luggage cart until you're already in the hotel, and those are of course only at the main entrance which is pretty typical. That alone isn't that bad, just slightly annoying. We were supposed to get vouchers for breakfast. We did not. The first day no one questioned it. The second day one of our party got stopped by breakfast security who was so rude and aggressive in demeanor it felt like an interrogation... Even after the d Front desk clerk told her it was ok, she continued to glare the party member down until she was handed the actual physical voucher. It was very awkward and unnecessary and no one else in the entire dining room was questioned. I believe she was questioned because she chose to take her breakfast back to the room which we called ahead to find out if it was OK first and they said it was fine. The dining room is in the main lobby which is very off-putting and everything is just super close together. Their food was not hot despite being in heated servers and they didn't have half the items out, and when asked about them they just kept saying they were coming. We finally finished without the items and gave up. The potatoes were very undercooked. I will say that at least things were seasoned alright. Room service was confusing. The menu they have in the room is not correct and instead of providing a correct one they tell you to go online.... But can't tell you the website to go to. Spoiler... It's not the hotel website... No where in the room is this info listed. The beds were budget at best. Rock hard... Half way through the night you felt the lumps and bumps so hard you'd have to adjust. They do give plenty of pillows and everything looked fairly clean... The light switch to the bathroom in one room would constantly trip the breaker when turned on, and both room toilets ran constantly. The pantry... Which states it has snacks toiletries and microwave meals was all but empty... The most stocked items were advil and Tylenol.... We ordered door dash for several meals. It was 50/50 as to if they allowed the dasher to bring the items to the room. And the on the last morning we ordered breakfast to avoid the whole embarrassment and conflict with breakfast and they stopped the dasher, then once whey had us coming down already.... THEN they sent the dasher up... We arrived at the desk for the clerk to say 'Oh I sent him up...' then why tell us we had to come down? Each time we entered the hotel the clerks would busy themselves in a different room or turn their backs. I'm not sure how I felt about that. On the one hand we didn't need their attention, but on the other hand it seemed extremely rude that none of them smiled, acknowledged or even looked at us, just immediately scattered the minute we looked in their direction. There were two clerks who were great. Always smiled and if we did ask a question they were super responsive but the rest seemed just lackluster and unwelcoming. I like to stay in my room, and the rest of my party was there for a conference so they were hardly even an issue, but even with limited interaction the staff was mostly dismissive and unhelpful. I'm fairly sympathetic to housekeeping because they have like 3 hours to turn over any rooms for the day. However, they blocked the entire hallway to the point it was either move their cart or ask them to move it and you didn't know what room they were in to ask them. On the last day they didn't even knock on my door they just used the key to come in. I was in the bathroom and was like hey! It wasn't even close to checkout so I didn't have my do not disturb hanger on yet. Overall.. Would not...

After staying at this location for 16 weeks, I feel confident that I can review with objectivity based on my time at the hotel. From the exterior of the hotel, it appears to be kept nice and presents well The lobby of the hotel is nice with appropriate accommodations at the bar and in the breakfast area. The opportunities begin at the elevator of which only one of the two was functional for the 16 weeks that I was at the location. The nonfunctional elevator had at least two weeks of service completed, but it did not run during my time at the hotel. Other guest that have stayed at this hotel said it’s been over a year since both of the elevators worked. If there is minimal occupancy at the hotel, this is not an issue, but when tour groups or military came in, you could wait up to five minutes for the elevator to make it cycle. The duration of my stay was done on the top floor, so my comments about the rooms are related to that floor only. Each room has unique and special issues that need to be addressed by the owners of the hotel. The furnishings in each of the rooms were old and well worn showing the years of use. The AC units were hit or miss based on the room that I was assigned. In the west facing rooms often the AC did not get the room to the desired level of temperature. Most weeks that I stayed I would have to clean the AC filters for the window unit as they had not been cleaned frequently enough leaving too much dust for the clean air to filter through. In several rooms, the bathroom fixtures were no longer attached to the base unit so they would come off in your hand when you want to turn on the water at the sink or the tub. Depending on the room that you receive, sometimes the blackout shades would go up and down, and sometimes they would not. The bed linens were typically clean, but they were old and had seen better days. The last room I stayed in had multiple issues outside of the faucet handle coming off at the sink and the AC filters needing to be cleaned. There was a hole drilled into the wall of the room that had been closed up by someone taking a tissue and folding it up and sliding it into the hole. Outside of the security concern for having a hole drilled into the next room, it just presents poorly that the owners of this property did not take the time and effort to close it and patch over the area. In the gym area, there were several deadweights that were missing from the set that was acknowledged in our second week at the hotel but not replaced 14 weeks later. For the most part, the cook to order breakfast was good with a good offering of eggs, meats, potatoes, yogurt, and cereal that would accommodate most people for their breakfast needs. The staff at the hotel made up for most of the shortcomings of the hotel itself. There were a few occasions where I was able to select a room on the app only to arrive and find I had been assigned a different room. Several times the response was the room you selected did not get cleaned since we did not have a certain level of occupancy for the night. On the two occasions that I left items in the room, they were not located by the cleaning or management staff. Overall, to maintain a standard of integrity within the Hilton brand, corporate needs to look at this property to determine what actions will be required by the owners to restore the hotel to Hilton...