I seem to have pretty bad luck with hotels, especially those in larger cities (which was why I praised the San Francisco Marriott Union Square in my review which you can find here ). In previous trips to Philadelphia, we always stayed at the Courtyard Marriott Philadelphia Downtown and always enjoyed it. For this particular weekend, that hotel was unfortunately booked. On our most recent trip to Philadelphia, my husband and I booked the Hilton Garden Inn Philadelphia Center City (1100 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).
When we booked the room, we opted to do the Advance Purchase to get the best rate since we knew our travel plans would not change. This basically means that you pay in full in advance. No changes are allowed, no credits will be given, completely non refundable. With that said, when we checked in we didn't expect to have to give a credit card or anything. We were wrong. They require a credit card in case you damage the room or charge anything to the room. Okay, that's understandable and I didn't have a problem with it. But what if we didn't have a credit card with us? What if we assumed since we pre-paid we didn't need a credit card? I expressed my feelings to the woman who checked us in. She basically looked at me like I was a piece of dirt and ignored me. Fine. I was annoyed. We got our room keys and left to go to our room.
I had requested (about a month in advance) a high floor room, preferably with a view of the city. I was assured this would be noted on my reservation and that it shouldn't be a problem to accomidate since they weren't at capacity. I called about a week in advance and was assured this was noted on my reservation and there shouldn't be an issue with my request. Weren't we surprised to enter our room to find we had a beautiful view...of a parking lot! The room itself was clean, so I wasn't about to argue about the view...I just accepted it.
Fast foward to about midnight. We get back to the room from the concert, take showers and want to just go to sleep since we were exhausted after traveling and the concert. Side note, keep in mind the ringing you have in your ears after a concert making all noises muffled for a while. I think we fell asleep about 1:00 only to be woken up NUMEROUS times by the people in the room next to ours. They were obviously having some type of party and being extremely loud. I called the front desk and was assured someone would come up to tell them to be quiet. My husband and I listened for the knock at their door (since you could hear basically everything through the walls) and was angered when 15 minutes passed with nothing. I called the front desk again and was told that someone had in fact gone PAST the room but didn't hear any noise so there was no reason to disturb the guests. I told them to make sure someone came up and if they couldn't hear the noise from the hallway then they could certainly come into our room and listen to them carrying on. I was assured that wasn't necessary and someone would talk to the guests. About 10 minutes passed and I heard the knock at their door (actually heard the knock). The guests were told someone was complaining about their noise levels. That was it. The guy left withour really giving a warning. Needless to say, they got louder. I called again, and wasn't surprised when no one came to follow up on my noise complaint. We turned the TV on to try to drown the sound out, but didn't get to sleep until about 4:00. At about 6:00 the guests to our other side must have woken up because the sound of their bathroom door opening and closing woke us up. By this point we just wanted to get out of there. We got dressed and checked out. We expressed our dissatisfaction with the hotel and we weren't even offered an apology. We were too exhausted to argue for a refund, so we just left.
I would never in a million years give this hotel a second chance, nor would I recommend it to anyone. I would actually recommend staying in your car over staying in this hotel. The walls are paper thin and the staff doesn't care if their guests are satisfied.
While my experience wasn't as bad as yours, I can definitely see your point about the walls being thin and the staff not caring too much about guests. Luckily for us, the people in the rooms next to ours weren't rowdy at night, but I could still hear them talking.
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me know I wasn't the only one who had a negative experience.