Okay, here's the good -- and there IS some good -- and the BIG bad for me, which I hadn't seen described in any of the reviews before I booked. It would have been important to me to know, so I am writing this review.
The good, you already know... location, location, location. If you have an early flight out, this is the most convenient place to be the night before that flight. Beds are comfortable. Sound-proofing is good. Flat-panel TV looked nice, but we never turned it on. Check-in clerk was very friendly and efficient.
A couple of "small bads" are the trash baskets, which are "designery" but almost unusable (due to a very narrow, elongated shape)... the very high Internet fees,,, and that the airport restaurants are very overpriced, with NO other options for you to choose (not that you would WANT to eat at the airport, but if you did, everything is on the other side of the security barrier, so those places are not an option). You could catch a cab somewhere, I suppose. We had a lot of time to kill, and we decided while waiting for the heat to come on (more about that next) that we might as well take the train back into the city to find dinner and to pick up some food for breakfast, as neither of us wanted to pay $22.00 for breakfast.
But the BIG bad about this hotel was bizarre to me... in this over $100-a-night hotel, we were not accorded a simple amenity that is common to every low-budget motel room in the country -- namely, the ability to control the temperature in our own room.
There is a box on the wall next to the heating/cooling vent that LOOKS like a thermostat... but isn't. It has a dial that says "Warmer/Cooler," and a fan setting with basically "On/Off" and "Lo/Med/High." However, nothing that you do controls room temperature... the only control you have is to turn the fan off.
I was sick and traveling with a bad cold, and had periods of being feverish, sweaty, and chilled. The room was too cold for me from the outset, when we checked in in the afternoon. We turned the dial all the way to warmer and waited for warm air to start coming out of the vent. After 10 minutes of nothing but cool air, we called Guest Services (this was around 3:00 p.m.), because we thought we had a defective thermostat and might need to change rooms. The gentleman who answered the phone told me that while the system LOOKS like a room-controlled thermostat, it is not... basically, he said, the entire hotel is cooled or heated in a block. He said that the building, despite its very modern appearance and rooms, was "a very old building." Right now, he explained, the hotel was set on "cooling," but would be switched over to "heating" at 8:00 or 9:00 pm. In the meantime, he advised simply turning off the fan entirely to keep cool air from continuing to flow into the room. We did so.
We kept checking and waiting for heat throughout the evening. By 10:00 p.m., nothing had changed. I called back to Guest Services and reached a different gentleman, who told me that the hotel would switch to heating at 11:30 p.m.
This did not happen. I woke up at 2:00 in the morning, shivering violently, with the heat STILL not on. This time, I didn't even get an answer when I rang Guest Services. The worst thing was that I HAD to leave the fan on... and, thus, the cold air blowing on us... all night long so that when/if the hotel finally DID switch over to "heat" mode, as they'd repeatedly promised and then failed to do, we'd actually get heat in the room... which we wouldn't if the fan was off.
My guess, based on waking up repeatedly, is that the heat finally switched on around 5:00 in the morning... i.e., about when the hotel might expect its guests to be waking up for earliest flights. They probably assume guests don't notice the temperature while asleep. Maybe this is usually true.
It was a miserable night for me, and I felt particularly upset about being lied to. If the hotel's policy is not to turn heat on until 5:00 in the morning, guest services should not be stringing guests along and assuring them the heat will be coming on early (or later) in the evening. I'd have been unhappy even if I hadn't been sick, but particularly under the circumstances, I'd have appreciated simple honesty from the Hilton staff. Especially by the second time I'd called, I'd have appreciated their offering me a portable room heater or something instead of just shining me on.
This one "big bad" really ruined this hotel experience for me.... otherwise, I'd generally have felt positive about this hotel. If you tend to run cold or hot, be aware that you will not have control of the temperature in the room you are paying top dollar for.
The check-out invoice invited us to share our experience and suggestions for improvements with the manager, and I will definitely be writing to him or her about this. I'll come back and post again if I get any kind of response.
I would also like to note that I believe the other hotel we stayed in on this trip -- namely, the Hampton Majestic in town -- is also a Hilton property. That hotel was wonderful in every respect, and I will review it separately. I mention that here to make it clear that I have no particular bone to pick with Hilton outside of this miserable experience.
