I'd like to know what experience you all have with Hilton properties revealing major infrastructure compromises / outages in sneaky ways.
I was at the Washington Hilton above Dupont Circle this week. Two-night stay. Checked in Tuesday evening, room fine, stay uneventful. I got back to the room Wednesday night after work and found a letter from the GM on the desk announcing that "annual maintenance to our electrical system" would be done between 1100pm and 600am, and guests should expect rooms to go dark for some or all of that period.
"If you plan to be awake during these hours... we will gladly provide you with a mini-flashlight and/or glow stick in advance."
Really? REALLY, Hilton?
I called down and was able to get moved to a relatively unaffected room, although the TV service went out for most of the night. I had to stay up and work, but that's not really the point. If I wanted to lie in darkness and isolation all night, I'd have brought a tent with me and headed for Rock Creek Park.
At checkout Thursday I got a wan apology and an insistence that "the whole hotel was affected" (incorrect), but no offer of compensation. If this had ben an HI I would have played the 100% satisfaction card, for sure.
I think it's way unacceptable to spring this kind of thing on guests after they've settled in and may be less apt to quack. They should be taking affected rooms out of inventory, pure and simple.
The GM's letter said the overnight blackouts would continue all week.
Has this ever happened to you? What did you do about it, if anything? Am I overreacting to think electricity is a baseline amenity at an alleged 4* hotel? I was pretty steamed, as much about the deceptive, grudging manner in which this was handled as by the outage itself.
I was at the Washington Hilton above Dupont Circle this week. Two-night stay. Checked in Tuesday evening, room fine, stay uneventful. I got back to the room Wednesday night after work and found a letter from the GM on the desk announcing that "annual maintenance to our electrical system" would be done between 1100pm and 600am, and guests should expect rooms to go dark for some or all of that period.
"If you plan to be awake during these hours... we will gladly provide you with a mini-flashlight and/or glow stick in advance."
Really? REALLY, Hilton?
I called down and was able to get moved to a relatively unaffected room, although the TV service went out for most of the night. I had to stay up and work, but that's not really the point. If I wanted to lie in darkness and isolation all night, I'd have brought a tent with me and headed for Rock Creek Park.
At checkout Thursday I got a wan apology and an insistence that "the whole hotel was affected" (incorrect), but no offer of compensation. If this had ben an HI I would have played the 100% satisfaction card, for sure.
I think it's way unacceptable to spring this kind of thing on guests after they've settled in and may be less apt to quack. They should be taking affected rooms out of inventory, pure and simple.
The GM's letter said the overnight blackouts would continue all week.
Has this ever happened to you? What did you do about it, if anything? Am I overreacting to think electricity is a baseline amenity at an alleged 4* hotel? I was pretty steamed, as much about the deceptive, grudging manner in which this was handled as by the outage itself.