Hilton HHonors - Serious Embassy Safety Issue

This is my first post after reading these forums for several years. I am pasting in a copy of the letters I sent to the general manager of the Philadelphia Embassy Suites and also copied to Hilton Corportation. I am shocked that I haven't received a response. Any thoughts?

One of the reasons that I booked a room at an Embassy Suites rather than an unknown chain was to ensure the safely of my family. I am quite angry that they did not provide this safely, and I am quite annoyed that they haven't even seen fit to respond to my letters.

As a public service, I strongly urge all parents of young children to inspect all hotel cribs before using them! As a matter of principle, I urge people to avoid the Embassy Suites chain until they respond to my letters.


Letter to Hilton Corporate:
Hilton Hotels
Attn: John Ingenito, President
755 Crossover Lane
Memphis, TN 38117

Please see the attached letter I sent to your Philadelphia Embassy Suites Hotel. I think that the safety concern raised in the letter justifies it being sent to corporate headquarters as well as the local property.

Child safety and the safety of hotel provided equipment in particular is extremely important. This is a very serious issue, and I would appreciate your response and information regarding what will be done to ensure that there are not repeat occurrences of what we experienced.

I am a gold HH member, and have been a diamond in the past. I expected more from Hilton, and I am interested in your thoughts on this matter.


Letter to Philadelphia Embassy Suites:
Embassy Suites Hotel
Attn: General Manager
1776 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy
Philadelphia, PA 19103


Dear Manager:

I am writing you to be certain that you are aware of a scary, dangerous occurrence that took place during our stay at your hotel this past Saturday night (room XXXX 5/29/04).

At the time of making the reservation, I requested that the hotel provide a crib. When we arrive in the room, the crib was all set up and ready for our daughter to sleep in (seemed pretty good at this point). However, after getting our daughter ready for bed, my wife went to move the crib to the area of the room she felt would be best for our daughter. Well, you can image our outrage when the act of gently pulling the crib across the room caused it to completely COLLAPSE and FOLD IN on itself.

Thankfully, we had not yet put our daughter into this hotel provided crib, and there was not an injury or worse. When I examined the crib, it was obvious that there were parts missing which were integral to the safe function of this crib. Further, the person setting up the crib would have had to notice these flagrant safety issues – one side of the crib’s bottom simply had no latch – only empty screw holes.

I did make the manager on duty aware of this incident, but I feel that there are some questions that still need to be answered. I look forward to your response to these questions:

1) What your hotel policy is regarding the inspection of equipment, especially equipment intending for use by young children and infants.

2) I would like to urge you to implement a training program to ensure that your people are knowledgeable enough in the future that such a dangerous even does not occur.

3) Since I am a frequent guest at Hilton Family Hotels, please advise what the corporate policy is for inspection of hotel provided children’s and infant’s equipment.

Welcome to FT, BJfly. I think your letter is very good, particularly because you ask pertinent questions of them. If the response you get is not satisfactory, you might forward the letters to the local office of whichever department is responsible for Health & Safety in the US.

The other thing I'd do is to send a copy to the chain's Risk Manager. Any organization that size will have someone who's very interested in loss control and that includes avoiding lawsuits. Typically they "self-insure" a big chunk of their liability losses so they can't just pass it off to the insurance company. It's also really ugly to have the type of lawsuit an accident with that crib would produce made public. Let them know, too, that you contacted the manager. He/she needs a lesson in loss control.

Glad your daughter is OK.

""" As a matter of principle, I urge people to avoid the Embassy Suites chain until they respond to my letters."""


I appreciate your concern and distress. But urging everyone to avoid them until they respond to you - give me a break.

""" As a matter of principle, I urge people to avoid the Embassy Suites chain until they respond to my letters."""


I appreciate your concern and distress. But urging everyone to avoid them until they respond to you - give me a break.Rather, I would suggest that you ensure that cribs are safe. You should test their assembly and immediately express concerns if you have any. I see issues like this as a training failure. The individual putting the crib together probably did not have the right training or instruction to do so. ES, and any other hotel, should ensure proper training for this. Next time, ask if the crib was installed properly, and test to see if it safe.

As scary an experience as this was, it could have happened anywhere. Perhaps the missing parts were due to a disgruntled employee who actually set the crib up and the hotel has regular inspections of said equipment? (Unlikely, but possible). Perhaps the hotel chain has rigid inspection requirements but one particular property isn't following proper guidelines? Not excusing the condition of the crib (nor making light of the situation), does not a parent have some sort of duty to give a quick look into what he is placing his precious cargo?

It does seem to me that a lot of the skepticism expressed here is justified.

The OP claims to have been reading FT for years, yet s/he has not seen fit to share any useful information with the FT community until now. And for his/her first post, the OP offer not only a complaint, but "urges" all FTers to avoid Embassy Suites. What is that all about?

While it's possible that the OP has provided us with a full and accurate recounting of the story, it's also possible that the people at Embassy Suites might have a different story to tell. This being the Internet, we probably won't have the chance to know one way or the other.

The OP claims to have been reading FT for years, yet s/he has not seen fit to share any useful information with the FT community until now.


No different than me, I read FT for a couple of years before signing up and posting.

It does seem to me that a lot of the skepticism expressed here is justified.

The OP claims to have been reading FT for years, yet s/he has not seen fit to share any useful information with the FT community until now. And for his/her first post, the OP offer not only a complaint, but "urges" all FTers to avoid Embassy Suites. What is that all about?

While it's possible that the OP has provided us with a full and accurate recounting of the story, it's also possible that the people at Embassy Suites might have a different story to tell. This being the Internet, we probably won't have the chance to know one way or the other.
I found FT in the summer of 1998 right after it started up and was afraid to post anything until I registered in 2001. I have to be the worlds longest lurker here ;).

I had no useful information to share. I was learning the ropes by reading diligently on a daily basis :D.

Another scary situation is when they put an adult size sheet on a crib. Our grand daughter got wrapped up in one..... Thank God it was while we were awake.

I think the entire hotel industry needs to take a serious look at cribs, and child safety. IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sheesh... and people wonder why I waited several years before posting anything.

The real issue here is that I am attempting to ensure that no other child will be put in the same situation - that is the reason I posted my message. Had Embassy Suites responded to my letters stating that they agree this is a serious issue and they would send a corporate memo to each location asking that cribs be inspected and that the people setting them up be trained, then I never would have posted. But since Embassy indicated no interest in rectifying the situation for future guests, and I think that this is a serious problem, I posted.

It would be tragic if anyone was ever injured for this reason. If I didn't at least warn people, I would feel terrible and guilty. Thank you to the person who recommended that in addition to checking the crib itself, to check the correct sheets that have been used. If you have ever watched a toddler sleep, then you can appreciate how easy it would be for a baby to pull up an adult sized sheet and sufficate.

To whomever suggested that this might be the work of a disgruntled employee - what a horrible thought. I could see disgruntled employees doing all sort of things - but to potentially cause injury to an infant or toddler - it makes me shudder.

I agree that as a parent I will from here on out check the cribs myself. But as an analogy, after you get your car serviced at the dealership, do you ask them if the lug nuts were put on correctly? How frequently have you checked them yourself? Again, I will be taking the extra time to check things out myself in the future, but it SHOULD be reasonable to expect that the hotel did it right, and that the hotel didn't use shoddy, broken equipment.

The situation I described happened exactly as I recounted it. If the community doesn't believe me, that is ok. But I hope that maybe I have prevented some future injury, and I hope that eventually Embassy Suites and other hotel chains get this discusssion chain sent to them.

BJfly

BJFly - by now you've seen how the replies vary accross the board, so welcome, the water can get warm... ;)

I do think the poster who suggested you send the correspondence to the Risk Manager is right on. SOme low-level employee might have some classification system for leters like that - but a risk manager would definitely wake up and take some action, IMO (I do some training work with risk management professionals.)

You might do a bit of research and find out who has the franchise for that ES - it might not be a chain-owned hotel, that might make a difference. I see they have their own website...

Embassy Suites Hotel Philadelphia Center City (http://www.philadelphiacentercity.embsuites.com/)

Good for you in advocating for a wake-up; it might have been a one-off mistake, but it might be indicative of some weakness in the hotel's training, etc. It might not be easy to get a response (and correction,) but you are guaranteed no respone if you don't persist.



Sheesh... and people wonder why I waited several years before posting anything.

The real issue here is that I am attempting to ensure that no other child will be put in the same situation - that is the reason I posted my message. Had Embassy Suites responded to my letters stating that they agree this is a serious issue and they would send a corporate memo to each location asking that cribs be inspected and that the people setting them up be trained, then I never would have posted. But since Embassy indicated no interest in rectifying the situation for future guests, and I think that this is a serious problem, I posted.

It would be tragic if anyone was ever injured for this reason. If I didn't at least warn people, I would feel terrible and guilty. Thank you to the person who recommended that in addition to checking the crib itself, to check the correct sheets that have been used. If you have ever watched a toddler sleep, then you can appreciate how easy it would be for a baby to pull up an adult sized sheet and sufficate.

To whomever suggested that this might be the work of a disgruntled employee - what a horrible thought. I could see disgruntled employees doing all sort of things - but to potentially cause injury to an infant or toddler - it makes me shudder.

I agree that as a parent I will from here on out check the cribs myself. But as an analogy, after you get your car serviced at the dealership, do you ask them if the lug nuts were put on correctly? How frequently have you checked them yourself? Again, I will be taking the extra time to check things out myself in the future, but it SHOULD be reasonable to expect that the hotel did it right, and that the hotel didn't use shoddy, broken equipment.

The situation I described happened exactly as I recounted it. If the community doesn't believe me, that is ok. But I hope that maybe I have prevented some future injury, and I hope that eventually Embassy Suites and other hotel chains get this discusssion chain sent to them.

BJfly

As a matter of principle, you should sue. The settlement should pay for your next vacation. It seems fair to me.

BJFly, Welcome to FT. I say welcome cuz while you've been 'lurking' you've now decided to post. I hope you will continue to do so in the future & not just make this a 1-up.

Wideman, IMO you were off the mark on this one, as beergut & mary2e also mentioned they lurked long before posting. rutdog, hope you were kidding.

BJFly, having said the above, I do think it was inappropriate for you to say avoid an entire chain based on one experience. In fairness, think about absolutes before posting. Cheers.

SkiAdcock and beergut, I apologize for not making clearer my point:

I have no problem with someone lurking for eons before making a post. I do become skeptical when someone's 1st post is a call for all FTers to avoid an entire chain because of an event that the 1st-time-poster relates.

It's that 1 sentence from the OP ("...I urge people to avoid the Embassy Suites chain until they respond to my letters.") which, in combination with an absence of any previous postings from which to judge the OP's credibility, that crosses the line for me.

I surely make no suggestion as to how anyone else ought to evaluate the OP.

As a matter of principle, you should sue. The settlement should pay for your next vacation. It seems fair to me.
For what purpose??? :confused:

BJFly, welcome to FT BTW. :) You certainly got some FTs attention. Good start, don't let us by in the way of good dialogue.

I understand the analogy between the car repair and checking the crib but there is a huge difference. You can actually check the crib. Shake it around a bit, press on the mattress, pull on the sides and see what happens. Remember that the lowest paid employee probably got to put it together!

I agree that as a parent I will from here on out check the cribs myself. But as an analogy, after you get your car serviced at the dealership, do you ask them if the lug nuts were put on correctly? How frequently have you checked them yourself? Again, I will be taking the extra time to check things out myself in the future, but it SHOULD be reasonable to expect that the hotel did it right, and that the hotel didn't use shoddy, broken equipment.


BJfly


The car mechanic is (or should be) much more qualified than the customer to service and repair the car.

It's reversed in your case. The parent is much more qualified to set-up and check a crib than many of the hotel employees. Do you think the hotel has a crib specialist?

ES should reply BUT I think a better suggestion is for parents to double check the cribs. I don't think this type of problem is limited to ES. I doubt avoiding ES will do anything to eliminate the risk.

I feel your pain in this topic. I know I made sure all cribs were up to par prior to placing my kids into them.

You said you talked to the manager on duty. What was the response you got from them? I find it very unprofessional that they didn't respond back to you right away. How long did you stay at the property? Was there a new crib given to you that worked correctly?

If you told the manager of the problem, they most surely posted this in the managers report I hope.

I'm really surprised you have not heard back from them. It has been over three weeks so this is really upsetting to me also.

You said you talked to the manager on duty. What was the response you got from them? I find it very unprofessional that they didn't respond back to you right away. How long did you stay at the property? Was there a new crib given to you that worked correctly?

If you told the manager of the problem, they most surely posted this in the managers report I hope.

I'm really surprised you have not heard back from them. It has been over three weeks so this is really upsetting to me also.

Since I still haven't heard back from either the local hotel or Hilton Corporation, I followed up on previous posters' recommendations and contacted risk management. It took a few phone calls, but I was finally given a name on the West Coast. The voice mail I got spelled out an e-mail address - I didn't actually speak with anyone. But I wrote an e-mail and attached the original letters (see end of this post for the e-mail).

Since people seem to be wondering what transpired for the rest of our stay (which was always scheduled to only be one night)... immediately after the crib collapsed, I moved it into the hallway outside the room and called the manager on duty. She seemed quite shocked when I described what happened, and offered to quickly supply us with another crib which would be "in pristine condition".

We actually had a pack and play in the trunk of the car because we would need it the next night. I told her that I no longer trusted the hotel cribs, and would prefer to use the pack and play. She had the bellman get it for us and bring it to the room. (I had tipped the bellman $5.00 for helping us get to the room earlier in the day, and I tipped another $5.00 when he helped us load the car the next morning, but I declined to tip him for bringing up my pack and play - do people think that $5.00 is a reasonable tip for bell assistance?). The pack and play arrived in less than 5 minutes, so she must have told them to hussle.

Anyway, there wasn't any mention of a room credit, any extra apology at checkout time, or even a call from the day manager in the morning, so I don't know if the incident got mentioned in the manager's report or not, but if it was, it didn't seem to make much of an impression.

Below is my email to risk management. I'll let everyone know if there is a reply or not.

BJfly
_______________
Hi Lori,

I am told that you are in charge of risk management for the hotels.

I had a very disturbing experience at the E.S. in Philadelphia involving a crib that was set up for my daughter that collapsed and was clearly defective.

I was so upset by this, that I sent letters to both the local property and to John Ingenito.

That was over 3 weeks ago, and I have yet to hear back.

Since you are in charge of risk management, I figure that this type of flagarent safety violation would be of particular concern to your department.

I am attaching the two letters I referenced above.

Please confirm your receipt of this email. I want to know that I have done something to reduce the likelihood of a baby being severly injured, and hopefully you can help to put new policies in place.

Thank you,
BJfly
____________________

Let's see the manager was shocked, offered to get you a new crib then arranged to get your portable crib sent from your car to your room in 5 minutes. Sounds like good service to me.

NO I DON'T THINK you were entitled to have your room discounted. These posts and your letters sound more like a shake down. Your heading (serious safety issue) has nothing to do with your problem, an employee not checking ONE CRIB.

I think a more appropriate thread would be to warn parents to check a crib no matter where they are.

BJFly - by now you've seen how the replies vary accross the board, so welcome, the water can get warm... ;)

I do think the poster who suggested you send the correspondence to the Risk Manager is right on. SOme low-level employee might have some classification system for leters like that - but a risk manager would definitely wake up and take some action, IMO (I do some training work with risk management professionals.)

You might do a bit of research and find out who has the franchise for that ES - it might not be a chain-owned hotel, that might make a difference. I see they have their own website...

Embassy Suites Hotel Philadelphia Center City (http://www.philadelphiacentercity.embsuites.com/)

Good for you in advocating for a wake-up; it might have been a one-off mistake, but it might be indicative of some weakness in the hotel's training, etc. It might not be easy to get a response (and correction,) but you are guaranteed no respone if you don't persist.


Here is the response I received from Risk Management. While not exactly what I was expecting to hear, it is somewhat refreshing to actually receive a response. From what other posters suggested, I thought that improving safety would have been a responsibility of risk management so as to lower their insurance premiums, but that is evidentally not at all the case at Hilton Corporation. I will post again if there is any further follow up.

And I do still agree with everyone that I will also be more careful myself in the future.
________________________
Dear BJfly,

I am forwarding your email to the Guest Assistance Department to address
your situation. They will follow-up with the General Manager at the
hotel and contact you.

The responsibility of safety issues is not handled by Risk Management;
we purchase the insurance policies for Hilton.

Lori

Lori XXXXXXX, Coordinator-Risk Mgmt.
Hilton Hotels Corporation

BJFly, It can't hurt for the GM to get a wake-up call from the apparently-misnamed "Risk Management" or another channel - as well as from a guest. IMO, a changed behavior is a better thing than a phoney response, anyway. Even a caveat on a card that brings a tired traveler's attention to the fact that "This crib was set up by a xxx employee. Please inspect it for safety and setup before use," would be a preventive move on their part.

I hope Risk Management understands that insurance will cost more if the number of claims and/or potentially claimable incidents increases... :rolleyes:

Here is the response I received from Risk Management. While not exactly what I was expecting to hear, it is somewhat refreshing to actually receive a response. From what other posters suggested, I thought that improving safety would have been a responsibility of risk management so as to lower their insurance premiums, but that is evidentally not at all the case at Hilton Corporation. I will post again if there is any further follow up.

And I do still agree with everyone that I will also be more careful myself in the future.
________________________
Dear BJfly,

I am forwarding your email to the Guest Assistance Department to address
your situation. They will follow-up with the General Manager at the
hotel and contact you.

The responsibility of safety issues is not handled by Risk Management;
we purchase the insurance policies for Hilton.

Lori

Lori XXXXXXX, Coordinator-Risk Mgmt.
Hilton Hotels Corporation

I got tired of waiting for a response to my letters and e-mails and called the General Manager of the hotel directly today. I left a v-mail, and she called me back about 4 hours later.

She was quite familiar with the situation (I didn't have to remind her of it or who I was, she recognized my name), and stated that she had absolutely sent me a reply and was shocked that I did not receive it. She is going to ask her assistant to find the reply tomorrow and resend it to me.

In brief, she said that she personally inspected the faulty crib, and that she had it in her office for a week. During that week, she circulated hotel staff through her office to review the situation and to review the gravity of the possible ramifications of providing unsafe cribs.

In the end, they determined that the problem wasn't actually that the crib was broken, but rather that the cribs were stored in such a manner that it was possible to "build" a crib with pieces from several separate ones, resulting in an unsafe situation (in this case, rather than include the piece that had a safety latch, a similar piece without a latch was used, so there was a critical connection missing).

She said that as a result of this they assembled each crib, certified its integrity, and then numbered each of its parts. So now, whenever cribs are to be assembled, all the staff has to do is match the numbers to ensure that they are picking the correct parts.

Anyway, while I am still disappointed that Hilton didn't reply to me, and I am somewhat surprised that I didn't receive a response that this person states they sent, I am quite heartened that this GM clearly did pay attention to this dangerous situation and has taken salient steps to prevent this from recurring.

Bottom line: Hilton's corporate attention to customer inquiries continues to be a disappointment. But I would certainly trust the cribs at the Philadelphia ES for sometime to come.

If I receive the resend that was promised, I consider this matter closed. The goal was to ensure that the safety of future very young guests, and I think this goal has been achieved.

BJfly.

Interesting timing. I had read part of this thread before, but it never clicked that it was the ES Philadelphia. I phoned this same GM this evening (she was still at the hotel around 8pm Philly time) about some issues at the hotel this past week. She was very friendly and nice, and concerned about my thoughts.

I felt she handled the situation with me very professionally, I hope she does with you also!

Sounds like the ES Philly has some work to do, and the GM has her work cut out for her - and seems to be handling these situations. Let's hope! ^

Interesting timing. I had read part of this thread before, but it never clicked that it was the ES Philadelphia. I phoned this same GM this evening (she was still at the hotel around 8pm Philly time) about some issues at the hotel this past week. She was very friendly and nice, and concerned about my thoughts.

I felt she handled the situation with me very professionally, I hope she does with you also!

Is it safe to stay at the Embassy Suites chain now?

Sounds like the ES Philly has some work to do, and the GM has her work cut out for her - and seems to be handling these situations. Let's hope! ^


There were some problems, but overall the staff was great. The housekeeper I had was great, I have never had one so good! It sounds kind of funny to say that, but she was helpful, attentive and friendly. I walked out for breakfast one am, and had only about 30 minutes before I had to be back for a meeting. She saw me, went right away to my room, and when I returned from breakfast was already all done.

While the room sizes on this hotel are good, the noise issue isn't. While sitting on the couch in the living room, I was able to easily hear the conversation from next door about their dinner plans, and when a phone rang next door, I jumped up to grab mine every time!

I cannot imagine not totally checking out a baby crib before placing the baby in it. That is a given, isn't it? The car mechanic analogy doesn't fly because the bellboys are not professional baby crib assemblers. They carry luggage. If I were the ES manager I would consider not offering cribs at all if all of this is the result. We always traveled with the equipment we needed for our 4 kids or we stayed home. JMHO

I cannot imagine not totally checking out a baby crib before placing the baby in it. That is a given, isn't it? The car mechanic analogy doesn't fly because the bellboys are not professional baby crib assemblers. They carry luggage. If I were the ES manager I would consider not offering cribs at all if all of this is the result. We always traveled with the equipment we needed for our 4 kids or we stayed home. JMHO

AMEN ^ ^ ^

Is it safe to stay at the Embassy Suites chain now?

Good question. We have not officially been given the release to do so. Apparently, the OP, who was exhorting everyone to boycott the chain until *she* got an answer to *her* issue, has not let anyone know yet whether ES is off the hook. I am sure this is no small matter for Hilton, which no doubt was seeing its investment in ES going right down the tubes daily. I, for one, would like to know if the squeeze play is still on, or whether we are now permitted to book at this hapless chain.

Good question. We have not officially been given the release to do so. Apparently, the OP, who was exhorting everyone to boycott the chain until *she* got an answer to *her* issue, has not let anyone know yet whether ES is off the hook. I am sure this is no small matter for Hilton, which no doubt was seeing its investment in ES going right down the tubes daily. I, for one, would like to know if the squeeze play is still on, or whether we are now permitted to book at this hapless chain.

I received the faxed letter from the GM today, stating exactly what she told me on the phone. So go ahead and start booking your stays without that guilty feeling that you are letting BJfly down. Let an official end to the boycott be proclaimed throughout the land. With liberty and crib safety for all.

I am sure that the next executive board meeting at ES corporate will be very interesting... I can just see someone pointing to a significant blib on the occupancy rate chart for the month of June, and explaining that it was all due to BJfly and the FF discussion forums. Probably will make a footnote on the annual report as well.

My goal was to hope that I could make the world just a bit safer. I feel comfortable that I achieved this goal. Sorry if I offended anyone's sense of propriety! Good grief.

BJfly

I happened on this thread by chance (some words intersected with a search I did) and found the information about potential crib dangers very useful. I have used a hotel crib in the past, but have always assumed that the crib is basically sound (i.e. I shake it a bit and push on it to make sure it doesn't fold up, but not too much more). The point made above, namely that there is unlikely to be a professional crib assembler at the hotel, means that I (and every other parent) needs to do a very stringent preflight check of the crib.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has a campaign for safe cribs in hotels -- as of 2000, Hilton wasn't part of it. See here (http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml00/00071.html
). But Starwood seems to have signed on -- see this site (http://www.hotel-online.com/News/PR2001_3rd/Aug01_HOTCrib.html) for information, including a 1998-9 survey of hotel cribs.

I think that the crib-related information in this thread is very useful, and I wonder if it should be linked to in TravelBuzz or some similar forum, for better dissemination?