Hilton HHonors - Hilton Washington Dulles Airport Trip Reports and Reviews

Oh god.

We needed a place to sleep with our flight arriving in the evening (June 21) and the next fligt leaving midday the next day (June 22).

The rate of 165 USD seemed really high to us but we figured price and quality go hand in hand. We have sinced gotten more wisdom.

Checked in around 10.30pm after the shuttle ride from the airport. Was handed a real key, not a card. First bad sign. The keys are kind of magnetic but still. This place is more or less a dump.

I asked if I had been upgraded and was told yes. I asked three times and was told yes. Got the third floor which does not require key access.

I thought this seemed strange and called down and asked. Appearently (according to this hotel employee who referred to my floor as the "tert" floor - meaning [I]third[I] - who told us the concierge lounge opened at 9 am when it in fact closes then and seemed unable to speak English) out of the five (5) floors the floors 3,4,5 are executive floors although only 4 and 5 require key elevator access (the elevator by the way was so old the stairs were probably faster).

Found 1 robe in the room and a small bottle of sparkling water - I guess they figured only one of us deserved water. I found no rainbath or lotion.

The room was not that small, but maybe a bit above average. Very old. The bathroom was awful, torn and dirty.

My rice with the room service was very salt. My friend told me he liked salt rice so I asked him to try it out (I could not eat something so salt). He made a horrible face and started saying not too nice things about the cook and this cook's excessive use of salt (atleast one thing this hotel did not save on).

I called Guest Services Hotline and was told that room service would contact us at once. They never did. I called down an hour later, got the front desk, asked for Guest Services but the man on the phone did not know what that was. I asked for the lady I had spoken to and was told she had gone home.

To add insult to injury my friend read an info card stating that the hotel had spent "millions for you" in renovations in fact "More than a face lift. We have totally renovated our guest rooms..." and "We've set the standards for accomodations in the Dulles Coridor..."

Was this a bad joke? Did they think that if they wrote the above it would become true? I do not know about the millions spent except for one thing: they were NOT spent on this room on the "executive" floor.

What a dump. For 165 US dollars this is an outrage.

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Goldlust

I've never had a problem with this hotel and if you think its a dump now, you should have seen it prior to the renovation. I personally like the real key and wish this was more common then I wouldn't have to trudge my tail back to the front desk when the plastic key gets demagnatized. As for the Rain Bath and Lotion, I never knew that was what distinguished an upgrade or not. The food is usually pretty decent. I will say I never had the rice there. English as a 2nd language can be pretty common in the states at any hotel chain. However as you get closer to metropolitan areas it becomes more common. Asking 3 times about the upgrade may have been a problem. I know I wouldn't appreciate answering the same question 3 times in such a short time frame.

stayed here many times before the remodel. Though language was an issue, the room s( I always got upgraded without asking) were nice. food in conciegre lounge was decent. Maybe you caught them on a bad day. Now the Hyatt there was something else ( awful). The nicest, IMHO, in that corrider is the Marriot on the airport grounds

Just a bump to see how the hotel is now? I may be staying there for a couple of nights in about 2 weeks from now.

Thanks!

I'm assuming this is the Hilton in the Renaissance center across from Dulles? If so, I've stayed there twice in the past 6 months (my company is headquartered in the same building) The rooms were great - very clean and furnishings in good condition. Food in the restaurant was ok, but the service in the restaurant was lousy - I practically had to beg for a second cup of coffee.

I can't complain about this place. Going to a floor with key access didn't require a key. Club lounge was closed on the weekend. Large room with decent space. nothing special and nothing upsetting. The bar closes at midnight which is a bit early but hey what can I say. The only negative thing was that the 24 hour business center closed down for some reason.

[This message has been edited by TrojanHorse (edited 03-27-2002).]

I have stayed here twice in the last six weeks. Both stays were on weekends ($79-89 rate); the concierge lounge was not open.

The rooms were fresh and nicely decorated. I stayed once on the third floor and once on the fourth floor; the rooms were the same.

On the first stay I had a little problem getting breakfast coupons, but it was easily resolved. I was allowed to have the full breakfast buffet, which was very good, even though I don't think I was entitled to it with my coupon. The wait service was fine. I did not eat in the restaurant. Take out hors d'oeuvres from the bar were good as was the bar itself.

Free internet service in the business center on my first stay, but it was closed for repair on my second stay.

I understand, from a friend, that the fitness facilities are very good, but I did not see them.

I don't have anything in the area to compare it to, but I would stay again.

I stayed here in Jan for free after a VDB (= accepted a bump offer) and thought the room was excellent. I had an $8 breakfast voucher and a $16 dinner voucher, which was inadequate given the menu prices so I drank my dinner and then used the $16 voucher for an omelette and juice at breakfast.

I did think the service was slow at breakfast and I was actually in a hurry for a change, but the food was good. I did not run into any problems with inadequate English by the staff, but did not really appreciate the bartender hanging out in the corner with his buddy to the point where I had to get off my stool and walk over to him to request another drink. I mentioned this to the night manager on my way up to my room, assuming he would discuss it with the bartender at a later time. Instead, he immediately marched into the bar, ripped the guy a new one, told his buddy to leave, and comped my drinks.

The next day at IAD, I gave the $8 voucher to the first family I saw at McDonald's that appeared to be of the same ethnic persuasion as the bartender, because I thought the manager overreacted and I also thought the said overreaction was ethnically related.

I hope that helped but I doubt it did and the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. BTW the morning manager was all smiles and very helpful, and very well groomed and (sue me) very good looking. Also the shuttle driver was quite jolly and did strange things while driving such as stopping at those funny red octagonal signs and using that funny lever on the left side of the steering column. I don't see that too much in DC (yeah, I know it's in Virginia).

Hi there,
Finishing off a two week trip to the US last week (and completing the INTU promotion), I was booked in to stay at the Hilton at Dulles airport. I regret that I booked this one.

The hotel itself was OK but nothing special. What really annoyed me was arriving at 11:25pm, calling the hotel and asking where the shuttle bus went from. I was told stand 2H and one would be there within 15 minutes. When the shuttle finally arrived at 1:05am I was really quite annoyed. I had made 3 phone calls to the hotel asking when the shuttle would arrive and was told to just wait as it would be soon. I'm sorry but 1 and 1/2 hours to wait for a 10 minute shuttle bus ride is unnacceptable.

I will be writing to the hotel and Hilton corporate as I want a partial refund on what was a very expensive room.

I would recommend that if you need to rely on the shuttle bus service, do not under any circumstances use the Hilton at Dulles. Pick the Marriott or Hyatt, thier shuttles actually run!

Jason

Did they offer an explanation?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum57/HTML/005012.html

Contains comments of my recent stay.

Would it be easier to take a taxi to the hotel? How much might it cost? I'll be arriving at IAD at about 10 pm and have a 9 am flight to catch the next day (to LHR), so wouldn't want to spend 1 1/2 hours cooling my heel (esp in November!)....

Thanks.

I stayed one night recently (a Saturday)

Check-in: front desk personnel ignored me for quite a while as I prominently stood at the Hilton Honors check-in area within easy view; they opted instead to attend to already checked in guests walking up to the desk to ask questions about various things

Decor: very dated dark earth tones 70's in my room (which was, however, a nice size, and on the executive level); concierge lounge nearby was closed on Saturday.
There was a vague smell of dirty feet in the room, and the privacy lock on the door did not work.

Intermittently (mostly) non-functional remote control on the TV.
Could not get the Wayport system to work with my Mac and the cable they provided, despite repeated efforts.
Most electrical outlets would not accept my multiple electronics to charge (only the one on the desk did).

It took 20 minutes to fill the bathtub and the jets on the "jacuzzi" tub did not work.


There was no mini-bar in the room, so I went down the hall to the soda machine in search of diet soda: the sign on the door to the nearest vending area said "ice and soda" -- but all they had was ice, many racks of bottled water, and snacks -- no soda of any kind. I then went on to another vending area on the other side of the building: "sold out" of diet coke. I went on to a third vending area on another floor: diet coke not stocked, only sugared stuff. Finally at the fourth vending area I scored a diet coke.

The alarm clock in the room did not go off.

Good: very close to Dulles Airport, free and timely 24-hour every half hour shuttle to the airport, cheap on weekends.

Shocking for a Hilton.... guess we know why it's cheap.

Wow! What a stream of bad luck for you. Sorry to hear of your disappointing stay.

I have stayed here several times in the last few months and have not had any problems. Perhaps I have just been very lucky :) , but I have had no complaints. The front desk staff has been attentive on my stays (which have always been over the weekend). Yes, the executive lounge is closed from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon and that is a bummer. But many Hilton exec lounges are closed over the weekends, likely because the particular hotels are not busy then (which could be another reason why this hotel is cheap on weekends). We have always received coupons for free continental breakfast in the restaurant (which the waiters often upped to full buffet) in recompense for the closed lounge. They have been rehabing the rooms; perhaps you had the bad luck of getting one that has not been revamped yet. I can't explain the lack of diet Coke, however. That does sound inexcusable.

Yeah... I recommend the Embassy Suites near the airport. Had a pleasant stay there a few months ago.