fozziedoggie

Update:
Nearly done with my stay here (leaving in one day).
Everyone here has been remarkable, going out of their way to accommodate requests; they try hard. Always nice when the staff strives to give the guest a good experience.

On-site restaurants are adequate, but nothing extraordinary; the bar area is really hip and great for hanging out...not too loud.

The bathroom location/layout of the rooms is either a love it or hate it proposition with no in-between. If you stay here, you'll understand; I am not a fan.

Great place to stay when visiting Lisbon.

Off to Barcelona next.

Happy holidays to all.

Fozzie.

stanj

Recently stayed for five nights. Pretty much the same experience as other posters have noted.

Staff were all great and eager to please, but the decor/room-layout has some issues. Very much of a design over function approach. They claim it won best room design award. No accounting for taste, I guess. I actually didn't hate the design, just found it very user unfriendly.

First night we were put in a king room, which was actually two twin mattresses on a single platform bed, which was ok. Bed was quite comfortable. Major problem with this room was that the closets were built off the ground by about 3 ft. Not sure what the thinking was, maybe that the space under the closet would be used to store luggage? Problem was my wife could not reach the hanger bar in the closet. Also, one of the closet doors opened onto the beside table, so if there was anything on that half of the bedside table it would get knocked over.

The room itself was a bit cramped. The bathroom was also a bit small, with a shower/tub combo. Not a lot of counter space for sundries, etc. Another major inconvenience is that there are very limited plugs around the rooms. Two on one side of the bed, but none on the other and few, if any, around the room. We had to get them to give us an extension strip to use.

We talked to the front desk the next morning, and they said that all of the rooms had that type of closet. They said they could try and upgrade us to a slightly larger room for free, or to a 7th floor king exec room for an extra 50 Euros. They told us to come back after our breakfast and they'd show us what was available.

When we came back, they said there was no availability for the slightly larger rooms, but they could upgrade us to the 7th floor king exec for free. ^

Turned out those rooms have normal closets, so that worked out well. The room was nice, but as others have mentioned a weird bathtub set up. Basically an open bathroom w/ half the tub jutting out into the room. Water everywhere when showering, which meant having to spread towels all around the tub.

DIA recognition was adequate. Doubletree cookies were a bit dry, probably because we got there so late in the eve. Two big bottles of water in the room, which was replenished a couple of times, but not every day. Free wifi, speed was acceptable. The welcome letter stated that as Gold/Diamond we were entitled to continental breakfast in the restaurant. However, at breakfast they did not limit us to continental and we got the full breakfast buffet, which was quite good.

Had some issues with the HVAC, seemed to either get stuck on hot or cold. We had the maintenance guy come up once to fix it, but it locked to cold again the next day.

Maintenance guy was very helpful in getting the TV to accept an HDMI connection so we could watch some videos from our iPad. He had to bring up a separate remote as the "input" function on the TV had been disabled.

Overall it was a good stay, mostly because of the great service from the staff. Location is a bit out of the way, but very close to two Metro stations, including one that has a direct line to the airport (we didn't use it, though--too many bags to lug).

pocahontas

Looking at their rates for next year. There is a cash and points option at 37 euro and 12000 points. It looks attractive vs booking the room with all points at 40000/night. Sorry if this is "newbiish" question: 1) do cash and points reservation earn Hhonors points? 2) 28000 pts for 37 euro ( about $50 ) or .0017 redemption value, is this a good value for redeeming points?

I have never done cash and point redemption, so want to get your feedback on this. Thanks for all your input.

FlyinDutchman

Money and points reservations are considered award stays. (Sadly) You will not receive points for the money part. You will receive points for incidentals during the stay and the stay will count as a stay for HHonors elite qualification.

jbeckett

Better to go for 12000 points + 37 euro. Hilton point is worth at least a third of a cent and I value at .4 cents.

pocahontas

Thanks. I'll go with the cash and points then. Will book a cancelable reservation for next year - in the early planning stage for next year's vacay. Looking at Portugal and Andalusian cities. There's an HGI in Seville, yaay.

treppenlaeufer

There are also the Hilton Vilamoura and Conrad Algarve in the Faro area. However, that is a very touristy area, not necessarily to everyone's liking. In the countryside of Portugal I'd highly recommend to book small independent hotels, there are numerous fantastic Quinta conversions throughout the country, at excellent prices but still pool facilities etc, which this summer we always had for ourselves during the day at various locations.

TomMM

I stayed here back in March and enjoyed my stay. Although the hallway on my floor was narrow, dimly lit with the walls painted black. Kind of reminded me of a Stanley Kubrick film.

cjd

That's exactly the reason we didn't like it! Also our upgraded room had the bath/shower in the bedroom! No privacy - very weird. The toilet was also totally black and dimly lit. Bedroom walls were wafer thin. My wife refuses to return to this hotel and that's a first!! Off topic, but the Hilton Vilamora and Conrad Algarve were superb and we will return to them.

deirdre

It's the only hotel I've stayed at where mirrors made the room darker.

In other news, despite two rooms and a paid stay (3 nights), 0 stays, 0 nights, and 0 HHonors points were credited. I refuse to go back to hotels that pull this kind of stuff.

Hilton Honors Ambassador

Hi deirdre,

If you PM me your full name, HHonors number and email address, I'll see what I can do!

Thanks,
Erin

bbar2000

Just stayed there for a couple of nights with the wife, the only thing I can say is that if you have any suicidal tendencies then this is not the hotel for you !
What on earth where they thinking? Colour scheme is black with a splash of black and oh yeah a bit more black to cover any of the white which had the audacity to try and peek through. There was however airplane emergency floor lighting strip style done in a green colour in the corridor leading to the rooms, or Alcatraz way as my wife took to calling it.
The only thing I suspect is that it drives people down to the bar to drink more of the extremely tasty cucumber flavoured Gin & Tonic. Wait a minute,, is gin a depressant ???

TomMM

Lets not forgot about the room numbers embroidered in the carpet! When the girl at the front desk told me to look for the room number on the floor, the expression on my face must have been "WTH"!

MrLee

Hi all,

Dare I ask if anyone has any recent experiences at this property to share, please?

My friend and I will be going to Portugal for 2 weeks in September, spending a week at the Conrad Algarve and a week in Lisbon. I will be using my HH points for both stays.

I'm really looking forward to staying at the Conrad, but I can't really say the same for the DT after reading the reviews on Trip Advisor. As I'm not travelling for business on this occasion, I'm also concerned about the location - although there seems to be conflicting comments about the location of the hotel.

Due to no twin rooms being available at the DT for my dates, I, reluctantly, had to go for the Junior Suite. My friend does have points to redeem at the Radisson but after seeing the location I said I would book the DT. I even thought about 328,000 points and looking for an AirBnB in Lisbon!

Any views would be very much welcomed!

fozziedoggie

Nothing wrong with the location if you're simply on holiday (not on a business trip where you need to be near a particular location).

The hotel definitely has its quirks, you will either love it or hate it (design-wise) with no inbetween. I personally didn't care for the bath tub right next to my bed, but it was an upgrade to a larger room. ^

As for amount of points/room availability, keep checking back, as inventory always comes and goes (I constantly re-book points stays for lower redemption rates, standard room coming available or changing to points and cash). Unless you plan on spending 18 hours a day in the hotel, I wouldn't worry about it, go out and enjoy Lisbon and just sleep in the room.