Stayed here at Frankfurt Airport Hilton 3 separate times in the past fortnight as a Diamond.
I stress this was all August - a REALLY quiet time for Germany as most business is on holiday.
Lobby, bar, and lounge VERY quiet all times, so full hotel not an issue for any stay. And I fully understand upgrades are far harder in full Hotels.
First stay was a small sized “Executive” room “upgrade” which looked exactly like any other
g Hilton room to me.
Contacted Manager after checking out, and to his credit were upgraded to a lovely corner suite for next visit. (Mainly due to lounge issue below I suspect.)
For third visit got given the same room as stay one. Huh?
Desk called out Duty Manager then, who had greeted me for visit 2 and I mentioned to her this new key was for exactly the same room as stay 1, so weren’t we now right back where we started?
In the charming manner German women executives have, she basically replied
“well Sir, that is the best we can do’. When I replied the Hotel looked empty, and it was now 7pm she repeated herself. (There were 3 persons up in the Lounge, and not another soul in lobby, so I rest my case.)
Agree the weirdly named (it is not square in any way!) “SQUARIE” complex of what this Hotel is a small part of, is all sleek metal and glass and modernism, and not sure Hilton can be blamed for that! "Sterile" is a good word to use.
Rooms were clean and modern – the bathroom absurdly oversized compared to the square metreage of room. I could design EACH bathroom (identical in Suites as Exec rooms it seemed to me) to be about 5 square metres smaller, and that huge amount of space could be used in living space.
Sadly it is all built now, so that will never occur. Absurd design fault really. Something current Management can’t do anything much about.
Stay one set the tone. After forty (40) hours of flying Sydney-Bangkok-Milan-FRA, and no hotel in that time.
A lonnnnnnnnng day and no hotel. We were tired, and we really wanted some comfort. Which is WHY we book Hilton.
Looked forward to a nice room, a glass of wine in the lounge, and a long deep sleep.
We were really tired and irritable, after moving 2 heavy bags each, plus carry-ons duty free, and computer bags from baggage carousel to the Hotel, via THREE (3) escalators, and lots of walking that do not allow trolleys, really had us arrive totally exhausted.
Like many of their guests I feel sure.
As signage to it is NOT good, as several posters above have pointed out.
The Hilton must be a MILE walk from baggage claim. We got lost, got given wrong directions, could not use carts, and were really drained when we finally found Hilton at about 8.15pm.
I am a Starwood Elite, and if I knew that Sheraton hotel was far closer to Terminal 1, would have booked that. Airport Sheratons are good – the one in Charles De Gaulle is superb, and we always book it.
They offer driver for a small fee to meet you at baggage area, and drive you to door despite them being IN the airport - as this is.
We get to check in, and a young girl tells me I have been ‘upgraded’.
Great. I tell her of our huge travel ‘day’ and she does not seem very interested at all.
I ask her if lounge is still open so we can go up, have a glass of wine and a light snack, and go to sleep, as we were flying to Malta early next day.
She phoned lounge, told them we were Diamond members just arrived from Sydney, and says she was told if we want a wine we must pay for it up there, as it is just 8.30pm and they are locking down drinks, or we can go to the bar if we prefer. There was no-one else at check-in – she could have tried a bit harder.
I could not believe it –
the hotel is nearly EMPTY due to holidays, and 2 Diamond members cannot get offered a single glass of 3 Euro a bottle domestic wine – all because the hotel is too hard to find, and we ONE minute too late?!
Crazy. Go to room 10111 annoyed to find a pretty tiny "upgraded" room, and a bottle of water free. Great.
Thanks so much. A perfect “Welcome to Frankfurt Airport Hilton” after 40 hours on planes.
If this was an “upgraded” room, the mind boggles at what a “basic” room is in the new hotel.
The air conditioning was far too hot even on lowest setting, and I see this comment already here and elsewhere. (They emailed me later to ‘assure’ me that had been fixed.)
The ‘hot’ water from showers at night and morning was hardly working – was near cold for both of us. Unacceptable even for a $40 roadside motel. (They emailed me later to ‘assure’ me that had been fixed.)
No newspaper in morning, and no request if we wanted one.
For a brand new Hilton this is just not good enough.
We flew from there to the Hilton Malta for 4 nights, where we were given an upgraded large corner suite with balcony and water views. Nice. And a chilled bottle of wine in an ice bucket.
And a personal note from the General manager, not the front desk staffer, as we got in FRA.
And the duty manager coming out to see us, and welcome us in person.
The difference in two Hilton stays in 2 days could not be more dramatic.
Design of their rooms is silly – bathrooms are FAR too large for the room size, and I could remove 5 square metres easily if I were designer, and add it to the room area.
No smallish airport room needs
bath AND a shower cubicle – a crazy waste of space.
2 huge deep wardrobes are also a ridiculous waste of space for an airport hotel. One only could be by the door, and allow living area to be FAR greater.
Two persons in this tiny room area is very cramped. Just bad, bad design.
To have a lovely view of woodland and trees, but no DOOR to access it from room with a cup of coffee, is insane.
Costs nothing extra to have a door there, and right now you cannot even open the windows an inch – they are bolted closed.
I have no idea how big the rooms were at the lower level ‘Garden Inn’ in same location, but they could NOT have been smaller!
Diamond members usually mean something SPECIAL to new Hiltons, and at Frankfurt airport I did not have the feeling we really got any different treatment than a non HHonors member really.
Refusing us a wine because we took 20 minutes to find the hotel, after walking for a mile, and the bar had just closed exactly at 2030 hours is insane, when the lounge was near empty.
Indeed at next stay days later booze and food stayed open til 8.45pm making nonsense on stay #1 even more rude.
I suggested to the manager in a note one day when he is very tired that as an experiment, he takes 2 heavy large suitcases, a computer bag and 2 duty free bags.
Go down to International baggage claim by taxi, and walk back to his own hotel. He will get a surprise how hard that is to do, how long it takes, and how hot you are.
You cannot use carts, and for a new arrival at airport, no lifts seem possible – just a mile of walking. EXACTLY as many of his guests do every day.
And see how HE feels, when a young girl says you can’t have a wine or beer after it all.
The overall quality finish is there for sure .. just a little more attention to the details and fine tuning, might be useful for him to ask staff to do in future.
Second visit had a nice Suite, mainly as an apology for being refused a drink at 8.30pm on stay 1. Stay 3 back to same room as Stay #1. Germanic 'logic'.
The only real PLUS …. And they do not tell you of this oddly, is that just outside their hotel walking back to Terminals, there is a
LUFTHANSA RAIL check-in desk.
They were happy to check us to Malta on time 1, and to Rome to Bangkok and Sydney on time 2 - on Thai Air. Seems like for a lot of airlines you can drop off bags there, and get boarding passes.
Saves a TON of walking with heavy bags to Terminals.
For stay 2 I was so peeved with all the getting lost from stay #1, and schlepping of luggage, I took bag off carousel, hopped a cab, and said
“Hilton Airport Hotel please”. Driver looked at me like I was from Planet Mars and pointed to it in the background. Anyway the best 7 Euro I spent in Germany.
The "bones" are there, but more fine tuning seems needed on customer service. From duty manager lady down.
Had we booked at 200 or 250 Euro a night, and been treated like on stay one or 3 it would have made me really peeved. We got a sale rate on Hilton.com, but that is not the point.
.