This was meant to form part of a wider trip report of Argentina from March 2015 but since returning I’ve moved house and haven’t had time to post all of it or go through all the photos so I’ll post the Hilton comments here in isolation.
The journey to the hotel took ages from AEP, having arrived on a long weekend where everybody was leaving Buenos Aires but we eventually arrived. When we pulled up, nobody approached to help with cases (wasn't required but just a comment) even though there were a lot of staff standing around. We approached check in, where, as gold, we weren't given an exec room as the hotel was “completely full” (even though we knew everybody was actually leaving the city), and told we could get breakfast in the main dining area. I asked what about a complementary drink in the bar as other Hiltons have done in the past where no lounge access is granted and I was told a bottle of water could be sent up to the room and would I like still or sparkling. At this point I just laughed and said what was the point of being with Hilton as no benefits were ever forthcoming? The front desk clerk then went off and suddenly found a room available. Amazing how a completely full hotel suddenly has availability. (For reference, I asked another time and was told from an Exec floor perspective, the hotel was less than 40% full and the Exec room itself was never more than 30% full.)
I’m aware of the rules. I know that Exec lounge access is subject to room upgrade availability but the benefits offered by Hilton over the last few years have reduced massively and I detest being lied to when there was clearly availability. It was also at this point that somebody then offered to help with the cases but by then it was too late.
The room was a standard Hilton room although without the standard clock radio that appears everywhere else throughout the world, with a view over the Puerto Madero area and the Casa Rosada in the distance.
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View from the room
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The Exec lounge was open all day with evening cocktails served from 18:00 - 20:00. A choice of a red, white and sparkling wines, one beer choice but numerous spirits. There was one hot choice each evening, which was chicken wings, a very tasty vegetable filled pancake and chicken nuggets on nights 1-3 respectively, all served with fries. The hot food was brought out at the start and wasn't replaced until either just before or just after 19:00, i.e. half way through. Therefore if you came down after the offering had been raided, you had a long wait until anything else was brought out. The problem with this was most people were in at the start and not the end so the second serving was often taken away full. Wine was regularly replenished but after the initial FOUR cans of beer were put out, you had to ask for them, along with tonic water. If you were lucky, the staff would begrudgingly bring a can out - one at a time.
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Food and drink offerings
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Wifi was complementary throughout the hotel
Hotel views
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After getting Exec lounge access, we had breakfast in the lounge instead of the main hotel restaurant. Bacon and eggs were offered, along with cereals, pastries and yoghurts, along with a 20 minute wait for tomato ketchup.
The hotel is located well in the Puerto Madero area and close enough to the Burquebus terminal for the obligatory day trip to Uruguay.
Upon check out, the front desk clerk couldn't understand why I didn't want to hand my credit card over until I had seen my final bill. I explained that I wanted to make sure there were no additional incorrect charges and was told an invoice should have been posted under the door. It hadn’t been. I commented that I thought that due to the accounts being hacked invoices were no longer posted under the door – I haven’t had one for ages from Hilton but was told that no Hilton account had ever been hacked.
The Hilton Buenos Aires is a nice hotel but has slow service and a very poor attitude to the rate at which food and drink is brought out. If you want to control the rate at which alcohol is consumed, run the drinks as a counter service, like for example in the Hilton Sydney, but to only put out 4 cans of beer at the start of the evening with all subsequent cans needing to be asked for is simply not good enough, neither is having numerous people ask for the water to be refilled for the coffee machine numerous times with requests being ignored.
Please note, all my interactions were in Spanish so language was not an issue.
It's a good hotel but could be so much better.