squeakr

Introduction We had a very rough and challenging week and were going to spend the weekend here at this Homewood. It's a short ride out of San Francisco, the weather promise to be hot and they had an outdoor pool. However, our cat had semi emergency surgery so we whittled down our stay to just one night, the Sunday of the Labor Day holiday weekend. Overall the staff really make this hotel. Every single person we met or had any contact ( with one exception) was pleasant, helpful, knowledgeable and really went out of their way to ensure that we had a pleasant stay. I wish every hotel in the Hilton chain had staff as accommodating as this hotel.That said, there were several fails that while I would recommend this hotel for nonholiday stay, make me loath to recommend it 100%. it is commendable that they took the customer service problems and other problems very seriously and made an adequate restitution to us, which I felt was very fair and accommodated the problems that we had. I'm always impressed when it hotel or establishment makes good on their guarantee of satisfaction so I appreciate the hotel's willingness to accommodate us.The first problem was we had booked a room with a tub which when we got there was not available. However they didn't just tell us it wasn't available, they made us wait in the lobby for almost an hour before they figured out they only had three rooms in the entire hotel with tubs and they were all booked. That should have taken just a quick glance at those three rooms right?When we got to our room, my husband went to use the bathroom and when he pulled out the toilet paper the entire mechanism fell out of the wall. It took several calls to housekeeping/engineering to get this fixed. But not a big deal, seriously.The third challenge was that our room, which they said was the only room available in the hotel, was facing the freeway and so the noise that evening was incredibly loud even with double-pane windows with the shades closed. Although the hotel itself was very soundproof – we heard no sounds from other rooms were people walking the halls – the noise from the freeway was disturbing.Both my Hilton profile and my conversation with the hotel at the front desk indicated we wanted a very quiet room – maybe there just wasn't one but we did see people check in later in the day clearly did not have reservations. The worst problem however was one that many people would not complain about. While the outdoor pool is lovely, it also has two big gas barbecue grills that guests are welcome to use as they please. So while we hung out of the pool for a couple of hours, by 5 PM, two large groups came in with cases of beer, hard cider, alcoholic sparkling water in coolers and coolers full of meat and began a very loud party. There was no way we were going to have any peace at the pool - and given it was almost 100° he would've liked to spend another hour or two there. Honestly if I had known there were barbecue grills at the site at the pool area I would not have booked this particular hotel. The hotel does not have a restaurant, but does provide a full breakfast each morning. They have coffee Bean and tea leaf coffee which is a cut above Starbucks IMHO. The bread and bagels and toasted items were quite stale, and the waffles only offered "syrup" so we stuck to oatmeal and fruit. All that said, the hotel is impeccably clean, as I mentioned the staff are great, and it's close to downtown Pleasant Hill with a choice of restaurants and shops. When I contacted Hilton about the service guarantee the hotel was very accommodating and I feel the resolution was very fair. Check In Check-in was pleasant enough until we were told we could not have the room that we booked. Room The room was pleasant enough – a king accessible which they explained to us was for hearing-impaired folks so that there were flashing lights instead of sounds for any kind of alarm if needed.