Another short stay recently. There is not really much to update from my longer review from March 2023. The current issue is that one of the two main elevators is broken. Put it this way, there was a LOT of complaining to the FD and muttering in the elevator from guests who weren't happy. There is a relief elevator to the left of the meeting room space (it is signed with laminated A4s all round the place). This does not usually have any wait but it smells of all the garbage that has presumably been transported in it over the last few decades. I have noticed that the rates are lower than they were and maybe this is an attempt to try to offer a discount for the long waits.

I was upgraded at check-in from the base rooms to one of the front junior suites. The suites on the higher floors look directly into the castle and have fabulous views. On the lower floors, you aren't high enough to see over the castle walls, so you see the outside plus the buses on Kingsway outside. (There are also suites at the back of the hotel which don't have a view of anything.) The junior suite itself is nice - not massive but comfortable. The TV is huge and there was an exceptional range of channels (for a UK Hilton) although not Netflix. Same amenity of extra canned water and Welshcakes.

No change in the executive lounge to the food type or dismal quality. I actually didn't eat anything there in the evening at all, just a couple of flapjacks during the day (which are quite nice). Just for wizla, H&G Tea is BACK!!! Plus canned sodas, apples, pretzels and some sort of flavoured peanut (or something).

The gym has been refurbished since my last visit. Before, the exercise bikes faced the atrium (towards the back of the main lifts), through internal windows in the gym. Now that area is weights.

I reckon breakfast was perhaps a slight downgrade over 2023, but this might be more because several Hiltons seem to have improved their breakfast in the intervening period. It isn't at the same level as Leeds or Newcastle, certainly not anywhere near as good as T4. A lot of the issue in Cardiff may have been surprisingly poor presentation (for example, some of the pastries were completely burned and should not have been put out at all). I suspect they don't have enough people working the period immediately around the time breakfast opens to make sure everything looks right for the opening. BTW breakfast starts at 6:30 but hot food is from 7.