pinniped

A month ago, it was probably safe to assume that everything in your hotel except your room was closed - and then be pleasantly surprised if something isn't.

But now we're entering phased-reopening in many places, where gyms, restaurants, bars, and pools may be on different parts of a given region's reopening schedule, and even then leave some options available to the business itself (such as how to enable social distancing). Short of directly phoning properties and asking front desk clerks (who may or may not know), is there a reliable online source of this information at the individual property level?

Individual property pages are useless - unless I'm just completely missing it.

I realize I can always go to the default assumption that everything is still closed, but I might make a different hotel choice if I have accurate information.

I'm mostly asking the question for Hiltons since that's my first choice this year, but if it exists for Marriott, IHG, or Hyatt I'd be interested in that as well.

Often1

If you have a specific question, I would call the property. Few places are reliably updating to include what you care about and, even then, nobody can tell you what the situation will be more than a few days ahead.

aww3583

This is the correct answer. I've had to do this a ton recently, and the front desk folks are fairly well-versed in providing good info. They're likely getting tons of calls every day.

Most property-specific websites have a C-19 warning/alert box front-and-center, but those aren't updated reliably. I've seen some alerts that say "We are not currently accepting bookings" and in one instance, the hotel is completely closed and in others, the hotel is open but not accepting new bookings. Some places the pools are open, but the lounge chairs are not. Some places breakfast buffets are replaced with room service, grab-and-go, or nothing.

Call the property.

cblaisd

Concur

<Moderator hat on> For information about non-Hilton family properties, please seek information in those forums and not this thread. Thank you.

cblaisd, Co-Moderator, Hilton forum

pauleeepaul

When taking a family trip a whirlpool/hot tub is a must. Hilton.com can't even catalog that attribute, leaving me to squint at pics of the pool area and data mine on tripadvisor.com. No way they are going to be taking this on.

arlflyer

In the past, properties seemed to have been pretty good about using the banner on the top of the website to announce issues due to renovations, etc. But right now it seems that all bets are off - properties aren't announcing the status of their F&B operations, etc. I agree that the only way to find out is to directly call and ask.

GateGuardian

Have to call the properties. I'm currently working in Florida. Hotels that usually have free breakfast, now give up the to-go bag breakfast and the full service hotels are not serving breakfast at all and don't expect to open till June (YMMV). Fitness Centers are still closed, but some pools are open.

pinniped

I don't need the information desperately enough to start phoning properties. Was just hoping for some decent online information.

I booked a Hampton Inn in the area where we need to be - it's a recent renovation and has one-bedroom suites that sleep 5 for $70/nt. The suite photo shows a mini-kitchen area with a half-fridge, so we'll have a place for drinks, bagels, and cream cheese. If they have some sort of grab & go bag, that'll be a bonus but I'm not expecting it.

travelingdrsuz

I just returned from a 5 night stay (5th night free benefit) and an Embassy Suites. I went to visit an elderly loved one (who is at home--non Covid related and I had a test immediately prior, just to be clear). I chose the hotel because it was a newer one and in a location without many restrictions, so I expected at minimum some grab and go food, basic housekeeping, and treadmills. Nope. While it was possible to order breakfast, there was no food at Happy Hour, only alcoholic beverages, two to go (I don't drink). And if guests wanted anything, including sheets, we had to let them know, strip our own beds, leave dirty sheets outside the door, and then there would be a bag left there with clean sheets. Yep. Change your own sheets. By the way, I was in an accessible room, which in my case has more to do with a medical reason for needing a bathtub and all the other rooms having showers, but this would have applied had I been wheelchair bound or otherwise incapacitated. Maintenance and someone had to come in? No problem. Guests had to "vacate the room for three hours" before the staff would enter to do maintenance. Thankfully, I am pretty clean and didn't spill anything on the bed, so I didn't bother. I tried calling HHonors. I am Gold, but the end of my day was apparently past the end of theirs--and I could never get through with their new modified hours. The thing is, the recording never said what the new hours were, just as the website had not informed me of the policies so I could make an informed decision. What really threw me off was that the night prior to my arrival, I stayed at a Doubletree, in a place with the same laws, and everything was operating at some capacity. The pool/fitness area was open. The bar was open, the restaurant was open with a modified menu. It appears that these decisions are based on the local GM? I did finally communicate with Hilton, after a second Tweet, but not to HHonors, in reply to one of their other tweets, in which they asked me to DM them, of course. One of the things I asked them for was to ask GMs to update websites with how services are modified so we can make informed decisions. I ended up buying my own toilet paper at the Embassy Suites. The shortage is a thing of the past where we are, but I was left with less than half a roll and no spare, and so with the new policies and a long stay (and the fact I am constantly drinking something!), I did not want to be having to beg for TP multiple times. I honestly felt as if guests at the Doubletree I statyed at were treated like valuable DT guests (cookie and all!) and guests and the Embassy Suites I stayed at were teared like diseased patients.

I have to move into an extended stay situation for a couple weeks next week for a writing project. I will be calling first to verify, but I'm not going with Hilton. Though I was refunded some points for the zero services, it was still just a terrible experience. I don't really understand why they are open.

BlueZebra

Some paragraph breaks would make this much easier to read and digest.

We are in a unique time now. Things are being learned on the move.

As mentioned above, the experience with Manager's Reception (Happy House?) will vary by local regulations and conditions. As you don't mention a location, hard to get any benefit out of your report.

writerguyfl

Granted I never worked at a Hilton, but where I did work the announcement banner thing that you mention here isn't something handled by the individual hotels. When needed, the hotel would submit the information to a specific department at Corporate and those people would handle setting up the banner.

It's a perfect system for things like renovations. By funneling it through Corporate, the language used between different properties gets standardized. Plus, clear communication via written text isn't a skill that all hotel employees posses.

In my former hotel group, all changes to the text of the hotel's web page were also handled by Corporate. Although, major changes also had to be approved by the Marketing Department. Those folks would go through the text and add the current advertising catch phrase (or ensure the competitor's phrase isn't being used).

Hotel chains also use this system to ensure that a single hotel employee can't publish something on the hotel web page that might go viral (for the wrong reason). It also stops a rogue employee from defacing the web page if she or he believes that a pink slip is coming.

Basically, that's a long-winded explanation of why individual hotels can't use their own web pages to quickly update fast-changing information. It's a system that works exceptionally well during "normal" times. During a pandemic...not so much.

TL;DR: Call the hotel if you want accurate information about amenities/services during a pandemic.

arlflyer

Sure, that makes sense, I mean the internal processes can be whatever they need to be, but I'm also fairly certain that Hilton corporate could lean on its franchisees and say "You're going to need to submit an operating status summary every week" which would be reviewed and posted on the website. It would benefit all parties to have up-to-date information (corporate could confirm properties for compliance, customers would be better informed, better-informed customers might be more comfortable booking stays, etc.).

writerguyfl

That's not a workable plan due to logistics. Let's say it takes someone 10 minutes to update each hotel. (It would probably take much longer.) With 6,000 hotels, that task would take 1,000 work hours. When you break that 1,000 hours into 8 hour shifts, it's 125 total shifts of doing that and nothing else.

At my chain, there were literally less than 10 people working in the department that handled this type of thing. As great as it would be to have accurate information, it's simply not possible due to the way the system is set up.

In a time where hotel groups are laying people off due to lack of revenue, they aren't about to spend money on this sort of project.

arlflyer

I guess, if you say so. Companies right now are doing a lot of things that they've never done in the past in order to react to this crisis. I'd think that keeping customers informed of the status of their service offerings would be pretty high priority. They could move people over from other, underutilized areas of the organization (e.g. loyalty, group sales, etc.) to backfill. It's also easily outsourced work.

lcohen999

I am just wondering....what did you expect ? Whole world is shut down, no one should really even be traveling at all, everyone is trying to find new steps and you are complaining for the extra effort to get TP so no one gets sick ?