Hilton Hotel Resort Hua Hin - not recommended

[PeterRS]

Recently booked a week stacation to get away from Bangkok and enjoy sea breezes again. Nightlife was not on our agenda, just relaxation and a bit of swimming. Just as well as much of the area around the hotel was closed. I only selected the Hilton on the basis of a friends recommendation. Unfortunately he had not stayed there for 2 years. Quite frankly it was about the worst hotel stay I have had anywhere in Thailand. We would have been happier in a one star bungalow by the beach. 

I had to go somewhere as i had money in agoda as a result of an overseas stay I could not take earlier in the year. Although that was non-refundable and non-endorsable, agoda agreed to refund the amount to my account for 6 months. So I used most of it for the Hilton even though I rarely stay in Hilton hotels. The problems with this one were too many to itemise here. The main one is the hotel has undergone a renovation of many floors. I thought the renovation ghastly! The lobby itself is like something out of Star Wars. Corridor floors were of hard slate and wood. So every time a room door slammed shut, we heard it. Same with people's conversations outside the room. Same when families left early in the morning and dragged wheelie bags. Inside the room is all pure white - not even a picture to break the monotony. Light switch placings are really bad. Air conditioning allegedly set at 25 degrees but the room was close to freezing. Although the website photos show a small carpet around the bed, the floor was entirely wood. 

I guess another problem was that the other guests were almost exclusively Thai families with young children. I guess I should have realised that before booking.  The constant running around in the floor above and the screaming by the pool and beach just got too much. I do not eat much for breakfast but my partner said the  buffet was good. I was happy with my croissants and coffee. But after 5 nights we just gave up and came home.

The one bright spot was an Italian restaurant just across the road run by Italians and serving genuine Italian food. We ate there several evenings and loved it.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

Air conditioning allegedly set at 25 degrees but the room was close to freezing.

No temperature control in a premium hotel ?    

The last time I encountered that was after making the mistake of booking into a Hotel 81 in Singapore, which was a somewhat more downmarket business.

The Hilton sounds terrible, with the noise and the temperature.    Not enough to offset the fine location.

[Travellerdave]

I believe that some hotel owners or managers have never actually stayed in their establishments. I have stayed in hundreds of hotels over many years for work and tourism ( budget and premium) (U.K., Europe, North America and of course Thailand). Just a few of things I have found and which annoy me are :-

Room doors not adjusted so they don’t slam, worn key cards that don’t work, huge mechanical keys more appropriate to a jail.
sinks that don’t retain water due to a faulty or missing plug, toilets that don’t flush properly, showers when  it’s impossible to set a desired temperature, tv’s with incomprehensible controls, dud batteries in aircon or tv remotes, dim bedside lights rendering reading impossible, useless wifi, rip-off rates for house phone calls, lack of coat hangers, etc etc etc

 

 

[firecat69]

1 hour ago, Travellerdave said:

I believe that some hotel owners or managers have never actually stayed in their establishments. I have stayed in hundreds of hotels over many years for work and tourism ( budget and premium) (U.K., Europe, North America and of course Thailand). Just a few of things I have found and which annoy me are :-

Room doors not adjusted so they don’t slam, worn key cards that don’t work, huge mechanical keys more appropriate to a jail.
sinks that don’t retain water due to a faulty or missing plug, toilets that don’t flush properly, showers when  it’s impossible to set a desired temperature, tv’s with incomprehensible controls, dud batteries in aircon or tv remotes, dim bedside lights rendering reading impossible, useless wifi, rip-off rates for house phone calls, lack of coat hangers, etc etc etc

 

 

I must be lucky because I have stayed at Hiltons and Marriotts all over the world ( too many cities and countries to count) and not once have I experienced the failures you have been unlucky enough to have.  Possibly with the exception of a few poor WiFi's . Now non- international chains and lower priced Hotels I have experienced most of the things you mentioned .  However I am a planner and I read all the reviews I can find on a Hotel I intend to book and that minimizes the booking of hotels that will disappoint me. Certainly there are pitfalls to reading reviews and after awhile Booking.Com became my #1 choice for finding non International Chains. Since there are no reviews allowed until the guest has actually checked out , you remove the chance of of fake reviews and Booking.com usually contacts any guest who was unhappy .

Now my expectations  for tourist hotels in locations where there are few if any International Chains then I have experienced just about everything you mentioned.

But then AirBnB came along and all of my tourist travel for the most part reverted away from Hotels. On a scale of 1-10 the worst AirBnB I ever had was 7.5 and I had lots that were just as good as it gets. It does not work if you are making 1 night stays but 2 nights or longer I completely changed to Air BnB except when I just wanted to use some accumulated CC Bonus points and have the bonus of Happy Hours and Breakfast Buffets and swimming pools.

On second thought I have experienced some Dud Chain Hotels but not surprisingly they were in my country ( Leader in Virus Deaths )and complete incompetence the  USA. 

[PeterRS]

15 hours ago, z909 said:

No temperature control in a premium hotel ?    

The last time I encountered that was after making the mistake of booking into a Hotel 81 in Singapore, which was a somewhat more downmarket business.

The Hilton sounds terrible, with the noise and the temperature.    Not enough to offset the fine location.

Sorry I omitted to mention something in my report on the air con. There is a control unit on the wall which appeared to achieve little in increasing or decreasing temperature. When you leave the room, all power goes off except the air con which reverts to 25 degrees - allegedly. It was still too cold! I switched the air con off. But it automatically switched on on leaving the room.

I have only stayed in one hotel with air con but no control unit. Flying to London on Finnair, my daytime flight ex BKK was seriously delayed and I missed the last flight connection. So they put me up in the nearby Holiday inn. As I was wide awake around 8pm local time, I tried to do a little work. After 20 minutes I was feeling cold but could find no air con control. Three calls went unanswered so I made the very long walk to reception. There I was told that extensive studies had been made and 21 degrees was regarded as the ideal room temperature. For Europeans, I suggested, but I had lived in the tropics for many years and I was cold. Reluctantly they eventually brought an electric heater to the room.

The shower in that hotel was as bad. Located in a corner of the bathroom it had just a curtain around it. No problem, except there was no raised part to stop water spreading outside the shower area and the floor was slightly slanted. When I opened the curtain, the entire floor was covered in water. At least they had provided a mop so we could get rid of it all ourselves!

[Guest]

After considering further, I remember additional hotels with no temperature controls, but both were fixed:

1  An Ibis in Cologne.   I managed to remove the vent from the wall and fit it back in with a plastic bag to block the air flow.    As it was summer, opening the window during the daytime raised the temperature.

2 A hotel near Sala Daeng.   Although there was no adjustment, thankfully the aircon could be switched off and I left the hairdryer running for an hour to get the room back to a civilised temperature.

The aircon in my current hotel is set to 27C.

[paulsf]

I’m one that likes it cool.  I keep my ac set at 22.   When I invite company over I do comprise a bit with temperature. 

[Guest]

42 minutes ago, paulsf said:

When I invite company over I do comprise a bit with temperature. 

I've only ever had company ask to set the temperature LOWER. 

[spoon]

1 hour ago, paulsf said:

I’m one that likes it cool.  I keep my ac set at 22.   When I invite company over I do comprise a bit with temperature. 

#Me too although, at home now, i set it at 24, but when travelling, 22 or lower hahaha. 

[vinapu]

20 hours ago, z909 said:

The aircon in my current hotel is set to 27C.

this is what I like, when in Thailand  in Nov or Dec  I  rarely run A/C  unless  my newest friend is asking for cooler air 

[Boy69]

I find it extremely difficult to sleep without air con with the high humidity in Thailand it's like a sauna in the room but I don't like either too cold temp. usually is set to 24-25C .

[TotallyOz]

PeterRS,

I can say the same about each hotel I have stayed out in the past few months. Well, the kids running around part. The only tourists right now are Thai families. They all travel with kids. I checked into the Intercontinental Pattaya recently and asked to be moved from the suite I had by the pool to a smaller room on the top floor because of all the  noise from kids running around. The same thing happened on a recent trip to Hua Hin and the Marriott there.

[vinapu]

one can say that those hotels are staying nowadays in the business because of those screaming kids (and their rich dads)