This Hilton experience was a mixed bag. This property was chosen by our tour operator for the Talladega race. The room was comfortable, however we requested maintenance twice within the first 6 hours of our 3 night stay with toilet flushing issues. I was anticipating having to change rooms, however we instead received a lesson on how we needed to closely monitor how we flushed the toilet as the handle on the toilet was not the proper handle. Hmmm. It was a good thing that the hotel restaurant was open from 6:30am until 1am as we determined quickly that wandering around the surrounding environs in search of dining establishments was not wise. We did Uber to the Center City area of Birmingham for dinner one evening which was enjoyable but ate all other Birmingham meals at hotel restaurant “The Lab”. The menu was acceptable & with the exception of one bartender, service was very good. Breakfast staff exceptional. Housekeeping staff did a great job cleaning & supplying room. Parking deck adjacent to hotel & easily accessible from the floors of hotel. Nice outdoor seating area & pool which I wish we had the time to enjoy.
Over the years we have stayed a quite a few Doubletrees and I have always considered them a step up from Hampton Inn etc. As we were without the dogs on this trip I thought a nice hotel would be worth it. The hotel is well situated near the freeway but that is about all the positives I can find. After a full day of driving my wife and I decided we would eat in the hotel. So after checking in (no cookies were offered) we freshened up and headed down, this was around 7:45 pm. There was one couple in the actual dining area and quite a few people in the adjacent bar area. We waited near the entrance and soon a female server walked past with some plates for the bar area. She did not acknowledge our presence but she was serving so no big deal I thought. On her way back she continued to ignore us as did the male server also heading to the bar area. He also declined to acknowledge us on his way back and when she came past a third time looked right at me and uttered not one word I came to the conclusion they did not want to be bothered. There was no please take a seat or I will be right with you so we headed out of there to find a place that did want our business. The hotel is close to a Perry’s Steakhouse and it was packed which would explain the parking difficulty we had but we needed to eat so I gave up the spot it had taken me ten minutes to find. The room itself was fine but the shower was a tub/shower combo with no non-slip on the tub bottom. There was no shower mat for stepping out of the tub so we used one of the hand towels. Not a good experience and, in fact, I cancelled a reservation at another Doubletree for our return trip as a result.
I called in advance while I was pregnant to ask if they could do a prenatal massage before 12 weeks. I was told yes and was allowed to book. When I arrived, they said they couldn’t perform the massage but still charged me the cancellation fee. I’ve also previously booked a specific type of massage and I arrived and they said they didn’t have anyone working who could do it. Offered a regular massage, which is already had that day, and said “well we can’t do anything for 80 minutes” even though I was booked for 80 minutes. Unprofessional and honestly quite rude for the price. I get it, I’ve worked in service. But get a different job if you aren’t equipped to address customers. Just a disappointment for the extraordinary price.