Although we live in Washington, my husband and I along with another married couple, which are close friends of ours, stayed over Valentine's weekend (February 12th - 13th 2011.) We booked a package for the Valentine's Day which included dancing and champagne at the hotel's club.
Unfortunately, the weekend was unpleasantly interrupted the morning of February 13th when an employee of the hotel used his all access room key to enter our friend's room even though they had the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door and check out time was much later. The Doubletree employee walked in on them in the middle of an intimate moment and saw my best friend naked. She was appalled and mortified and both she and her husband screamed and clumsily fell off of the bed in a panic.
We roomed next door and heard the commotion, but thought it was just someone goofing on off in the hallway. We were appalled when shortly thereafter our friends told us what was going on.
When they called the management of the hotel (the highest ranking person in management on that day was the Housekeeping Supervisor), she reported that there were no male housekeepers, so they must be mistaken. Mistaken? Really?
The male friend of the couple is a Detective in the police department, and immediately kicked into "detective mode." He had to insist they contact hotel security and do an investigation to find out who entered their room.
Much chaos ensued along with my friend in tears and my husband and me trying to console her. I ended up speaking with the housekeeping supervisor, who added insult to injury by misstating my friend's first name to me and when I told her she was incorrect, instead of apologizing and asking for her name, had the audacity to tell me that my friend had misspoken her OWN name.
Several hours later, we finally found out that the man, which indeed WAS on Doubletree's hotel staff was a "runner." He entered the room unauthorized to put water bottles in it (something that is only supposed to happen in unoccupied rooms being prepped for the next guests) and completely bypassing the Do Not Disturb, the fact that the guest list was registered to check out later that day, AND breaking many other hotel protocols.
This employee of Doubletree also did NOT report the incident to his supervisor. They had to investigate the room key access for that room to find out it had been him.
There were other minor things that had occurred during the stay that one can chalk up to "hotel anomalies." As a frequent business traveler, I get that some minor things can happen. However, this security breach and the mishandling of the situation thereafter is absolutely inexcusable.
I left a message for the Hotel's General Manager, which as of this morning has still to return my call. I will not be staying at this Hilton Hotels Doubletree property ever again. I suggest that if you want to feel safe, that you do not either.
hotel reviews