Just completed a 3-day stay on points at this location. Since it was a reward stay, perhaps I shouldn't be too salty, but then again, I was charged a whopping 190,000 HHonors points for a two-room suite, so I guess I'm entitled to a negative opinion of this place. Since my complaints are numerous, I will just list them bullet style.
-- Location - this place is NOT downtown as it is called in the marketing of the hotel Why not call it Hampon Inn Seattle Center? It is two blocks north of the Space Needle, so I guess if you're doing that while you're in town you will have a short walk. But to get downtown you have to take the Seattle Center monorail or a cab. Poor marketing on location here, folks.
-- Noise - The construction at the actual hotel may be completed, but the surrounding construction noise early Monday morning was atrocious. We were awakened EARLY by the sound of jackhammers, dump trucks, loud crashes, etc.. There is a ton of construction/destruction going on one block east and north of the hotel. Of course my room was facing this mess. Not only is it an eyesore, but when you're on a mini-vaction and you want to catch some much needed sleep, you can forget about it (at least on one side of the hotel).
-- Disgusting bath tub - At first glance, the suite was impressive. Spacious, full kitchen, nice gas fireplace, good sized bathroom. Then I pulled the shower curtain back and took one look at the tub and just shook my head (see attached photo). Not only did the porcelain have a quarter sized hole in it near the rear of the tub, but as you can see the entire tub had this HUGE grey stain from where a previous tub mat had been left too long and collected mold/mildew. Instead of replacing this tub, they just leave it be for guest after guest to walk in and say, "YUCK!"?? That just boggles the mind.
-- Heating/AC - Alright... so it's nearing winter time in Seattle. Which means, damp, cold, mid 40's for highs every day. So I was looking forward to this fireplace thing. But the fireplace is not on a thermostat at all. It's on some stupid 5 minute timer. So on consecutive cold nights while watching TV in the living room and trying to enjoy the fireplace, you have to get up every 5 minutes and wind up the stupid timer? Please. On top of that, the separate bedrooms don't seem to have temperature control. Instead, they have this goofy looking old 1970's style wall mounted heat/AC unit. I hate to break the news to the property managers here, but as a Hilton Diamond who has over 500 nights on the road in the last 5 years, your hotel is the FIRST to offer such horrendous in room air conditioning units.
-- Parking - So, I will give the hotel props for waiving my $8 daily parking fee for Diamonds. But I must say this - why charge for parking at all? There isn't a big demand for parking in this area is there? It's not like you're DOWNTOWN. And the parking? What a bizarre setup. The limited outside spaces are so narrow you can forget trying to get a full sized car in them. Then with the hotel built onto a hill there are two different parking garage entrances. But get this - the garages aren't hooked together. So once you do get parked and find an elevator things get extremely confusing. Oh, and the spaces in side the garage? Even tighter than the ones outside. Absoultely ridiculous parking situation at this hotel to say the least.
-- Housekeeping - can someone please explain to me why one day the maids would clean the condo thoroughly including replacing the towels and then the next day they barely touched the place and did not bother replacing the wet wash cloths or towels that were purposely left in the tub to be replaced? Mind boggling.
Staff - I have no complaints about the staff at all. The girls at the front desk are all very helpful and pleasant, as are the attendants working the breakfast area. Service here is probably the only high mark I can give.
Breakfast - Typical Hampton Inn breakfast. Nuked powdered egges, Nuked greasy sausage. The line for the waffle maker was a mile long both mornings we ate here. Cereals/muffins/fruit/yogurt was well stocked and fresh.
If I had it to do over again, I would have just paid to stay downtown instead of wasting a huge amount of HHonors points on this disappointing stay.
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