DISchurners Hotel Reviews Thread (extension of I love credit cards so much! thread)

Embassy Suites by Hilton Alexandria Old Town
Dates: Sept 21-24 (Thurs-Sun)
Cost: $174-188 per night (didn't use any points) included parking (cheaper way to do it for garage parking)
Hotel perks: Breakfast included, cooked to order (omelets, pancakes, etc) and also hot buffet options (waffles, bacon, sausage); Manager's reception each night featuring snacks (goldfish,pretzels, chips, veggies & dip) and complimentary house wine and beer (2-3 included options).
Hilton Honors perks:free wi-fi, pick your room on the app (I had lowest Honors level)
Transportation: Directly across the street from a Metro stop as well as the first stop for the free King Street Trolley, walking distance to many restaurants/stores, including CVS and Whole Foods

I didn't take many pictures of the hotel, but I specifically chose a room with a view of the George Washington Masonic Memorial and it did not disappoint.

ETA: I would stay here again in a heartbeat. Service was excellent, food was great, it was so convenient to the Metro and to the trolley, and I loved having the separate space for the kids (1 bedroom with pullout in living room).

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Embassy Suites by Hilton Alexandria Old Town
Dates: Sept 21-24 (Thurs-Sun)
Cost: $174-188 per night (didn't use any points) included parking (cheaper way to do it for garage parking)
Hotel perks: Breakfast included, cooked to order (omelets, pancakes, etc) and also hot buffet options (waffles, bacon, sausage); Manager's reception each night featuring snacks (goldfish,pretzels, chips, veggies & dip) and complimentary house wine and beer (2-3 included options).
Hilton Honors perks:free wi-fi, pick your room on the app (I had lowest Honors level)
Transportation: Directly across the street from a Metro stop as well as the first stop for the free King Street Trolley, walking distance to many restaurants/stores, including CVS and Whole Foods

I didn't take many pictures of the hotel, but I specifically chose a room with a view of the George Washington Masonic Memorial and it did not disappoint.

ETA: I would stay here again in a heartbeat. Service was excellent, food was great, it was so convenient to the Metro and to the trolley, and I loved having the separate space for the kids (1 bedroom with pullout in living room).

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My husband used to have a work conference there and would stay there for four weeks every year! I used to go see him on the weekends. It really is a great hotel and so convenient. Lots of cute shops and restaurants nearby and the metro is so convenient!
 
Four Points By Sheraton Kansas City Airport
Dates: June 8-9, 2018
Cost: 2000 SPG points
Perks: We were given a card for 1 complimentary beverage, either something bottled from their little convenience area or soft drink, glass of wine or a certain beer on tap. DH used it for a beer.

Unfortunately I did not get photos. There is nothing special to this place. It is a bed to sleep in before/after a flight. That's it. It's an older building, but cared for. It appears that maybe it's been recently renovated. Photo on the website shows the building as tan, it is not, it has been painted grey. There was a keychain convention while we were there, parking was very full. I don't know if that's normal. It was for the most part quiet, I didn't see many people. Easy to access. Attached restaurant was more like a sports bar and grill, we did not eat there. For anything else like fast food you'd need to go down a few exits from the airport.

We had a room with a king bed which was spacious. The bathroom however was tiny. Room included a minifrig. We were in room 414 and right next to us was an area that normally would have housed an ice machine, there was instead a table with a microwave.

It was nothing special. For only 2000 pts I don't think I'd have a problem staying again for just a night.
 

Decided to finally add our Washington DC hotel from March. Our objective is free travel, not fancy travel.

Hyatt Place Washington DC/White House - King Room with Sofabed



Travel Dates: March 17-18, 2018
  • Cash rate was $430 total (we booked 2 rooms)
  • We used 24,000 Hyatt points (12k per room) transferred from Chase UR points. There were no extra fees.
  • Parking is $49+tax (came to $57.82 for 1 car!) Valet only - Took awhile to get car back when we wanted it.
  • Free breakfast
  • There is a lobby bar/Starbucks inside
We booked this hoping to see Cherry Blossoms. We were a week or 2 early with the cold weather that hit right before we went but still a great quick trip. The hotel was fine, nothing great. Good location and we walked everywhere, never needed the metro. We had booked 1 king and 1 - 2 queen room, but somehow ended up with 2 King rooms. I think because we requested to be on same floor as some friends. All 3 rooms were slightly different, clean but not great. We all had terrible views of the buildings next to us, as in just a few feet of space though none of our windows faced the same direction. Breakfast was decent with some hot selections in addition to basic cereal/breads. Sorry did not think to take any pics.
 


Hyatt House Pittsburgh Bloomfield/ Shadyside

Cash rate $238 a night, used 8000ur points transferred to hyatt.

We lived in Pgh for 6 years and went back for a friends 40th birthday party. This was just a few blocks from where we used to live, and convenient to the party in the strip district. It was a nice hotel, good free breakfast, modern rooms.

There was an annoying $20a night parking fee, kind of unnecessary in this area, but I was too tired to try and find street parking.

So a nice simple hotel and the east end of Pittsburgh, good point value, but expensive for cash.
 
Thanks! The only downside is it’s in Cleveland. :laughing: I questioned whether I should spend the time to collect my thoughts and write a review because I don’t think Cleveland is high on many DISchurners’ bucket lists. :rotfl2:

hahaha I was thinking that it is only cat 2 because Cleveland. If it were in Nashville or Charleston it would not be cat 2. lol

However, thanks for posting. Never know where our travels may take us. In my case, kid sports hockey and soccer travels take me many places I'd never otherwise go to.
 
Fairfield Inn & Suites Gatlinburg Downtown
https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/gtlfg-fairfield-inn-and-suites-gatlinburg-downtown/


Stay: June 7-9, 2018
Cost: 60,000 Marriott points (30k/night - I think cash price was $179/night)

We stayed here as our home base for a couple days in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It took 10 minutes from the hotel to the main (Sugarlands) visitors center.

It is 20 minutes to Dollywood.

You can walk to the main drag in probably 10 minutes or less, but we didn't do it. It would be downhill to the main street, but all uphill back and I wasn't doing it. LOL

Breakfast included, which had a waffle station, eggs, pre-made "omelets", meats (varied by day - sausage/bacon/canadian bacon), cereal, breads, fruit, oatmeal, and juice.

We had a standard 2 queen room. They have a pool, hot tub, firepit, exercise room. We liked it.

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Sequioa Lodge Disneyland Paris - May 2018

I booked a special on the US site of stay 2 nights get 2 nights free. It included park tickets for each day, so 5 days. When booking DLP make sure to check more than just the US site, even with different currencies the UK site, Germany etc may have a better deal than the US. Ours just worked out this way.

We did stay in the Golden Forest rooms which are club level. This gave us a hot breakfast each morning, american, english or french with cold cuts and cheese. We also stopped by for bottled water and pop in the afternoon or evening. They also had tea and snacks in the late afternoon but we didn't have any of the snacks.

For the 4 nights and 5 days park tickets for 2 adults we paid $1,800.12.

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We checked in at the Golden Forest check in and got each of us set up with cards to charge back to the room. It was great being able to use the card (that had our name, resort and dates on the back) in the parks and some places at Disney Village so it was one big charge to my credit card rather than a bunch. I was also happy to see that we could each set our card up to be charged to our own cc since when I had asked on here a few months back it seemed you were only able to put one card on file per room.

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Our room was on the 5th floor not too far from the elevator and had a view of some trees. It was nice and it was mostly quiet. We sometimes heard people coming or going in the morning or at night but nothing crazy. The funny thing was when you were walking down the hall you could tell when someone was using the hair dryer because it sounds like a vacuum cleaner. It was also a bit of a learning curve getting used to how it worked.

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They still have the individual bottles.

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The room was good and comfortable. It had enough space for us. The beds could have been a bit more comfortable but they weren't bad. The A/C worked great. The resort was quiet, we didn't hear many around or noise from other rooms though there were people there.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the hotel, at least club level, it's hard to say if the rest is as good. One advantage to club level is all the rooms are in the made building while other categories may be further out. Not a problem if you aren't planning to go to the main building much.

There's a pool here, I think it's indoor, but we didn't go look at it. It's near the main building.
 
Park Hyatt Paris Vendome - May 2018

Booked 3 nights here, 2 using the free nights from the Hyatt credit card sign up bonus (the bonus is no longer free nights but points) and 30,000 points for the 3rd night because this is a category 7 hotel.

Cash rate for stay was over $700/night.

Side note - I pulled this from my trip report because that was easier :-)

Back at the hotel we went to the reception desk and Louis got us checked in and escorted us up to the room. When we got to the room I saw that it was a double and said we’d booked a twin room. He left us in the room to go check on it. Our luggage came up a couple minutes later and Louis was back a couple minutes later. I don’t think we waited more than 10 minutes. Louis explained that when they had upgraded our room that morning they didn’t see that we had booked a twin room. He was able to move us to a twin room that was still an upgrade and had been recently renovated. Best I can tell from the room is the upgrade may have given us a larger space and a courtyard view. The street view wouldn’t have been that interesting in their location. Louis took us to our new room which was made up as a king but they would separate it at turndown. It was nice getting to see it as a king bed though.

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The room was nice with a large bedroom and closet area. I especially liked the closet because it kept stuff from exploding all over the room. The craziest thing to me was the sink in the shower but I did like the mirror that was above it. The middle part of the mirror stays visible while the rest of it would steam up during a shower.

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The view was also nice and we enjoyed being able to open the windows, especially at night before bed. The windows had black out shades as well.

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The only downside to our room was despite having the a/c or fan, I’m still not convinced it was anything more than a fan, at 61 degrees, the room never got that cool and it was warm sleeping. This hotel, like the Sequoia Lodge, have changed to the duvet over the comforter and no sheet which makes it hard to toss blankets if you are hot. I ended up using just my fleece blanket I use on the plane to sleep a couple of nights. Totally the opposite of Sequoia where the a/c worked so well I had my fleece on top of the comforter.


We didn't eat at the hotel, after looking at the menu in the room for both the restaurant and room service we knew it was way more than we wanted to spend. All of the in room amenities were great, from the bottled water, though I'm still confused on this. The sign said we got one bottle but then when I got my survey after it asked if we got our complimentary daily bottled water. We didn't drink any of the others because we didn't want to be charged 10 euro for a 16 oz bottle of evian. Back to the amenities, from a toothbrush to a shoe travel bag it was fun to see all they think you need in a high end property. I've stayed at Hyatt's before but not in the Park category.

I will also say we got a bit spoiled with the turn down and the towel service twice a day. The staff here were fantastic from escorting us to our room to calling to find a pizza place that was serving at the early hour of 5:30pm :rotfl:

The location was great, the Opera metro stop was right down the street and it connected with the RER Auber stop underground so you could walk between them quicker/less distance than above ground which means we didn't need a taxi to get from the RER to the hotel with our luggage. It's walking distance to the Louvre and other sites if you want to. There's a lot of places to eat with varying prices in the area. It's a quiet area.

If I had the cash to spend, I would pay to stay here. Otherwise I would use my points to stay here again in a heartbeat.
 
How fun, love hearing where others have used points. I'm just finishing up my road to platinum for Marriott so not a lot of point stays lately.

Monterey CA Intercontinental
https://www.ihg.com/intercontinenta...dp=true&cid=13664&glat=SEAR&setPMCookies=true

• Cash Rate $509
• Used Free night IHG
• Walking distance to Aquarium
• Parking valet $29
• Spa on sight


Second time using our Free night that comes with IGH card. Have Platinum ambassador status, no upgrade.
We enjoy a quick weekend trip to the area and the hotel is one of our favorites. That being said I would not pay the $500 rate but great for free certificate or even points and cash. Ihg also has a Holiday Inn right down the street that is very nice.
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Swan and Dolphin going up 2019 to 50,000 Marriott points per night. 14,000 point increase. Book now on spg or between August - Dec on Marriott to lock in old point value.
 
Swan and Dolphin going up 2019 to 50,000 Marriott points per night. 14,000 point increase. Book now on spg or between August - Dec on Marriott to lock in old point value.

The new point values are going into effect Aug 1 when the programs merge, AFAIK. The new points chart says the changes are coming in August:

https://points-redemption.marriott.com/category-change

The category 8 point values aren't going into effect until 2019. Until then you get Cat 8 hotels for Cat 7 points. But I think you need to book before Aug to lock in the current point values.

ETA: Point values change 8/18/2018 now. Lock in old point values by 8/17 if needed. Regardless of the website (SPG or Marriott) come 8/18 when the programs merge it will all show the new point values in the linked chart above.
 
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Hyatt Regency Cleveland at the Arcade

Direct Link to Hotel Site

We stayed here for 3 nights, May 4-7. I chose this hotel because of its location and its historic architecture. I think it took less than ten minutes at a leisurely pace to arrive at the front doors of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum, which was one of our main reasons for the long weekend trip. We explored the compact downtown area around our hotel, and we passed two stadiums—one was the Indians’ baseball stadium, and I couldn’t even tell you what the other was. Football? Go, Sports Teams. :cheer2: There were many bars, and many pub-like restaurants in the immediate area, but being non-drinking vegetarian/vegans who are completely apathetic to sports, we had trouble finding somewhere to go at night. People with more traditional interests would find plenty to occupy their time, steps away from the hotel. There is also an excellent coffee shop called Rising Star in the building.

My photos look extremely similar to the official hotel photos, so I’ll be lazy and use theirs.

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The exterior doors on first floor open to a sunken arcade, which you can access from the streets on either side of the building. I believe it was the first “indoor mall” in America. The arcade was booked for wedding receptions on two of the three nights we were there, and I can see why it’s such a popular rental location. It’s absolutely beautiful inside. The whole ceiling is glass. We were obviously restricted from walking on the first floor during the events, but the hotel lobby and access to guest rooms were all on the 2nd floor, with a walkway around the perimeter of the interior overlooking the arcade. So, we were able to check out what was going on down there without being intrusive.

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We were upgraded from an arcade view (interior window overlooking the arcade on the 3rd floor or higher) to a city view (exterior window overlooking the House of Blues and the East Fourth Street Entertainment District).

This photo shows the exact layout of our room with almost the same view, except we were a couple of floors higher.

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This is a Category 2 hotel. Nothing fancy, at 8K per night. But it’s newly renovated, spotless, and modern. The room felt much more upscale than I expected for a Cat 2. I transferred 24K UR to Hyatt for the stay. The rate that weekend averaged about $245 per night after taxes and fees, I think because there was some kind of home game somewhere nearby. Again, yay sports. :cheer2: There was only valet parking available at a whopping $30 per day. But for some reason, I was never charged for it. The lady at the desk told me it was included in my award booking which, according to everything I've read, it shouldn't have been. I was waiting for the charge to come, but it hasn't yet. YMMV.

It's no Paris Vendome, but I would recommend it if you ever find yourself in Cleveland!
Had lunch here today. And there is much cheaper self parking for $8 not far from the hotel. The hotel is a block and a half away from the Cleveland Indians ballpark. If in town check out the Hilton hotel by the lake. It has a bar of the 32 floor which also has an outdoor seating area and has a great view of the lake. And the Hilton is a short walk to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and next to that is the Great Lakes Science Center.
 
Hello all! I'm about 60 pages behind on the credit card thread, but I wanted to pop on here and quickly review the IHG Intercontinental Times Square. We just got home Monday night after a 3 night stay. I seem to recall that a couple folks have stays coming up here. No pictures - sorry!!!

Rooms are nice (nothing exceptional or fabulous). The bathroom design was beautiful though! The room was clean, but the carpet looked a bit worn. We were on the 7th floor and had no issues with noise. We had a view of an office building, which was kind of a bummer. The front desk staff tried to upgrade us to a better view but couldn't find space. Oh well . . . we weren't in the room much.

The bed was VERY very comfy! We had a room with 2 doubles, which I generally don't like (but hey - it was FREE). I shared a bed with DD18, and somehow it didn't feel cramped.

The in room coffee was not great (I'm a bit of a coffee snob). We went around the corner to Starbucks each morning.

The location is terrific! The subway is on the corner just a few steps from the hotel. We took the blue line down to the 911 memorial and also up to the Natural History Museum. Plus, it was only a 10 minute walk max to both of our shows.

The only negative was that the front desk was slow and understaffed. We arrived about 8:45pm Friday evening. Since the front desk was understaffed, we had to wait 20ish minutes (maybe 30?) to be checked in (which felt like forever since we were tired and hungry). Once we reached check-in, it took the rep FOREVER to check us in. I think this is at least due in part to the fact that we had 5 (yes 5!) different reservation numbers for our stay. We used a combination of free nights (both mine and DH's), points nights, and paid nights. My mother was with us, and 3 of the reservations were hers. I had called ahead of time to have everything linked, but I don't think it mattered. We also had to go down each morning to have our keys rekeyed to the new reservation, which wasn't a big deal.

Note that with a cash reservation, the hotel charges a $30something "destination fee" which includes a $25 per day food credit. We didn't use our credit, and I noticed that they removed the destination fee from the final bill, which was nice. My mother paid the senior rate, which was only $225 with taxes - pretty darned good for the city!

One more note . . . we had issues using the Air Canada Maple Leaf lounge that Priority Pass is SUPPOSED to have access to at La Guardia. We were told that they were full to capacity and that Air Canada customers are given priority. I basically kept checking back every 15-20 minutes until I wore them down - lol. They finally let us in!
 
Thank you for the review. We are thinking about staying there next spring.

Unfortunately Priority Pass is know for turning people away for being to crowded, has happen to us many times. Thinking of getting Amex Platinum to get better use of lounges.
 
Hilton Times Square
  • Free weekend night with Hilton Aspire card.
  • The cash rate ranges from $250 - $350
  • Booking with points ranges from 70,000 - 80,000 per night.
DH and I each have the Hilton Aspire card. The free weekend night, $250 airline credit, $250 resort credit and Diamond status basically cover the fee for our purposes.

The hotel address is in 42nd street but the entrance is on 41st. The Empire Dtate Building was about a 15 minutes walk and the location is pretty amazing. The hotel is clean and we have no complaints. Breakfast was included and we also received welcome drink coupons and 2 bottles of water each day. I don’t know if that is standard or because of Diamaond status. We didn’t check in until after midnight and I was too tired to think to ask.

If you look above the Hilton sign, you can see a pink sphere that is lit up. That is “THE BALL” which we can see from our room!

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Fairfield Inn and Suites at Dulles Airport

In what will be a continuing theme, you'll see that I'm awful at taking photos of hotel rooms... to be fair there aren't many pictures of this place on Marriott's website either.

Stayed at the Fairfield Inn July 28-29 before taking a 6 AM flight out of Dulles. This Fairfield is a Cat 2 (don't think it's changing after Starriott merger), so I spent 10,000 points for a one night's stay in a King Room.

Rates:
- 10,000 points for award redemptions. Cash rates are a better value, but I was looking for just straight up free on this trip.
- Park and Fly rates starting as low as $94/night. Up to 7 days parking after one night's stay. Can be a really great value depending on how long you're parking at Dulles.
- I've seen other Marriott member cash rates starting as low as $75/night.

Location:
- About a mile from Dulles Airport. Very, very easy to get to the airport.
- There is a Cracker Barrel in the same parking lot as the hotel.
- There is a Sheetz about half a mile up the road.
- Obviously this is in a very populated area being near the airport, so there are a plethora of other restaurants within driving distance. We ate at a Chipotle for dinner about 3 miles away.

Amenities:
- Free wi-fi throughout.
- Airport shuttle that runs between 4:30 AM and midnight.
- Free hot breakfast. We missed it leaving so early, but the breakfast area looked huge.
- Indoor pool.

Overall, this hotel was great for a night's stay that's very convenient to Dulles. The exterior looks a little dated, but the interior looked very recently renovated and was very nice. The bed comfortable and the TV in our room was HUGE, way bigger than it looks in the pictures on the website.

We did have one major problem though, unfortunately. Just before going to bed at around 10:00, DH walked over to the AC and realized that the carpet surrounding it was completely soaked. Apparently it had a pretty bad leak going on. At this point I was too tired to care and knew the hotel was packed because there was an enormous group of teenagers staying there for a softball event. So we went to sleep and reported it to the front desk when we left at 4:00 AM. I wasn't really looking to be comped or anything, but all the front desk guy said when we told him was "oh ok, thanks."

Anyways, I'd still recommend it. Nice place, and I'm sure that was a one-off incident in the room.
 
Hotel Arts Barcelona

July 22-24 2018
2 free nights with R-C Card
Cash price-257-275 Euro (for our room)
Points redemption level (old Tier 4) 60,000 points/night both old and new charts

Location: on the beach, near lots of restaurants, the beach and a marina

Pros: Gorgeous views, close to restaurants and beach, free wi-fi, amazing pools, awesome bathtub with bath salts and DH's favorite shower (so far) in the world

Cons: expensive, pepsi products (yep I'm biased!), and lots of gorgeous Europeans (not bad per se but I felt...dumpy...it wasn't them it was me), gym hard to find and small and stuffy

About a 30 min ride to airport (35-ish Euro), taxis easily found (if not on strike...fortunately we've lucked out twice!).

For those visual people, I've linked to a TPG (I know, I know) report...her room was a suite and had an extra half bath but the rooms are almost identical otherwise. She was in room --07 and we were in -01 so you have an idea of the large size and great views. Last year when we were there noticed the absence of a soap dish as did she (weird!) but there was one this year. Last year stayed on points with concierge upgrade paid in cash...this year agonized over using the 2 free nights vice pay reg rate and upgrade with 1 of 3 concierge certificates. DH and I decided we probably weren't going to consume $600 dollars of food/beverages in the concierge lounge so went with the 2 free nights.

https://thepointsguy.com/2017/07/hotel-arts-barcelona-hotel-review/

I'm not sure we would stay anywhere else in Barcelona but DH and I are beach people :)
 
Hilton Anaheim

Stole some pictures from the website for you guys on this one.

Stayed at the Hilton Anaheim July 29-31. We chose a standard king room. The Hilton members rate for our days was $124/night, which I thought was very reasonable for a hotel of its caliber within walking distance of DL.

Available Rooms:
1. Standard rooms- 2 queens or 1 king.
2. Theme Park View
3. Lanai Deck
4. Pool View
5. There are also a number of suites available, but I didn't look too hard into these options.

Rates:
It varies a lot by date for both cash and points redemption. Our standard room was $124 a night for the Honors rate. It looks like the theme park views start in approximately the $150/night range. The point valuations are all over the place. I looked at a week's spread of points redemptions for the theme park view and it was between 22,000 and 50,000. I saw one night of pool view as high as 85,000. I think you really just have to play around with the dates to see what your best value would be. I ended up with a triple points promotion as a Hilton biz cardholder, in addition to the 12x Hilton points I earned with my credit card, which made this a great value for me.

Location:
- Approximately one mile from DL. I have no way to screenshot right now, but I think @Lain has a good map on the Dischurners Reddit. It's located on the back side of CA Adventure, so south of the park. DH and I are two able-bodied adults and made this walk 8 times roundtrip over three days. We left the park one night at 6:00, went back to our room and napped for a few, then got back up at 8:30 and walked back to the park. It's not as close as the other hotels, but I also think it runs a little cheaper on the cash rate.
- Our Uber ride took about 35 minutes from LAX and was $60.
- There is ART bus transportation from the hotel to the park, but we didn't utilize it.

Amenities:
- While it doesn't say free Wi-Fi is available to all on the website, there was a note in our room saying that Wi-Fi was available to all guests free of charge. I didn't have to put in a code or anything to get on it.
- A nice pool, apparently, though I didn't use it.
- Car rental desk.
- Can buy Disney tickets in the lobby.
- Starbucks in the lobby.
- This was a REALLY big hotel, so chances are if you need something, they will find some way to get it to you.

Photos:

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(This room is exactly what our room looked like)

Pros:
- Reasonably close to park
- Reasonable cash rates
- Beautifully decorated lobby and rooms looked very nice

Cons:
- A little far from the park if you're not a reasonably fit adult up for a good walk to and from the park
- Point valuations can either be really good, or ridiculously bad with no rhyme or reason

Personal Review:

Our stay here was... fine. There were some really great aspects. I checked in on the Hilton App 48 hours out and was able to select my room. I wanted a high floor and was able to select the 14th floor. When I was going through the rooms, I noticed that one appeared to face DL. I wasn't sure this was accurate as there was no upgrade cost and I had only selected a standard room, but from all angles it certainly looked like we would be able to see the park.

When we arrived, we got in the check-in line for Hilton Honors members. Pro tip: this line actually moves slower than the standard check-in line. While waiting, I heard the front desk clerk tell the people in front of us that there were no theme park upgrades available. When I checked in and dropped off my bags, I just asked to keep the same room I selected and was told that was fine. I was given two complimentary bottles of water and was also given this note describing what I would receive as a Gold member:

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I wish I had read this note before the front desk clerk gave me his spiel. Unfortunately, he made it sound like I could get 1000 points OR a breakfast, AND we would get the free drink and pastry for both of us at Starbucks. I selected the 1000 points, but had I known it was an "or" option between the three, I actually would've chosen the Starbucks because I already knew that's where we would be getting breakfast. But oh well, you live and you learn.

We then went to the park and came back that evening. My digital key said it wasn't activated on my app so we had to stop by the front desk again. They activated it immediately and we went up to our room to discover that it was in fact a theme park view!

IMG_0993.jpg IMG_0994.jpg

I mean, that's a theme park view to me! I don't know how else you would describe it, and I think the only other rooms could call theme park would be the rooms you can see there on the end of the T shape coming out, which I believe were suites based on the hotel map. So I was certainly pleased that we got this view without paying anything extra!

When we came into our room, we noticed that it was pretty warm and humid. I figured it was because of the big windows in the room, even though the blackout curtains were closed. DH turned the AC down to 66 in an effort to get it to cool down in there.

Unfortunately, the room didn't cool down... for our entire stay. The AC ran nonstop all night and (presumably) all day. I sent a message to the front desk on the app the second day to let them know that it was very humid in our room and didn't appear to be cooling down. They said they would send up an engineer. When we got back to the room around 10:30 that night, we had a post-it note on the thermostat that said "We checked the AC!" Except it wasn't any cooler and the AC was still running nonstop. DH started turning the thermostat up to see what the temperature actually was. It finally turned off at 77 degrees...

Other than this, our room was very comfortable. Bed was nice, view was nice, bathroom was nice.

My only other completely first world problem is with the Starbucks in the lobby. We went there our second morning and bypassed the very long line to get int he Hilton Gold line, which there was no one standing in. We stood there for probably a solid minute before somebody finally looked at us and said "have you been helped?" I ordered a venti iced mocha since I was exhausted and really needed some caffeine. Unfortunately, I didn't take a sip of my drink until I had left the hotel and started walking to DL. That's when I discovered that there was absolutely no coffee in it at all. So, basically I paid $6 for an iced chocolate milk. I wasn't super thrilled about that and ended up throwing most of it away because I wanted caffeine and not really just a giant chocolate milk. I did get an email afterwards asking me to rate my Starbucks experience there in order to receive an additional 10 Starbucks stars. I reviewed it accordingly, but there was no option to add any comments. I'll see if I get any follow up contact about it.

I've also sent Hilton an e-mail about the issues with our AC and included the review of the Starbucks as well. I received an email this morning saying that my email had been forwarded to the hotel and to expect them to follow up with me.


So, there you have it. My first Hilton experience. Not stellar, but not too shabby either. Honestly, if it wasn't for the AC issues then I would be willing to give this hotel pretty high marks. But when you're hot and sweaty after being in the parks all day, it's not that enjoyable to come back to a suspiciously humid room!
 
Hilton Anaheim

Stole some pictures from the website for you guys on this one.

Stayed at the Hilton Anaheim July 29-31. We chose a standard king room. The Hilton members rate for our days was $124/night, which I thought was very reasonable for a hotel of its caliber within walking distance of DL.

Available Rooms:
1. Standard rooms- 2 queens or 1 king.
2. Theme Park View
3. Lanai Deck
4. Pool View
5. There are also a number of suites available, but I didn't look too hard into these options.

Rates:
It varies a lot by date for both cash and points redemption. Our standard room was $124 a night for the Honors rate. It looks like the theme park views start in approximately the $150/night range. The point valuations are all over the place. I looked at a week's spread of points redemptions for the theme park view and it was between 22,000 and 50,000. I saw one night of pool view as high as 85,000. I think you really just have to play around with the dates to see what your best value would be. I ended up with a triple points promotion as a Hilton biz cardholder, in addition to the 12x Hilton points I earned with my credit card, which made this a great value for me.

Location:
- Approximately one mile from DL. I have no way to screenshot right now, but I think @Lain has a good map on the Dischurners Reddit. It's located on the back side of CA Adventure, so south of the park. DH and I are two able-bodied adults and made this walk 8 times roundtrip over three days. We left the park one night at 6:00, went back to our room and napped for a few, then got back up at 8:30 and walked back to the park. It's not as close as the other hotels, but I also think it runs a little cheaper on the cash rate.
- Our Uber ride took about 35 minutes from LAX and was $60.
- There is ART bus transportation from the hotel to the park, but we didn't utilize it.

Amenities:
- While it doesn't say free Wi-Fi is available to all on the website, there was a note in our room saying that Wi-Fi was available to all guests free of charge. I didn't have to put in a code or anything to get on it.
- A nice pool, apparently, though I didn't use it.
- Car rental desk.
- Can buy Disney tickets in the lobby.
- Starbucks in the lobby.
- This was a REALLY big hotel, so chances are if you need something, they will find some way to get it to you.

Photos:

View attachment 341962 View attachment 341961 View attachment 341963
(This room is exactly what our room looked like)

Pros:
- Reasonably close to park
- Reasonable cash rates
- Beautifully decorated lobby and rooms looked very nice

Cons:
- A little far from the park if you're not a reasonably fit adult up for a good walk to and from the park
- Point valuations can either be really good, or ridiculously bad with no rhyme or reason

Personal Review:

Our stay here was... fine. There were some really great aspects. I checked in on the Hilton App 48 hours out and was able to select my room. I wanted a high floor and was able to select the 14th floor. When I was going through the rooms, I noticed that one appeared to face DL. I wasn't sure this was accurate as there was no upgrade cost and I had only selected a standard room, but from all angles it certainly looked like we would be able to see the park.

When we arrived, we got in the check-in line for Hilton Honors members. Pro tip: this line actually moves slower than the standard check-in line. While waiting, I heard the front desk clerk tell the people in front of us that there were no theme park upgrades available. When I checked in and dropped off my bags, I just asked to keep the same room I selected and was told that was fine. I was given two complimentary bottles of water and was also given this note describing what I would receive as a Gold member:

View attachment 341957

I wish I had read this note before the front desk clerk gave me his spiel. Unfortunately, he made it sound like I could get 1000 points OR a breakfast, AND we would get the free drink and pastry for both of us at Starbucks. I selected the 1000 points, but had I known it was an "or" option between the three, I actually would've chosen the Starbucks because I already knew that's where we would be getting breakfast. But oh well, you live and you learn.

We then went to the park and came back that evening. My digital key said it wasn't activated on my app so we had to stop by the front desk again. They activated it immediately and we went up to our room to discover that it was in fact a theme park view!

View attachment 341958 View attachment 341959

I mean, that's a theme park view to me! I don't know how else you would describe it, and I think the only other rooms could call theme park would be the rooms you can see there on the end of the T shape coming out, which I believe were suites based on the hotel map. So I was certainly pleased that we got this view without paying anything extra!

When we came into our room, we noticed that it was pretty warm and humid. I figured it was because of the big windows in the room, even though the blackout curtains were closed. DH turned the AC down to 66 in an effort to get it to cool down in there.

Unfortunately, the room didn't cool down... for our entire stay. The AC ran nonstop all night and (presumably) all day. I sent a message to the front desk on the app the second day to let them know that it was very humid in our room and didn't appear to be cooling down. They said they would send up an engineer. When we got back to the room around 10:30 that night, we had a post-it note on the thermostat that said "We checked the AC!" Except it wasn't any cooler and the AC was still running nonstop. DH started turning the thermostat up to see what the temperature actually was. It finally turned off at 77 degrees...

Other than this, our room was very comfortable. Bed was nice, view was nice, bathroom was nice.

My only other completely first world problem is with the Starbucks in the lobby. We went there our second morning and bypassed the very long line to get int he Hilton Gold line, which there was no one standing in. We stood there for probably a solid minute before somebody finally looked at us and said "have you been helped?" I ordered a venti iced mocha since I was exhausted and really needed some caffeine. Unfortunately, I didn't take a sip of my drink until I had left the hotel and started walking to DL. That's when I discovered that there was absolutely no coffee in it at all. So, basically I paid $6 for an iced chocolate milk. I wasn't super thrilled about that and ended up throwing most of it away because I wanted caffeine and not really just a giant chocolate milk. I did get an email afterwards asking me to rate my Starbucks experience there in order to receive an additional 10 Starbucks stars. I reviewed it accordingly, but there was no option to add any comments. I'll see if I get any follow up contact about it.

I've also sent Hilton an e-mail about the issues with our AC and included the review of the Starbucks as well. I received an email this morning saying that my email had been forwarded to the hotel and to expect them to follow up with me.


So, there you have it. My first Hilton experience. Not stellar, but not too shabby either. Honestly, if it wasn't for the AC issues then I would be willing to give this hotel pretty high marks. But when you're hot and sweaty after being in the parks all day, it's not that enjoyable to come back to a suspiciously humid room!

Glad you reviewed this place...it is a potential for us sometime.

Why did you go to the checkin desk at all after checking in on the app? Do they not do virtual keys there?
 

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