I stayed at the Hilton Inner Harbor for the ICNA convention and had an extremely stressful check-in experience.
I arrived around 6 PM, provided my ID, and was given a room on the 7th floor. When we opened the door, someone else's luggage was already inside. We had to return to the front desk, and they reassigned us to room 844.
Later that night, around 11 PM, we returned from the convention and our key cards would not work. From that point on, we were sent back and forth between the 8th floor and the lobby repeatedly. Each time, the front desk issued new key cards, we went back upstairs, tried them, and they failed again. This happened at least six separate times, not including the earlier unnecessary trip to the occupied 7th-floor room. Each failed attempt meant waiting for the elevator, walking back to the room, trying the cards, realizing they did not work, and going all the way back down to the lobby again.
Management eventually discovered that I had mistakenly been checked in under another guest with the same first and last name. My actual reservation, which had been transferred to my name by my friend, was then said to be "cancelled." This explanation did not make sense. My friend confirmed she did not cancel it, and neither did her husband. Also, if it had truly been cancelled that late, it would not make sense that the hotel refunded the deposit, since late cancellations are usually not refunded. This made the explanation very confusing and concerning.
By around 1 AM, my young child was exhausted, overstimulated, and upset from standing around, waiting, riding the elevator, and going back and forth. After about the fourth trip, my older daughter took my toddler to her own room in the same hotel so she would not have to keep going through it. The hotel's only solution was to charge me again for the same room, but even after charging me again, the new key cards still did not work.
At one point, I was so overwhelmed and exhausted that I threw the key cards on the floor and sat down while my sister went back to the front desk again. Security eventually came to help, but even security could not open the door at first and had to leave and return before we were finally able to get in. Even after that, the key issue continued. When I later went to get my toddler from my older daughter's room, my key card still would not work properly in the elevator, meaning we still could not reliably access our own floor or room.
We did not finally settle into the room until around 2 AM. By then, my toddler was wired and upset, and I had to give her a bath, warm milk, and restart her bedtime routine with a sound machine just to calm her down.
The hotel offered complimentary breakfast for three people, but my child does not eat hotel food, so it only benefited two adults. We also asked about a refund because we were locked out for hours and had such a stressful experience, but no refund was provided. We were initially denied late checkout despite my toddler's sleep being disrupted, though an exception was later made, which I appreciated.
Overall, this was an extremely frustrating and exhausting experience. The hotel assigned me an occupied room, checked me in under the wrong guest, claimed my reservation was cancelled under circumstances that did not make sense, charged me again, and failed to provide working key cards for hours. Given the inconvenience, stress, repeated trips, and impact on my child, I believe more should have been done to make this right. read more