DoubleTree by Hilton Williamsburg

This review is strictly about the conference center and our hotel contacts/managers. We had a 4 day conference at the DoubleTree by Hilton Williamsburg in 2023. The conference space was perfect, plenty of rooms for breakouts, small meetings, large presentation rooms with audio. But, we had a horrible experience with the conference management staff, planning the conference. They took forever for them to answer emails, no offers of solutions to their policies, no negotiations (sometime they did alter their policies perhaps 20%), They offered only 2 choices of entrees for over 200 guest (they did offer a vegetarian meal). Every hotel, we worked with in the past 8 years, always offered 3 entrees without issues. We planned a pre-banquet cash bar receptions but were told we'd have to order food to have the cash bar. There was a dinner banquet immediately after the reception, that didn't count as food. When we asked for suggestions for receptions, what choices were requested the most, we were told, everything is good. Receptions that required coffee and tea, they only offered herbal tea. When asked to add black tea (regular and decaf) to the tea selections, we were told no. They would have to get approval from headquarters. FYI, black tea (regular and decaf) was in the hotel rooms. During the months, I was told that the banquet office ordered the herbal teas and housekeeping ordered their on black tea as well as herbal teas. After 3 months, they approved to offer the black tea at receptions. We arranged to have flowers and cakes delivered to the hotel for a meeting and reception. I had previously asked if the hotel would store these for later in the day, upon receiving the items, I reminded the banquet manager what I requested, (we did have an issue with one of the cakes from Harris Teeter, it wasn't scored and I asked the hotel to score for the correct amounts of servings (40-50). This was not conveyed to staff and they started cutting large slices. We were told that is the size they serve. Receptions require smaller sizes. When the floral arrangement arrived, it was agreed the banquet manager would hold them until needed. She did not do this, we had to call her to deliver them. We gave the banquet manager set up diagrams for some of the rooms. The instructions were included in the banquet order. When it came time to set up, they completely ignored the diagrams sent to them. They did ask the conference chair how the set up should be, but the chair wasn't involved in the aspect so gave wrong instructions. Luckily the mistake was addressed and the original set up was done. The food was excellent. The staff assigned for setting up and replenishing the food during the receptions was also outstanding. The banquet manager and the manger of this DoubleTree franchise (he manages 3 other DoubleTree in the Williamsburg area) were difficult and not responsive to our requests. This hotel did not offer lunch. Each day the conference chair requested a small buffet for breakfast and lunch, to speed up service. Most of the attendees were out of state, flew and had no car. There was no hotel shuttle bus, but gave the name and number for a shuttle company. The closest restaurant were several blocks away, to far for some quests to walk. We have had several conference at DoubleTree hotels around the country and have never been treated as we were at the hotel.