My husband and I have had two incredibly frustrating experiences with this hotel on two separate occasions. We were engaged in May 2012 and looked into having our wedding at this hotel. When we went in for information, the front desk had no inf...ormation whatsoever - they did not even know when the wedding sales team was available, so they told us to just come by during a weekday during the day because someone should be in. Based on this treatment, we just did not feel that the Hilton Orlando was the place to entrust our special day to.
We also stayed at the Hilton Orlando on our honeymoon and the experience was such a nightmare from start to finish that we checked out at 10:30pm on the same day that we had checked in. My husband and I eloped on short notice due to some personal medical issues (we still have our big wedding planned in 2013 :) ). We still wanted to make this wedding a special occasion of course, so we went on to Hotwire (I love Hotwire) and booked a 4.5 star hotel in the International Drive area, which turned out to be the Hilton Orlando.
I'll try to be brief because I went on for 3 full single spaced pages with thin margins and 11 point font in my letter to the hotel's General Manager, so there's even more than what's here:
1 - We called the hotel to tell them it was our honeymoon and if they could put us on a high floor, which the front clerk did not see if it was there at all. Room we were given offered a view directly into rows and rows of other people's rooms - who could of course also see right into our room, so the shades had to be closed, which made the view worthless and the room claustrophobic. The pool also looked dirty during the daytime from our vantage point.
2 - On a Saturday night, the beautiful lounge with a grande piano in it was completely shut down and not all their dining options were available.
3 - We went to the poolside grille to have a light meal, but was treated rudely by the waitress who clearly wanted to leave and were given two orders of chicken fingers when we ordered one to split (came to $37 with 2 diet cokes).
4 - Wasted 30+ minutes either on hold or being given incorrect information by staff only to finally find out that the wi-fi was $14.95 and not free as we were first told on the phone.
5 - Room dirty: smudges on windows, splatters of who knows what on bathroom woodwork, dust caked on light fixtures. This is not to mention the cockroach we found in the hallway of the executive level on the 19th floor.
6 - Incredibly rude, condescending manager on duty. He asked us what he could do for us and we told him we would like a room in a different hotel and that perhaps he could help set us up at another Hilton property (there is one less than 5 minutes away). His response to this was that we could stay at their competitor, the Peabody. When that didn't go over well, he offered to send us up champagne to our room (I had told him that I had a medical issue that prevented me from drinking AND we clearly hadn't been drinking up until that point at 10:30pm on a Saturday on our honeymoon). This was the point that we say no thanks and left the hotel.
The customer service was so lacking here, that I strongly recommend not using this location for any part of your wedding.
