Hilton On The Way Down

In the case of Paris, going down is nothing new. I guess it isn't for the hotel chain, either. Hilton used to be the standard for a really nice hotel in most of America. Several years ago Hilton's reputation started to decline, but they've been clawing their way back, or so I thought, more recently.

Well, it doesn't seem to have caught up to the one in Fremont, CA.

What sets one hotel apart from another is usually the small things. And this is really where this particular Hilton fails.

For example, when I inquired at the desk about internet access, they had to write the authentication directions manually. And they weren't unique to me (unless newark/newark just happened to be the login/password generated for me).

They also didn't have a local street map. Neither at the front desk nor at the bellman's stand. And neither the front desk worker nor the bellman spoke English as their native language and both had enough of an accent that they were hard to understand when they tried to give me directions verbally. And this at a hotel that caters to business travelers?

In the room there was a switch to turn on a light right at the front door, but the hallway from the front door to the main part of the room was long enough that it was hard to see around the room. And there wasn't another switch anywhere to turn on lights in the main room.

Similarly, there was no light for an area that included the closet and some odd shelf (which also had no plugs and was about 40" high and had no storage underneath it).

Nothing major. But not what I would have expected from a Hilton. I won't be back.