Property: Doubletree by Hilton Northbridge, Perth
Status: Diamond
Room Booked: King Guest Room
Received: Apparently an “upgrade” to a “Panoramic King room” which had views of the suburbs- meh
Rate: Booked about a year ago and hence the rate fluctuated really weirdly day by day- average of about $180 a night
We had stayed at this property pre-Covid and decided it was time to give it another go. Unfortunately, the shine of being new is long gone and the hotel now has some serious staffing/ housekeeping issues.
Received this rather annoying generic “You’ve been upgraded!” email the day before our stay and alas, the so-called “upgrade” was a non upgrade to what they call a “Panoramic Deluxe King”. When you look at the hotel map, it’s exactly the same size as any other room, just on a higher floor and our room even faced the dead-boring suburbs side of the hotel. Nothing of a panorama to speak of and it was not even on the very highest ot floors (12 out of 15, super generous- thank you for nothing). Actually- we had almost exactly the same room 3 or 4 years ago and back then we were only Gold status with Hilton. Also zero acknowledgement of status upon checkin by the generally rather clueless and not very well trained front office staff. Once again, HHonours Diamond is proving to be a pretty useless status beyond the Gold tier one below. Speaking of- proper coffee of course came at a fee, otherwise it’s filter coffee from the camping bucket. Not a big issue for me but I bet some of my Melbourne friends would be outraged. At least we were allowed to also have the hot food options, not that these would be anything to write home about. Hot tip: Get up even earlier than you’d think you have to as many items on the buffet don’t get replenished ever.
So far so mediocre. The room was okay albeit a bit small, the mattress way too soft and the otherwise lovely rain shower had close to zero water pressure but we could live with all this. However- after bombarding me with those idiotic marketing emails from Covid time about how clean the rooms are at Hilton and even having a “Clean Stay” sticker on the bathroom mirror, hygiene turned out to be exactly the opposite of that: We noticed lots of smears and not cleaned spill stains on the furniture and the desk and even found a used tampon package (luckily not the tampon itself at least!) on the floor which is exactly what a gay man likes to find in his room- not. Clearly, if you can’t even vacuum the floors properly between guests, what chance is there that “Extra care will be taken in cleaning much used surfaces”? The elevator buttons clearly spoke to this as they seemed to never got cleaned a single time during our entire 7 night stay.
That’s a great segueway to the two biggest problems of which the first is housekeeping: Oh dear, oh dear! This is what happens if you kick out all your experienced staff as soon as a pandemic hits and then wonder why you can’t find anyone qualified after (hot tip- paying an extra $$$ above minimum wage might actually help with that). One day, we called for the room to be serviced before heading to the pool, only to find out two hours later that it hadn’t been done. Next day, we had the “Do not Disturb” sign on but housekeeping ignored it and stormed into the room anyway which is simply a total no no (and the signs are VERY clear in this hotel- nice big red or green squares, electronically lit so unless you’re a total moron who has never stayed in a hotel yourself before and never got any training… Oh yes, now this makes sense, actually). Another day, we left the hotel around 10am for a tour to Rotty Island and the housekeeping lady was literally right outside our room doing the room opposite from us. Green light clearly switched on so we thought that surely she would do ours afterwards. But when we came home in the evening, nothing had been done. Not much worse than retreating to your hotel only to find a messy room so I called reception straight away- I had seen somewhere earlier that “Housekeeping is available till 4pm” and by that time it was well beyond 6 so I was prepared. And, as expected, the completely tone death lady at reception wanted to pull the “Unfortunately Sirrrrr…” line on me but I wasn’t having it so told her to go do it herself or get her manager to do it. The latter gave me dirty looks once we left for yet another to wait in a nearby pub for the room to be cleaned but at least it was finally done. Zero apologies, zero explanation, nothing. When I checked out at the end, the then receptionist asked me to write a review about these housekeeping issues which in itself is rather unprofessional but I herby do it: Fix your housekeeping and train your staff properly!
Second big issue for us, the rather nice little pool features the most idiotic set up of lounge chairs I’ve ever seen: Hardly any are two together so it’s something like chair, flower bucket, chair, wall, bean bag (I know- why???), chair and so on. Hardly a chance to sit together with your other half, let alone as a family. Might seem like a small issue but if you’re counting on that pool, be aware!
Likewise, be aware of the location: As a middle aged gay couple, we stayed here again precisely BECAUSE of the location. Northbridge is the exact opposite of what people think of when they ask us why the heck we like Perth: It’s artsy, gritty, noisy and could be at home in any bigger city. In other words, it’s a nightlife district with all that you’d expect. Directly opposite the hotel are two sex shops and a gay nightclub, to the left and right are a really dodgy looking pool billiard hall and a dingy karaoke bar aka money laundering establishment. I’d think this hotel was never meant to be a place for families but there were screaming kids aplenty so just be aware- if you stay here, don’t complain afterwards about the noise and the nightlife. For us, this is one of the very few positives about this hotel but that alone won’t be sufficient to draw us in again- there is just way too much wrong and I don’t like staff’s/ management’s attitude in the slightest.
