Hilton Boston Park Plaza

Great location. But the check in process takes a long time. The room I got was corner or two streets and you could hear sirens and construction next door. Asked for a new room , took a while again but got one with probably the smallest bathroom I have ever seen. Then the next day my keys would not work because they locked me out. Something to do with when they gave me the new room. They never changed the details. Had to have a security finally escort me to the room since I had my bags from the night before. The lobby is nice and can get very busy. Breakfast lines is not worth it. Drinks at the bar are expensive and small. The waiters at the bar don’t smile or check. Overall disappointed. Read less

I want to begin with the fact the Hilton “Park Plaza” is a misnomer. I would expect a Park Plaza hotel to be more upscale. This one not so much. The rooms are small and overpriced and slightly dated. The lobby area in the Hilton Houston North is amazing compared to this one and the Hilton Houston North has an abandoned shopped center across the street. With that said this is how our trip went… My wife and I were supposed to go to Northern Italy and Eastern France on a wine tasting tour next spring. But one of our daughters had other ideas by deciding to get married. So $20,000 needed for next spring, the trip went out the window. We decided just to drive up to Boston for a week for a nice vacation, whale watching, food and history. I figured the Hilton Park Plaza is in a good location and with a supposedly good reputation would be a great central spot. Big mistake. We actually moved our trip up one day from Monday September 2nd arrival to Sunday September 1st. That in itself was painful because we were going to have to have two separate reservations and change rooms after one night. I guess being an HHonors member since 1996 doesn’t get you anything anymore. Day One: We arrive at 3:30 pm on Sunday the 1st to a mob of angry protesters outside the hotel. It seems the hotel workers union was on strike. Good luck unloading bags by yourself, hauling them into the lobby in between angry workers who had total disrespect for anyone trying to get into the hotel. Someone actually took a bullhorn to my wife’s ear. She’s lucky my wife didn’t lay her out as she was a kickboxing instructor. Once inside it was chaos. Indian wedding party just finishing up and a lobby full of angry customers trying to get into rooms. Keep in mind check-in is supposed to be 3:00 pm. I don’t blame all of this on the striking workers (although they were rude as hell to the customers who had nothing to do with this). I do blame Hilton corporate for not be prepared for this. They were woefully understaffed to say the least. After standing in line for over an hour to finally get to the front desk I was told to come back in an hour because our room wasn’t ready. So we decided to go for a drink. FYI two of the three restaurants on the hotel website makes it look like belonging to the hotel…they don’t; MJ O’Connor’s (bad service) and Strega (which my wife got sick from the linguine and clams, just FYI). After sitting at the bar at MJ O’Connor’s with bartenders who could care less and ignored us for at least 10-15 minutes before acknowledging us, we went back to the lobby. I stood in line for another hour only to here the same thing…come back in an hour. We went to the bar IN the hotel “Off the Common”, appropriate name. The bartender had to look up on his phone how to make a martini. Again back to the line for another hour wait. We are now 4 ½ hours in. It’s now after 8:30 pm. The front desk person Devon (one of the few people that was very helpful in a chaotic situation) said our room was ready. I asked her if we were going to have to check out the next morning, check back in and move rooms. She said yes but she said she would see if she could take care of it. Which she did. Thank you Devon! Oh, but if you are a pilot or flight attendant working for one the airlines Hilton has contracts with, no problem. Front of the line and no waiting for rooms. Again, 28 years of being an HHonors member gets you less than an arrogant, condescending 28 year-old flight attendant from Lufthansa. We got to the room which was very small and had no dresser, just a bed, two bed tables, a chair and a tiny coffee table. Keep in mind check-in is at 3:00 pm and check-out is by 11:00 am. If you do the math we lost $75 worth of room time by having to wait 4 ½ hours. Day Two: We woke up to screaming protestors again beating Home Depot buckets. We decided to go downstairs to get a quick breakfast before going out. Don’t. The “Light” buffet, cheeses, meats, fruit, breads, etc. (European Style) is $24 a person. The full buffet you could go to one of the North End Italian restaurants and eat dinner. I’m not sure if that even included coffee. We left. Went out and came back to more chaos and harassment by the union workers. By the way, the Keurig machine in the room is worthless without the coffee pods, or coffee cups which by this point we were out of. Thank God there is a Starbucks (note sarcasm) attached to the hotel so we could purchase $5.00 over-roasted coffee for the rest of our trip. Day Three: More noise but slightly less harassment. At least by now the workers were letting people pass in and out of the hotel. Although we did have another run in with someone with a bullhorn in our face. We had left the Do Not Disturb sign on because what was the point. Before we left at 9:00 am I called down to the front desk to get an additional blanket because the hotel ones are pitiful, TWO rolls of toilet paper, and a box of tissues. We left the DO NOT DISTURB sign off the door and went out. Six hours plus later we arrived back at the room. Guess what, no blanket, toilet paper or tissues. I called down to the desk three times with no answer, so I had to trek back downstairs. By the way I had been out all day and getting a cold so was in no mood for this. After asking the manager at the front desk she said it would be right up. 30 minutes later a knock at the door. A blanket, a box of tissues and ONE roll of toilet paper. He said he was sorry and would be right back. 30 minutes later and nothing. Back to the front desk. I finally got the additional one. One bright note, while I was begging for another roll of toilet paper my wife started speaking with someone in the lobby. She turned out to be Katrina McGillis Food and Beverage Manager for the hotel. She was very nice and did comp us a dinner for all the aggravation we had been through. The next day we also met Chris (don’t remember his last name) Director of Banquets and Hospitality or something like that. He was also very nice and empathetic with the whole situation. Day Four: The protestors were off to another hotel to go harass some other hotel patrons. Things calmed down but by this point the damage was done. This was also the night my wife got sick from her dinner. Day Five: At least the check-out went without incident. I would not recommend this hotel even if things went smoothly. I’ve been to much nicer Hilton’s which didn’t have “Park Plaza” in the title. This was a total disappointment and basically ruined our mini-vacation. FYI the Hilton Houston North…one day I had no hot water all afternoon, the cold water was brown and the cable tv went out (while I was supposed to be taking a shower). I again blame Hilton itself for not being prepared to handle a situation they knew was coming. I expect a response from Hilton. Read less

We traveled with a tour group. The hotel is in an old building with lots of character. It is one block from the public gardens and a great location generally for walking. We arrived on the first day of the wildcat strike. Check in was pandemonium. The check in line was the full width of the lobby. It took 2 hours to get our rooms and even longer to get the luggage. We soon discovered that there was no daily housekeeping and we couldn't even get extra towels. However, the staff on strike and the remaining staff were all very pleasant and striving to remain professional and helpful. The other annoying issue is the fact that the room key cards often took multiple attempts to work, both in the elevators and the rooms. It was such a widespread issue that it became a main topic of conversation in the elevator with strangers - how many attempts needed to get the key cards to work. My less than stellar review is mainly because there were safety issues with the room which were obviously present before the strike. Neither our in house phone nor or safe were operational. This was the same for several others in our tour group. Neither problem was addressed during our 3 day stay despite our request to fix it. We also discovered tiny flying insects that seemed to be coming out of the air conditioning unit. The filter inside the unit was visible and was filthy. The filter issue was addressed immediately but the tiny insects continued to be present. We spoke with some of the strikers and were distressed to learn they had been negotiating for 5 months without success - for basic issues like a liveable wage, manageable workloads and maintaining their medical coverage. If we could have changed hotels to support them, we would have. Read less

We did not enjoy our stay here. Check in was slow. Upon check in the receptionist pointed us to insert our card without actually explaining what for. I assumed it was for the resort fee so I was surprised when $300 came out of my account. Turns out this was the holding fee which I still have not received back yet. Our room was tiny. There was zero space for us to put our suitcases. The bathroom, also very small with zero ventilation. We always left the hotel early and came back around 3 for a rest. Our room was never cleaned before this time and we ended up asking for extra towels as our room hadn't been touched the 4 days we were there. The hotel however, is in a very good location. Close to the subway and Boston Common. You're also given a $15 allowance for food/drink daily during your stay which is a nice touch. Read less

The only redeeming thing about this place is the location. The room, bathrooms and especially shower are smaller than anything in Tokyo (of course this is not advertised on the website or when you book the room). Surprise charges to the bill on checkout (“resort fee,” also not advertised). Restaurant credit was not applied - had to call the hotel to get the credit. Our room was next to the elevator bank so we heard the elevators all night. Room not soundproof and could hear people in the hallways. There was a weird light above the door that we couldn’t turn off. Next time will consider staying at the W instead, which is a few blocks over. Read less