Hampton Inn & Suites San Antonio/Northeast I-35

If you're a light sleeper, the highway and trains could bother you. The hotel is right on 35, and the road is busy, so leaving during rush hour can be hard. There is also a lot of road construction at the moment. I've seen questionable people walking through the parking lot, though we've been fine so far, and it's nice that security sometimes patrols. It's a modest but fair hotel with breakfast. I never got to try it because work started before it opened, but some mornings they had snack bags, which was nice.

This is my first stay here, and it ranks among the three worst hotels I've used for business travel. I was on the third floor, and the footsteps above sounded like living in a bad basement apartment. One morning I found a huge black hair on one towel and a stain on another. I left them out, expecting room service to replace them while I was at meetings, but nobody came, so I had to ask for fresh towels. The next morning there was a huge cockroach in the shower and another on the bathroom counter. I wish I could upload the photos.

The employees were nice, and maybe things will be better once the remodeling is finished. During my stay, though, there was construction everywhere, and they hadn't made that clear in the photos on the site. Dust was all over, the lobby was packed with construction supplies, plastic covered the entrance, and the elevators were filthy. The makeshift breakfast area was dirty too. If you're a light sleeper, avoid it: you can hear every car, and a train blasted its horn twice in the middle of the night. The elevators were also having trouble operating. I told management how bad things were. The manager said the main contractor wasn't there, so the workers mostly did whatever they wanted. I think that's enough to make my point.

As a Hilton Diamond member, I stay at a lot of Hilton properties and am usually happy with Hampton hotels. This stay was miserable. They should have put a big red notice on the reservation page about the major renovations, or kept the property closed until the work was further along. The renovation left the hotel looking like a skeleton. Rooms were in disarray and poor repair, with lamps, light switches, plumbing, and other things not working. In San Antonio, Texas, early October can still bring temperatures in the high 90s, but there wasn't a single working ice machine. When I asked the front desk if there was any way to get ice, she just shook her head. Hallway wall sections had been cut out with wires hanging out. Room numbers looked like masking tape and Sharpie, and cardboard covered every side of the elevators. I understand hotels need renovations, but this one was being gutted while charging full price. I almost never leave a bad review for a Hilton, but this was beyond bad.