Hilton Garden Inn Denver/Thornton

My first night in a different room was perfect, but this one had a strong sulfur smell, a noisy highway outside, and Amazon trucks coming up the exit all night. The room itself was cute. I was too tired to complain about the odor and got used to it. The coffee maker didn't work, and I'm not paying $3.75 for the Starbucks machine or $13 for more breakfast access. I started trying to get coffee in the morning, and an hour later I finally took a cup from the breakfast area. I have a bad leg, so all that walking hurt, especially since coffee in my room had been promised. The desk clerk assumed I didn't know how to use the machine and offered to come show me, then blamed housekeeping for putting the cup in wrong. She came up, wrestled with it, said it was fixed, and left. The lights stopped blinking, but the button still did nothing. When I went back downstairs, she said maintenance would look at it. Great. Dumb. You'd think a HILTON could keep a spare machine or two for this. These Keurigs are crap anyway. People rely on their morning coffee. Hilton needs a better way to handle this simple but annoying problem. I'll waive my consulting fee! Room 409. I'm unplugging the machine, moving it, and leaving a note in Spanish that it's broken.

The manager was rude when I spoke with him after checkout. He confused me with another guest who'd had a dirty room, refused to adjust the charge for the room that had been misrepresented, and blamed Expedia, even though I had to check out early. Even the desk clerk said she tells people not to book the "mountain view." Those views were nowhere near the mountains, which sat behind a large hospital. I paid extra for a room overlooking the freeway, with noise and bright parking lot lights in the window. The room coffee maker didn't work, and when staff found a working one, the hotel ran out of pods for two more days. Check-in employees seemed untrained, nobody in housekeeping spoke English, and breakfast was cold and overpriced. Very poor hotel.

The walls are thin, the bathroom was dirty, and we had extra-loud drunk neighbors. A very disappointing first impression. Stay away from the restaurant. They brought me mussels in a pasta dish that were still closed after cooking. That can mean they're dead and might carry bacteria that could make someone very sick or even kill them. I can't understand how the chef or waitress served something potentially harmful. Anyone who's cooked shellfish knows this.

Not great customer service. They wouldn't let me put a Coca-Cola on my room tab, so I had to drive to a convenience store. The room smelled like animals, and we had to go to Target for Febreze and spray it down three times. Also, the air conditioner fan squeaked loudly every time it turned on.