DoubleTree by Hilton Rochester

The staff, while in completely unprofessional attire, were very helpful and friendly. Parking was good and once renovations are finished it will be a very nice hotel.

Great location, Nice Atrium, Pool, and Fitness Center.

好食😹😸😺👍🌳🍀🍁

location is perfect for me.

If you want a quiet place to relax, don’t stay near the elevators. The hotel is under renovation (great). My room has been updated. They should have replaced the toilet. Doesn’t flush well. No desk chair. The workers were rolling carts up until midnight near my room. At 6am, the housekeeping staff were rolling carts on the tile floor and talking loudly in the hallway, someone was stomping in the room above on the new, vinyl laminate floor. Ugh. I’m not even sure the rooms near the end of the hallway would be ok unless you were on the top floor?

I booked this due to the proximity of my worksite, the advertised breakfast and restaurants onsite made dining easy.

When we started planning our event during April 2024, we expected a professional implementation of our intentions as far as how the event would be coordinated and executed, and no change in leadership during the process. But there were 3 changes in leadership during the 16 months that followed leading to the event. This caused the majority of what we discussed with the 3 planners before the final one to be lost in the translation, despite us trying to keep the final planner up to date as much as possible. As a result, on the day of the event, the cleaning and set-up crew was totally unprepared to set up and execute the event as intended - whether it was due to the amateur crew assisting the supervisor (which she confessed herself, referring to them as 'teenagers' who had to be watched constantly) or lack of communication within the staff regarding set-up and other activities. Overall, the event was the most unprofessional display by any hotel we have ever seen. Doubletree was a respectable hotel in our opinion before this experience. Everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong - and I will start from the beginning.

Hotel rooms: The room that the bride and groom got the night before the event was not cleaned up. There were slices of half-eaten pizza on the counter, other garbage around the room, and the bed was not made. When they called the front desk, someone came and removed the large garbage and made the bed - and that was it, no further cleaning. The same day, the room for another guest was leaking from the roof, and the bed was soaking wet. She sat down on it without realizing and wet her clothes immediately and completely. Two of the guests we were paying for the night before the event did not get the 2 Queens Bedroom we arranged for them and promised to us by Reservations, and they got the 1 King Bedroom instead. This was unacceptable as each of these guests had 4 family members - and this was the reason the 2 Queens Bedroom was arranged for them. Also, the groom's brother had check-in issues with his event night reservation. There may have been other issues with hotel room check-ins which I am not aware of.

Set-up the morning of the event: The set-up was supposed to begin at 11 am according to the banquet event order (BEO). However, cleanup of the event from the previous night did not begin until noon, and the crew supervisor was extremely overwhelmed as she did not have any help, or the table layout from the event coordinator, to set up the tables. This was due to lack of proper communication between the two of them. Eventually the supervisor had to go into the coordinator's office and obtain a copy of the table layout. Seeing the former in panic mode, we tried to help to speed up the task. However, one of the round tables my cousin and I tried to move was not locked as it should have been by the hotel personnel. The moment we tried to move it, this heavy unlocked table folded and fell just under my right knee, slid down my shin, and stopped just above my feet - pinning my feet underneath. It was so painful that my eyes teared up as I was writhing in pain. The supervisor filed an incident report as it happened on hotel property due to hotel negligence. I sustained cuts under my knee, on my shin, and above my feet. My cousin and his wife put ice on the injury for about 10-15 min., and the supervisor put antiseptic cream on all 3 injuries and waterproof band-aid on the below knee and above foot cuts. After about half an hour, I was able to walk again without assistance.

The Event: There were numerous issues administering the event itself. The appetizers were supposed to be served around the room by hotel staff walking around with them. Instead, they were all laid down on buffet tables. The quality of all 3 of the Empire dinner plates had deteriorated substantially from our menu tasting 6 months earlier. Despite my numerous emails to the final planner stating the mint jelly was to be served on the side of the lamb chops instead of on top as at the menu tasting, there was no mint jelly served at all at the event - only the lamb chops. The lamb chops in the menu tasting were thick and juicy, but the lamb chops served at the event were thin and dry. Despite my numerous emails to the final planner asking that dark meat be served for the Chicken Marsala, white meat was served. And the Norwegian Salmon was just as dry at the event as it was at the menu tasting. Then, when it was time to set up the outside caterer's food on chafing dishes and burners after dinner, as was discussed during our meeting with the hotel and the hotel assured us they would do, nothing was set up. When we asked the supervisor why, she said the outside caterer was supposed to do that and they didn't - and no one told her the hotel would do so. It seems she forgot what was decided at the meeting. If the coordinator was supposed to remind the supervisor about it, this was another major miscommunication between them. However, the supervisor did call the outside caterer in the midst of the event - and the latter had to come to set up the chafing dishes and burners so the guests could serve themselves. The outside caterer charged us a substantial additional fee to do this. Then, when it was time for the supervisor and crew to cut the cake for the guests, no one from the hotel was to be found. Finally, after we actually had to remind the supervisor to cut the cakes, the cakes were cut after a long delay. The cut pieces were set on a table - and guests who saw them had them, and the guests who missed seeing them did not. The supervisor worked hard but was overwhelmed due to short and amateur staffing, and a lack of any kind of structure or communication.

Summary: There were numerous serious negative issues regarding the handling of our special event by the hotel, and this is far below the standards we expected from Doubletree. This was supposed to be a fun, worry-free, and memorable event for us. Instead, it turned out to be one of the most stressful evenings of our lives.

Can you believe this hotel had contractors working at 6am this morning? Woke me up!
No coffee
No hot water
No water bottles for Gold members?
The front desk people had zero clue what’s going on here!
What is going on here!? I will never stay here.

The time we were staying it’s under renovation.

A little construction going on in the hotel but our room was all completed and very clean.

We have stayed here multiple times in the past. This hotel is conveniently located just off 390, close to several restaurants, stores, and the colleges. It’s affordable, comfortable and large so it usually has plenty of availability. We’ve never had a bad stay. This stay, unfortunately, we experienced some issues. The rooms itself was nice. Recently remodeled. The carpet in the hallway is obviously new also. The bathroom was renovated and nice, but the sink was clogged upon arrival and there was no answer at the front desk when I called for assistance. The room was also freezing when we arrived. The air conditioner works, and that’s a plus, but the temp was on 60. The elevators are always broken and again, just one was working. The hotel was full of high school teams trying to squish into one small elevator. Those same students were also running down the halls yelling and screaming until at least midnight. And most importantly, housekeeping was pounding on the door at 10am, even though check out is stated to be 11am. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Why say check out is 11am if you’re trying to push people out at 10am?

To begin with I primarily stay at Hiltons. They are almost always excellent from reservation to checkout. This time however it unfortunately did not meet expectations. Upon checking in with my family I was advised they no longer had the room I had reserved, two double beds. They only had rooms with one bed and a pullout couch. I asked if I had RESERVED a specific room why was it no longer available? My son began quoting Seinfeld "You know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to hold the reservation." A system error we were told, but to try and add a positive note this room was supposedly newly renovated. With no other option we took the room which was very nice. There was no bedding for the pullout and it took over an hour for them to bring it. The pullout was full size, not queen as we had been told, and very uncomfortable. Not up to the Hilton quality. The TV remote did not work and engineering never came to fix it as requested. The refrigerator was warm when we went to put our leftovers in. The unit only had two options, On for 2 hours or Off for 8 hours. I've never seen this before, nor can I imagine how having a refrigerator on for only 2 hours would be useful at all. It cooled very quickly, but as you can imagine it was warm by the next morning so our food was spoiled. The king bed was very comfortable and the sheets were extremely soft. The room overall was well appointed. At least two floors of this property were being renovated so I'm sure that factored into the situation. My wife was also happy to find that the famous cookies now were available in gluten-free. If you're planning to stay at this location be sure to check-in online and choose your room asap.

Are over night stay was very nice. The check in was quick but he didn’t say much, never told us where to head for the elevator and found out later he was supposed to give us a cookie at check in. He left the desk as soon as we started to leave. We felt like we were interrupting him. We ask and found the elevators. We had dinner there and breakfast both nice. Overall we were happy with everything. Plus parking was great.

This hotel was under renovations, only one functional elevator which was slow and ended up taking stairs regularly which was not good since I have a bad knee. We were there with several family for a wedding in Rochester. We had elderly family who were unable to take the stairs. The hotel AC was not working in lobby area and on the day of the wedding the water was turned off in the hotel for 30 minutes without notice. Miserable stay!!