The four days spent at the Hilton Garden Inn Phoenix Airport North was a mixed bag of superb service and excellent food coupled with less than superb room accommodation. First the exceptional superb service by four outstanding individuals: DANAEY at reception. My first night at the hotel was a nightmare. When I entered the room, it was stifling hot even though the wall thermostat said 74 degrees, which as it turns out, never changed throughout the night. I turned the thermostat down to 68 degrees but all the heating unit would do was to pump out slightly cool air. Same result when I turned the thermostat down to 55 degrees. In addition to the less than desirable climate, the heating-cooling unit would make loud noises when it started its’ cooling cycle and when it shut down made loud banging noises until it shut off. That carried on all night. Sleep was futile. The next morning, as I headed to my meeting being held at the hotel’s conference room, I stopped by the reception desk and requested a room change explaining the events of the past evening. With absolutely no hesitation at all, Danaey immediately said she would get me a new room. She apologized profusely and she even said she got me a new room on the same floor as my current room so as to minimize any inconvenience by having to change floors. Danaey not only took the initiative to immediately rectify the situation, she added a personal consideration relative to my having to move rooms. She demonstrated genuine concern and truly made me feel like a welcomed guest. MONICA at the conference room. Monica was in charge of our group and took care of us for the three days of our meetings. She is superb. On the first day she introduced herself letting me know she would be taking good care of us throughout our stay and she did that in spades. She made sure food was ready at the scheduled times and kept mid-morning and mid-afternoon refreshments well stocked. On the second day of our meeting it came to my attention I had forgotten to order lunches as it was only a half-day session with my staff before Board committee meetings started in the afternoon. With the hotel not being close to any fast-food restaurants and the fact Board of Directors were arriving for the afternoon meetings I was panicked thinking how to get lunches for 10 people. As I was pondering the situation, Monica came to me and said she noticed I had not ordered lunches that day as I had done for the other days and was wondering if I would care to order lunches off of the hotels’ Express Lunch Menu. Which I did. Monica was a life saver. She not only noticed I missed ordering lunches, she took the initiative to ask me about it and she offered a solution for me by offering the Express Lunch Menu. Another example of genuine concern in taking care of the hotel guests. CHEAYANNA at reception. It was the day before the Board of Directors arrived that we were having our staff meeting and final prep for the Board meeting. The conference room was set up as requested, however, I noticed there was only one extension cord power bar that was used for the projector. We needed at least two more power cords for the staff and Board to use for their computers during the next couple of days of meetings. I went to the one reception desk (there are two at the hotel) and asked the receptionist if we could get additional power cords for the conference room. She responded that she knew nothing about the conference rooms, that her job was reception. I asked if she could ask Summer Charley in the sales department who I booked the conference rooms with to see if she could help us. Instead, the receptionist said I needed to talk with the Front Office Manager who was standing behind her and was talking with the maintenance person about what needed to get done in the hotel that day. Once the manager and maintenance person finished talking, they walked away with the receptionist not making any effort to catch them to help me out. As I stood there wondering what to do next – do I get an Uber to the nearest Walmart to buy a couple of power bars, does Insta-Cart deliver power bars? – and started to walk away, the receptionist at the other reception desk, Cheayanna, held up her hand signaling me to wait a minute. She disappeared behind the door behind the reception desks and returned 5 minutes later with a giant ring of keys and said follow me. We went back to the conference room area and she unlocked a door at the end of the hallway and went inside. When she came out she had a 20 foot extension cord with a power outlet on the end and another cord with another power outlet. Cheayanna was a life saver. Again, she took the initiative to act without prodding or being told what to do or reacting to some irate guest, she quietly understood the situation, demonstrated leadership in deciding to take action, and successfully resolved the situation making the hotel guest beyond happy. Cheayanna was friendly, professional, and demonstrated genuine care in helping me resolve what we needed for our meeting. She has talent, takes initiative, a strong work ethic, an engaging personality and is an asset to Hilton. The leadership she demonstrated is rare to find these days and Hilton management should mentor this young lady and nurture her career as she has management potential. JOSE at the restaurant. With the exception of one night out at The Stockyards for dinner, we ate all of our meals at the hotel. The evening meal was the most enjoyable as Jose was our waiter and he defines personality and enthusiasm. He is super friendly and accommodating. He made the dining experience an event not to be missed. I’d like to mention two others who were super-friendly and accommodating: the night manager Ricardo Burton who when we asked if the shuttle was available to take our group of 10 to The Stockyards for dinner he didn’t hesitate and said “Sure!” and called Larry to drive us there. Larry is the other individual who was super-friendly and personable as he drove us to and from the dinner at The Stockyards. These two gentlemen demonstrated excellent guest service. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the food here at the Hilton Garden Inn Phoenix Airport North is excellent. Whether it was breakfast, the buffet lunches for our Board meeting, or the dinners in the restaurant, all meals were excellent. They must have great chefs back in the kitchen. A few of the negatives. Some of the receptionist staff would do better in other lines of work and I suspect management knows who they are. Shuttle service can be a bit dicey with some of our group getting picked up at the airport in fairly short order while others waited for over an hour, so if you are in a real hurry to get from the airport to the hotel you might want to get an Uber. One final point, it was a bit disappointing that the sales-person we dealt with in booking the hotel, conference room, and catering never came out to say hello or to check to see if everything was going OK. She was always friendly when I originally met her when I was scoping out hotels for our Board meeting and when following up on booking information. I suspect she is quite busy as there were times when working through the logistics of the meeting and catering needs, it would be a day or two before she got back to me. I guess the labor shortage is impacting all of us. To sum up, we had a great stay that was made that way by the exceptional staff at Hilton Garden Inn Phoenix Airport North. …
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.