Hilton Garden Inn New York/Central Park South-Midtown West

I have wrote a lot of reviews on here, and always start with the same thing. Trip Advisor gives the paying public a chance to read, and make a choice. If everyone writes a review, and keeps it simple, and factual, it helps Massively in making that choice. The Hilton Garden Inn Central Park is Bang On Bullseye in an area which can not get any more Prestigious....if it tried its hardest. You are "Spitting Distance" from Broadway, a few yards in fact, and around the corner from Central Park. STAFF..... Friendly, helpful and available for information. No issues with these guys at all. ROOM... My wife and myself were happy with the room. I paid for 2 beds, and for New York it was big enough for us. Not so sure how a family of 4 would have coped, but for us it was only for sleeping anyway. Very clean and housekeeping was in every day. They made the beds, and checked the towel's, all good. T.V. didn't work on arrival, but a guy came up immediately and sorted it. The room had a coffee machine thing, that wasn't all that impressive to be honest......However....at least it had a coffee machine thing. The room had an ice bucket and a machine on several floors so you could get ice for the room. The room was clean but basic. It had an Iron and Hair Dryer and all toiletries. THE LIFTS This has caused some really negative reviews in the past, but it wasn't a problem whilst we were there. All 3 of them were working, and My wife is a Claustrophobic and cant use em anyway. We asked for a low floor room so she could use the stairs. THE PRICE Mmmmm...This aint a Premier Inn guy's on the outskirts of Manchester, So YES, your gonna have to pay for the area. This hotel which is a short stroll from Times Square will sing to the tune of around £300 a night. Over all i would go back if i decide to visit the City again....But I have a "Beef"... Not sure weather it's me being silly, but it's Hissed (typos) me off a bit. When walking into the room for the first time, underneath the T.V. along with an Ice Bucket and 2 disposable cups were 2 plastic bottles full of water. The kind you would find in Aldi for 25p each. There is NO mini bar in the room, just these 2 bottles next to the empty Ice Bucket. I actually used one of them to try out the Coffee machine. The next day after housekeeping had been in, this bottle had been replaced. I think my wife opened it, had a swig, and left it on the side. The next day, this bottle had also been replaced..... THESE CHEAP BOTTLES OF WATER,(that appear to be complimentary like most hotels) ARE CHARGED TO YOUR CREDIT CARD AT ARROUND £4 A BOTTLE. It got up my nose a bit, after spending so much on a basic hotel room, it is beyond me why the Hilton Garden Inn feels the need to charge their guests 1500% on a bottle of water... But Hey-Ho.....This Is New York Baby....,P.S... Avoid The Yellow Cabs.....These Will Steal Off You At Every Opportunity. Even The One That The Hotel Called And Organized For Me, Tried To Over Charge Me At JFK....But After Being Ripped Off On The Way From JFK To The Hilton Garden Inn by $50, I Was Ready For Him.......And Stopped Him Before I Tapped My Card. Read less

Stay: May 1–4, 2025 - Room 503 Absolutely awful experience. We stayed here for 3 nights, and what followed after check-out was nothing short of a disaster. First, we spoke to Sean Lucas at check-in and very clearly confirmed with him that we could leave our luggage at the hotel while we took a short trip out of the city. He reassured us—explicitly—that the hotel would store our bags safely while we were away. Since we were traveling internationally, we had a LOT of luggage (6 bags in total), and carrying it all to Princeton for just 2 nights was never an option. His assurance was the only reason we planned the way we did. But when we checked out on May 4, Sean wasn’t around, and Helen at the front desk suddenly threw a completely different policy at us—saying the hotel does not allow storing luggage overnight unless we had a continuous booking. This was not just inconsistent—it felt like straight-up betrayal. We were stranded with six pieces of luggage and no place to keep them. No warning, no heads-up, no email. Nothing. After a long, frustrating discussion, Helen said we could leave the bags if we booked another stay. We agreed reluctantly, despite feeling misled, only to be told again that no, we’d also need to book a night for May 6 (not May 7 as we initially planned), because now they apparently won’t hold luggage for 3 nights, only 2. This makes no sense, especially considering we had every intention of returning. The 6th night was priced over $900, which felt like extortion at this point. It honestly seemed like Helen was doing everything possible to force us to take our bags and leave, refusing to honor what her own colleague had committed. The whole thing was so unprofessional, disjointed, and yes—borderline discriminatory. We felt unwelcome, disrespected, and completely let down. To top it all off, it was pouring rain while we scrambled to figure things out with all our luggage, and still no empathy from the staff. We have photos of the staff involved (Sean and Helen), the amount of luggage we were stuck with, and screenshots of the absurd $900+ room rates we were told to pay if we wanted our luggage stored. You’ll notice one extra bag in the photo—that’s because we had packed separately for the Princeton trip, assuming we’d be able to leave the rest of our luggage with the hotel as originally planned. Hilton is supposed to be a globally trusted name in hospitality. What happened here was a mess of poor communication, inconsistent policy, and total indifference to guest experience. We paid premium prices and got a complete nightmare in return. Wouldn’t recommend this property to anyone. Read less

Worst Customer Service I ever experienced as Hoteliere and Travel Advisor - the entire team is full of lies and extreme rude attitude. Unbelievable! We were first booked 7 nights then we wanted to extend another 6 nights, I was Booking on the phone with the Hilton Reservation team live to confirm the rate and Room type to be changed to double queen rooms and got confirmed; then everyday including the night before the check out day - Back to back reservation- the Front Desk team confirm again we don't need to move rooms. Next day all of a sudden we were told to leave the current room, the guest service manager has a huge attitude cutting me off when I was talking multiple times and even hang up on us. She said - "this is New York City so please feel free to call Hilton reservation line and find out whomever promised you". They also lied multiple times by saying if there is any availability opens up, they will move the room. so May 5th, we see there is double queen rooms open I talked to them again and they straight lied to me saying there is no availability - I screenshot the availability on the website. This is a hotel team will yell, cut off guest, lie and can't even peacefully discuss the issue. As a hoteliere and travel advisor in the industry for over 10 years, I'm beyond shocked. This is lack of basic human manner. Read less

I am a Hilton Honors Diamond member. I stay at Hiltons every six to eight weeks. This has been the worst experience I have ever had at any hotel — not just any Hilton. At 9:48 am today, we called the front desk to ask that they fix our faucets. There was brown water coming out of every faucet. We were told that they would send an engineer. We had to leave our room to go to an appointment, so we never did see an engineer come up to fix the problem. We returned to our room at 11 pm and found that the problem had not been fixed. Still brown water coming out of everywhere. We asked for a new room. We were told that the hotel is sold out and there are no other rooms. So here we are at midnight, waiting for the engineer to return and fix the problem. We are so tired. We just want to brush our teeth, wash our face and go to sleep. We can’t even do that. This place has made me question why I have been so loyal to Hiltons. Read less

Hilton Garden Inn Central Park South 237 West 54Th Street 10019, NEW YORK The hotel wasn't as good as we were expecting it to be. The location was amazing but on arrival I needed to pay $700 deposit and was bluntly informed if I used any tea, coffee or water bottles, this would all be deducted from my deposit. I found it strange not to have complimentary tea / coffee in the room. Needless to say, we didn't drink the tea, coffee or water. The 'shop' in reception was very expensive. I get that it's the centre of New York but the only bottle of water we could find in the shop was $11 or $12! No thank you! I'm not sure whether they had run out of cheaper water but we couldn't see any. A small packet of crisps was also around $5! The room was quite dark, only one ceiling light as you walked in, and two lamps at the end of the beds. No other overhead lighting so this made the room feel very dark, especially when tryingto use the mirror. This was probably not helped by only being on the 6th floor and the view looking on to a court yard so there was very little natural light coming in. There were 2 double beds in the room (as requested) but the mattresses didn't come to the end of the beds so for the first few days we kept hitting our legs on the wooden corners of the beds every time we squeezed past them. At check-in, the person (Jordan) wasn't particularly friendly or helpful. He told us that there had been an incident and only 2 out of 3 lifts were working so if we weren't happy we could leave and find somewhere else to stay and get a full refund. I really don't know where he thought we would go at 6pm after travelling for 12 hours and not being familiar with New York! He said if we decided to stay, there would be no compensation for the lift issue. I appreciate he was fed up of repeating himself but it wasn't a great first impression of the hotel. The rest of the staff were pleasant, friendly and helpful so maybe Jordan was just having an off day! The air con was very noisy in the room, especially during the night. The cleaners let themselves in to the room TWICE (after knocking once) the day BEFORE we were leaving and asked us if we were checking out. I can understand maybe making a mistake once on their paper work but twice in the same day was strange. This was 2 different cleaners at different times of the day asking if we were checking out when we weren't due to leave until the next day. The lifts were all working after a few days and although we sometimes waited a few minutes, it wasn't really any sort of problem. The disappointing thing is that Virgin Holidays were not made aware of the lift issues in advance so were quite surprised when I informed them of it. They did offer to try to get us moved but this was on the day the 3rd lift was finally fixed so the hotel didn't seem too keen on any refund for moving us. As I've mentioned, the location is amazing and something I definitely can't fault. Literally 5 minutes from Central Park and just 6 or 7 from Times Square. We had breakfast included, although this was not mentioned by Jordan at check-in so I had to go back later that evening and ask about where to go and what the process was for breakfast. Breakfast was at The Empire Steak House attached to the hotel and I can't fault the food and staff. The waiters explained everything on our first morning and were always friendly and helpful every morning. Breakfast was fairly simple but absolutely perfect for what we wanted. The coffee was amazing too! They were quick to bring the receipt each day for the tip! All in all, the hotel was OK but I would probably choose a different one next time as our experience definitely didn't have any 'wow' factor which I thought it would have being a Hilton Hotel. Read less