Airport Transfer

Like all airport hotel shuttles you have to take the free AirTrain from your arrival terminal to Federal Circle stop and proceed downstairs to the shuttle bus stop. Follow the signs when you get to the bottom of the escalator and you reach a semi-circular pickup location. Shuttles pass by on whatever schedule they operate. Some hotels share so check the sides of the buses in case your bus is one of these. Some hotels have shuttles that arrive and wait for passengers, other arrive, drive around the circle and then leave. You need to flag them down. For information of those taking the Hilton bus it looks like this:

Luggage racks at the top of the entry steps and the driver will help if you need it – don’t forget to tip when you get off. There is a smaller shuttle which Hilton may use at off-peak times.

I had to wait 10-15 minutes for my pickup. The hotel is about a ten minute drive away, depending on traffic.

Check-In 

I had used the Hilton app to select my room in advance. Oddly, even if I receive an upgrade at this property I have never managed to book on to the Executive Floor. The highest it allows is Floor 10 for some reason.

My pre-selected room was given to me when I checked in at the front desk.

Room

Although new, the rooms have a fatal flaw – the air-conditioning is incredibly noisy. The hotel knows this and I have complained about it before, but they seem to be unable to so anything about it. If you are a light sleeper I would really consider whether this is the property for you.

There was a decent sized desk, sofa, flat screen TV and a King sized bed in my room. The WiFi is free for Gold and Diamond members of HHonors, Hilton’s frequent stay scheme. A coffee machine was provided which made single cup servings.

There was a choice of pillows and I was able to create a good combination of hard and soft options for sleep.

Bathroom

The room had only a shower, no tub. However, this was fine for a the quick one-night stay.

Standard Hilton toiletries were provided. There were sufficient towels.

Executive Lounge

On arrival I popped up for a couple of sodas before bed.

The evening food service had stopped and there was a small group basically dominating the room by laughing, shouting and talking loudly. I retrieved by sodas from the self-service fridge and left

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Next morning I was up early, although as American had changed my flight to later in the day (it was Easter and they had made a number of schedule changes), I managed to enjoy breakfast for the first time at the property.

There were hot and cold items available. Everything is self-service. They serve Starbucks coffee from a machine.

There were plenty of seats early in the morning and the member of staff was keen to help if I needed anything. It was a pretty substantial offering if you wanted to feed yourself before your flight.

Check-out

Everything went smoothly at check-out, and I went outside to await the shuttle back to the airport. They run fairly often, but can take some time as they drop off at every terminal. They seem to have a deal with JetBlue where they go to their terminal first if they have crew on board. I noticed too that Virgin America’s crew gets picked up from the terminal. I was going to terminal 8 (AA), and was the only passenger going there and so was last. Probably the journey time was 30-40 from leaving the hotel. Remember this was Good Friday and so the roads were relatively light.