This was one of the worst experiences I've had a Hilton - and a VERY expensive experience too. Back in June 2023 when I knew my 92 year old mother and I'd be on a cruise leaving from Auckland, I contacted the hotel about booking a day room (our overnight flight arrived at 6:30am but the ship didn't embark until 2pm). I booked and paid over $400 for the use of a room from 9am to 6pm (we just wanted a shower and a place for Mum to rest/sleep before getting on the ship). I tried to book the room for earlier but was told 9am was the earliest. I fully expected the room to be ready at 9am (or perhaps earlier as we'd be getting to the hotel before 8am). On arrival at the hotel, I was told the room wasn't ready and that NO housekeepers were available until 9am to clean ANY rooms (this is a 24-hour hotel -- you'd expect at least a skeleton housekeeping crew would be available to clean rooms vacated at all sorts of hours for people to catch international flights, but no. Not at this hotel.)
Initially, reception told us there were no rooms available, then we were told to go have some breakfast (at our expense) while we waited for housekeeping to start cleaning rooms in an hour's time, with no guarantee as to when a room would be ready for us. I checked back with the front desk numerous times and eventually we got our room after 10am after a manager had stepped in an gone up to the room to help prepare it. The room was fine, but we were charged full price and offered no compensation for a room that wasn't ready when they told us it would be some 7 months earlier. Oh, while we were waiting someone decided that giving us 2 small bars of NZ chocolate would somehow compensate us for the inconvenience of not being able to sleep or shower after a long international flight. The chocolate was nice and it was a nice gesture from that individual, but it was only a bandaid.
I must make a comment about the reception staff -- they were very helpful and sympathetic and did their best under extremely busy circumstances. When we arrived around 8am, it was easy to access Reception and to store our luggage, but by 9am the lobby was packed and more than half the area was taken up with masses of stored luggage, presumably for cruise ship passengers for the 2 cruise ships in port. The staff were worked off their feet dealing with rude customers etc. I felt very sorry for them -- those sorts of numbers would've been known, so adding another person to reception would have helped, as would've adding another bellhop for the luggage. The seating area near reception is tiny, which didn't help with the crowds of people they were dealing with as best they could.
But having sympathetic staff doesn't address the systemic issue of NO housekeeping being done until 9am, which means early check-in and day room bookings cannot be honoured until well after 9am once rooms start to be cleaned and therefore made available. If the hotel knows they can't deal effectively with early check-in then they shouldn't offer it and thus make the reception staff bear the brunt of tired and angry customers who expect to get what they've paid for.
Effectively we paid $400+ for access to a room for just a couple of hours.
As an aside, I'd have been very unhappy if I'd paid extra for a harbour view room, only to discover that a massive cruise ship had blocked every centimetre of view!
