My wife and I stayed at the Hilton Garden Rockaway on a Friday night in June, 2024.

To be somewhat fair, the only thing saving this review from being a 1-star was that the hotel was on the tail end of a major renovation. So I'm giving them some partial "benefit of the doubt" for the fact that things were a bit of a mess. Otherwise, our stay was certainly not the greatest and based on our experience, I can't really recommend it to other people.

When we arrived, we were in a long line of people waiting to check in, several of which were quite obviously wedding guests (possibly the same wedding that another reviewer mentioned previously?). Most of our time waiting there was only one person checking people in, then eventually a second one came along.

There was a construction crew there working when we were checking in, and there was furniture all over the place in the lobby. The pool was closed.

There was apparently a hot water problem that other guests were discussing before we checked in. I overheard something about one of the construction workers turning off the hot water, and if that is the case, the timing couldn't have possibly been worse to make such a decision on a Friday night, especially with wedding parties staying there!

Our room was okay, but there was no ice machine available anywhere in the hotel, no "do not disturb" cards to hang outside our door, and nothing in the room indicating anything like where vending machines might be or what other services they offer.

So if you happen to be a hotel manager reading this review, I'm okay with a little bit of a mess while renovations are happening, but shouldn't you try to keep things as "normal" as possible otherwise? This seems like a case of bad management more than a case of bad timing.

We booked a block of 40 rooms at this hotel for our wedding. After the block was booked, the sales staff was difficult to get a hold of and when they did respond, members of the same team often responded to the same email with different answers. The hotel did not tell us that they would be doing substantial renovations to the hotel that would impact our stay. When we did find out because family members happened to stop by the hotel, we asked the sales staff about it and they told us that the only part of the renovations that wouldn’t be complete by the time of our stay was the countertop for the bar. When we arrived, the lobby was a construction zone complete with jackhammers. We reached out to our contact, who ignored us.
On top of lying about the state of the hotel due to renovations, the service during our stay was terrible. One guest checked in to their room to find an old package of flat breads in it. All guests who stayed two nights found that their key cards stopped working after the first night. The hotel staff was rude to the line of people who needed to get their key cards fixed after returning to the hotel at 11pm and finding they were locked out of their rooms. Multiple guests had no hot water at various points throughout their stay and there were no Do Not Disturb signs, so guests were woken by housekeeping early in the morning multiple times in the same day. Guests who attempted to use the staircases found themselves locked in the building because the fire exits were locked.
My veil was accidentally left behind in a guest room and despite calling and emailing various members of the hotel staff about it, they have refused to look for it for almost 3 weeks.
When we were looking for a hotel for our wedding, we also spoke with the Courtyard and Holiday Inn Express in Mt. Arlington, who were far more responsive and kind. Our biggest regret about our wedding is that we chose the Hilton Garden Inn. I highly recommend any couples looking for wedding hotels in the area go with one of those other options.

Very disappointed. 2/3 of my stay was without hot water. Twice my keys deactivated not due to my wallet and they told me their key system wasn’t talking to the door system. Also couldn’t get another box of Kleenex after asking twice. Had to go to another floor to ask a maid for toilet paper after the one on my floor said they were out. Will not stay there again.