Hilton Garden Inn Pittsburgh University Place

The definition of mediocre. My stay was fine but nothing special about this hotel, from room to service. Only benefit is the distance to CMU and UPitt campuses (less than $ 10 über ride).

This two star review is only for the dining area and has nothing to do with service or the food. The service has always been amazing. It has to do with their buffet. Now, I work next door so I have frequented the Hilton Garden Inn restaurant many a times. I am utterly disappointed in their changes. See the picture I loaded… If you cannot it states, «Get excited about our new buffet».
A better sign would have been, «We took out dessert, our hot food bar, made the salad bar smaller, and then added a dollar to the price».
Seriously??? You are telling me that you are going to add a dollar to the total price of the buffet but take away a lot of choices? That is not ok in my book.
This place was convenient, had great service, had great food, and was good for most of my work friends to go to. Now, we are all disappointed and we need to find a new close go to place!
The chili was good, the salad was good, and the pasta was good. But It was not what I wanted or expected. Sigh…

An average hotel nearby to Carnegie Mellon, University of Pittsburgh, UPMC, and Magee-Women’s Hospital. We stayed here for a wedding and had a great time with our friends. Booking was easy with the group code and they were friendly when we checked in. There is a full bar downstairs that is open until 11ish on weekdays with a fair selection of beers. The hotel itself is in an extremely walkable and in a relatively safe feeling area. So convenient for travelers like us, there is a CVS and Jimmy Johns/Arby’s just downstairs. The rooms are quite small though and I think even the two queen rooms are too small for 3 or 4 people to be comfortable. Note if you look on the diagram of the hotel, you will find rooms ending in «23» are the largest in terms of square feet (e.g., 723, 823, etc). No matter what room you find yourself in though, you will hear your neighbors, and by that I mean you will hear their conversations as clear as a sunny California day. The beds are decently comfortable and my understanding is that all rooms recently got new mattresses. We had no problems with the elevators being slow or with street noise from Forbes Ave., unlike some other reviews from Trip Advisor said.
Valet parking is $ 18 dollars a night, my tears included. Major buzzkill.

Stayed here for a business trip. Staff was friendly and readily available. Rooms are a little dated but clean. Fairly close to bars and restaurants, but not walking distance to the more popular night spots.
My only real complaint was that the bathroom had a very musty, mildewy smell. Could not stand being in there for long, couldn’t find the source of the smell.

My wife and I stayed here when she had a medical procedure at UPMC. The entire staff made us feel incredibly welcome and helped us out in numerous ways. Not only did they grant us an early check in, they gave us a discounted hospital rate and even prepared a special entrée for my wife since she had dietary restrictions before her procedure. Everyone from the valet parking staff to the waitstaff made us feel welcome during a stressful stay. We cannot wait to come back, and would recommend that anyone needing a great place to stay, regardless of the reason. This place rocks!

We just checked out from our two night stay over the 4^th of July weekend and were extremely satisfied with the entire stay. The lobby was beautiful and hall ways were all very modern and clean. The front desk was efficient and very helpful. The valet crew worked very hard and was very willing to help. The free shuttle is a huge plus to get you «down town».
We had a standard king bed room and were pleased to see all the space. The bed was very comfortable and tv was nice and large. The temperature controls are all digital which makes it a lot easier to get comfortable.
Location is not the best, but the free shuttle makes this no big deal at all. I would defiantly recommend this hotel to anyone!

Hotel was clean and efficient. Unfortunately, I stayed on the 8^th floor on which there was a rhythmic slamming noise beginning at 6 AM every day. Additionally, they charged my CC I gave them for incidentals instead of the company CC I reserved it under. The food was mediocre, the bar is overpriced. The service was wonderful.

Rooms are good, but horrible service for a hotel charging $ 200 per night.
They wouldn’t deliver anything to the room. You have to go to the lobby to pick up some plates and silver ware. You need some napkins, sorry, we don’t coffee to your room, come to thee lobby to pick it up. WHY?
There is no in room breakfast option. You have to go the lobby to pick up your food.
i have seen cheap motels with better service, or in this case some existent service.
Will not recommend due to bad service.

The location isn’t very good but the service is good and the breakfast is excellent and the service in the dining room is stellar. Nice to have complementary coffee stations around and oat bars in the evening. The rooms are above average, despite as a silver honors guest I was upgraded to a funky L-​shaped room with a view of the gas station parking lot and next to an emergency door that seem to be used surprisingly often and noisily. Beds are also not very comfortable. Valet service is prompt and polite.

The service was ok, but the beds were horrible!!! Worst sleep I’ve ever had and back hurts like no ones business.

Horrible beds. What’s pretty much the #1 thing a hotel needs to not suck at? Beds. The first time I sat down, the beds frame creaked and crackled like it was going to break. The edge of the mattress sloped down and made me feel like falling out of bed was a given. There was also a 4 – 5 inch gap between the mattress and the headboard. Good luck keeping your pillows. The gap was because the platform the bed was on was separate from the headboard (mounted to the wall). Both of them were bulky and already touching. So I tried scooting the mattress back. No dice. I asked the manager about moving us to another room, but he said the noise” was a feature of the bed” and all the rooms had those beds. Thanks for nothing buddy. After all that, it was uncomfortable too. The rest of the room was fine. The other staff and valets were great. If you want a good night’a sleep, stay somewhere else.

Decent, clean hotel. Conveniently located near Pitt’s campus. It’s a little pricy but that’s probably due to the location. The biggest annoyance here is that the parking is expensive ($ 18/​day) and the room key cards demagnetized very easily. I was there for 2 nights and my keys needed to be reset twice. The shuttle was unreliable; I would opt for über or a cab over using the free hotel shuttle.

The check-​in process was easy. The location is great, close to plentiful options for food and drink. The bed was comfortable. The room was clean. My bathroom was clean and the shampoo replaced each day. The TV worked. There was no in-​room safe, and no room service from what I could tell.
The hotel is steps away from University of Pittsburgh and not far from Carnegie Mellon University. And therein lies the real problem. The hotel seems to be popular with students and college-​age out-​of-​towners who come to see a game and party. As a result, the hotel gets loud late at night (that is, early in the morning as people return from the bars). The walls are very thin and my room had only a flimsy door that separated me from the room next door. As a result, I could hear EVERYTHING that was said or done in the next room.
My recommendation is that if you are on a business trip or need to get some sleep in order to work the next day, stay somewhere else. This is a party hotel for college students who tend to be loud and inconsiderate.

A stay that started with friends being able to get the keys before I got there simply by saying they were staying in 924 (and show no ID) and ended with the head of Housekeeping looking at her watch when she stopped by at 12:05 pm checkout day while I was waiting for a friend to bring around the car and would be out in 5 – 10 minutes. Don’t stay here — they clearly see customers as a (un)necessary evil.
That said, there were several friendly staffers — Candy (Front Desk), Hope (restaurant), and Saturday’s morning shuttle driver and while there, the room was functional, clean and met our needs.
The stay began 300 miles away when I checked in online via
and chose a great room on the top floor and called ahead to add friends to the reservation since they would be arriving earlier than I would. The first time friends stopped by, the front desk person said they weren’t on the reservation. When they return after I added them, they spoke with a different clerk than they had earlier or I did on the phone — and were given keys without being asked for ID. That has to be illegal (if not, it should be).
They go up to the room to find the HVAC unit in pieces unassembled — luckily we had a good weather weekend, but that could be a rough bump in the night going into the grate over the plastic casing of the unit. As the stay progressed things were relatively uneventful. The restaurant and shuttle service did an excellent job Saturday making our stay for the Pitt vs. Georgia Tech Football game a good day. Much appreciation to those named above for making that happen.
This morning, we had a lot of interaction with the people who run this hotel. At the restaurant, the Director of Food & Beverage was taking orders for the made-​to-​order breakfast; of the three of us, the last person’s order wasn’t included on our ticket. So, one of the servers took the number from our table making it difficult for them to find us once the third person’s food was ready. So hard in fact, that they gave her food to another table that even said it was what they’d ordered. This was straightened out eventually, but it is interesting how the staff managed a packed house the day before flawlessly, and today a sparsely filled dining room was tricky for the Director of Food & Beverage to manage. Most staff was the same — and maybe they were tired — but it really did seem that changing who took the orders may have impacted the accuracy of food delivery.
Lastly, at check-​out, I was preparing to walk out the door (which had the ‘do not disturb’ tag on it, and there came a knock and I said I’d be out in 5 – 10 minutes. In fairness, it was 12:05. Another knock came and I opened the door — the Head of Housekeeping was there with her clipboard. I explained that I was hustling to get ready and would be out in 5 – 10 — to which she responded «okay» and she looked down at her watch. When I express dissatisfaction with her attitude, she said «sorry you feel that way, this room was marked as vacant which is why I checked.» To which I responded, please don’t apologize for how I feel about something — please apologize for your actions. I realize this was a bit harsh, but I didn’t appreciate that this was the last impression I’d have of this hotel — and she felt it was okay that that impression be a negative one.
High potential staff, but management has a lot of improvement needed. Try the Residence Inn Pittsburgh University instead.

Very nice customer service when booking the hotel. A bit confusing about parking, as you cannot park at the hotel yourself, you can only valet for $ 18/​day or try and find parking on the street/​a block away at another parking garage. The front desk staff were fine. The beds are strange, way too firm and the pillows are really sub-​par as well. The rooms themselves are very spacious with an empty fridge/​cabinet space and microwave, which was convenient. Breakfast at the hotel was great the next day and though we didn’t use the shuttle, apparently it gets you where you need to be within a 3-​mile radius from the hotel. I don’t think I’d stay here again unless I had to, but it was fine since we needed to be in the area.

I had planned on staying at the Doubletree in Monroeville but realized that I’d have to depart pretty darn early to be at Pitt by 8:00 am. the next day. The Hilton Garden Inn offered convenience — at a price.
I called before making a reservation to inquire about the valet parking. A staff member explained that I could leave my car in their garage until 6 pm on check-​out day for the $ 18 valet parking fee. That meant that I could park on Thursday evening and not have to move my car until my family’s Pitt visit was complete on Friday afternoon.
The room was pretty much as expected. No surprises good or bad. The only minor annoyance was that the batteries in the door lock were shot and we had to stand in the hallway upon arrival while maintenance changed the batteries. We dropped our luggage, walked down Forbes Ave for dinner, returned to the room, then slept. Based on that, it’s hard to rave about the place. The next morning, the front desk stored our luggage while we walked over to Pitt.
At the end of our visit, it was a breeze to retrieve both our luggage and our car. So for around $ 60 more than the Doubletree, we didn’t have to deal with rush-​hour traffic or parking on campus. If my family has a similar weekday morning event at Pitt, I’d return without hesitation. Maybe 3.5 stars.

The best thing that I can say about my stay was that the room & bathroom was clean. The front desk service was horrible outside of their normal check-​in /​check-​out responsibilities. Asking them to call or a cab was a disaster, the Front Desk offered the shuttle service but could only drop me off a half mile from my location. Not being from Pittsburgh and not having an umbrella ruled out a stroll in the rain.
The bed was extra firm with a hump in the middle. And my attempt in the morning to iron my dress shirt was an epic fail as the iron burnt an imprint of itself in my shirt.
The desk attendant, Tony was sincerely apologetic for my stay.

This was my first visit here, and it won’t be the last.(in the past, I stayed at the old Holiday Inn in Oakland, now I think owned by Wyndham), This is now my favorite Oakland hotel. Everything was clean and «new». The staff was so friendly and helpful. I am not a coffee drinker (more of a foo-​foo latte type of drinker), but I did love their coffee. Their shuttle service is great… used it to go to a restaurant on the North side and besides having to wait for folks that wanted to go to the greyhound bus station (not Hilton’s fault), it all worked out perfectly. They dropped us off and picked us up when we called them. It was nice not having to drive and worry about parking, etc.
I am not keen about valet service parking, but these folks were great… very friendly and courteous.
All in all it is a great find. Location, service, coffee, cleanliness, good energy. Everything put together made this an excellent place for me to stay and return to.

When things are at their worst, you see people for who they truly are… and the staff here can handle stress.
I’m writing this review on my phone during the 5^th? hour of a blackout due to a transformer exploding around the corner
Up until today, my stay has been uneventful.
I had a decent room, in a fairly convenient location, with a comfortable bed and a nice breakfast. That pretty much summed up my first days stay here… and if that had been all I experienced, I’d be torn between 3 and 4 stars. When the power went out, however, it was the staffs time to shine …
They were incredibly patient with the repeated questions of «when will the power go back on»…they provided glow sticks to everyone to make them as comfortable as possible in the rooms… When it was obvious the frozen food was going to melt, they were handing out free ice cream … Throughout all of this, they kept a calm, friendly demeanor.
Good job guys!

I needed a Hotel close to the University and this Hilton really did the trick! Reasonably priced, The location was my first priority in choosing this hotel, and I don’t regret it. For those driving in, it’s next to a gas station, which was useful for when we checked out.
The staff was beyond caring, friendly, helpful, and overall excellent, from the front desk to the valet to the bartenders. There’s always complimentary punch and cookies out in the lobby as well; nice touch! The prices for food, drinks, etc. are typical of hotels (i.e., overpriced), but that hardly matters here. It’s also within walking distance to a bunch of restaurants and bars (mostly populated by college students).
By the way, all hotel parking is valet. The staff is so friendly and the price is so reasonable compared to other cities, though! There’s also free wi-​fi for all guests, perfect for the guest on the go. There were a few amenities, but if you need more, there’s a Rite-​Aid within walking distance. Overall, an experience that was much better than I expected.