Tru By Hilton St Louis Downtown Mo

5 stars.

Liked: Breakfast.
Disliked: Nothing.

Superb

Exceptional

The hotel stay was stressful...

Liked: The breakfast was okay, but no fresh whole milk or cream for the coffee. The location was in a formerly classy neighborhood in downtown St. Louis across from a beautiful public library and a Cathedral, that is now the overnight camping place for dozens of homeless people, some drunk, some mentally ill. All the cafes and coffee shops in the area had closed down. I had visited this neighborhood in 2018 when it was charming, lively and thriving. Now, it was desolate and sad.
Disliked: The neighborhood was so dangerous that there were two heavily armed guards at the entrance when we arrived. We had wanted to park in the street for a few dollars, but didn't want to risk having our car vandalized or stolen so we opted for the $55 a night valet service. This was an unexpected expense. The computer system was down when we arrived so we had to wait 40 minutes to get the electronic keys to enter our room. The staff was stressed out and unwelcoming. There were no closets in the room and no soap. The wall hooks for coats or towels were loose and falling out of the wall. Our view was an ugly air shaft. The elevator lobbies on each floor were dirty and had not been renovated since the building was built in 1926. There were no luggage carts available when we needed to check out, and no staff member volunteered to track one down. Their unspoken attitude was ""Too bad. It's your problem." The rooms were quirky in a bad way. You needed to insert your card key in a special slot to get the lights to work in the bathroom and front hall. Why?

Smallest King room I have...

Liked: Staff were all amazing! Appreciated the additional security on staff at all times.
Disliked: Very small space for a king room. Enough room for a bed and a bathroom, period. Definitely not the room pictured in the reservation site photos.

Very good

Liked: It is historic and beautiful. It’s close to parks and we walked to The Arch.

Would not recommend

Disliked: First the street in front of the hotel was closed under construction and Google couldn't direct us till we got close to it to find out what happened. There should be information about that in the booking site to explain the situation. The guy who worked at the front desk acted very stressed and unfriendly. There was only one person working on a busy Saturday with many people waiting. The worst part was the street to the hotel was closed and there wasn't any free parking available to load and unload. Luckily we found a meter parking close by. I found out that parking was not included (that was my mistake of not checking when I booked). The guy who checked us in didn't make us feel welcomed. After we finally got the room, the wifi didn't work. Called the reception and it was the same guy who didn't have time to answer and just yelled the instructions to me and hung up. I did follow the instructions before I called, Finally I had to go back downstairs to wait in line again just to ask him the question about the wifi. He reluctantly tried to help me and grabbed my phone without asking to try to enter the wifi and it didn't work. I finally figured it out myself and found out that the wrong last name was used (I booked It correctly with my name via booking.com), somehow the hotel's system used a different part of my first name as the last name. It was a waste of time and unpleasant to interact with that reception. I also didn't want to pay close to $50 a night to park the car. I ended up staying there for just one night instead of the initial booking of 3 nights. Switched to another hotel and was so much better and didn't have to pay a high parking fee or had to pay the parking meter every 2 hours in order to park on the street. Definitely made a big difference when the reception was unhelpful and not pleasant.

GM and desk staff were...

Liked: average
Disliked: staff shortage

Disappointing

Very good