DoubleTree By Hilton Hotel Raleigh – Brownstone – University

The Raleigh Doubletree may not look like much on the outside, but for location, comfort and service, it’s a good value for the price. A short walk from the NC State campus and a short drive to downtown, it’s fairly convenient to Raleigh’s best restaurants and nightlife, and a great alternative to a hotel in the burbs. They need to improve on the little things, though. While my room was clean and comfortable, a free bottle of water would’ve been appreciated. Maybe they think the warm chocolate chip cookies they serve up on check-​in will make up for it. They’re almost right.
Parking is free (always a plus), and guests enjoy passes to the fabulous YMCA across the parking lot. There’s also a well-​stocked hotel bar and a restaurant, though I didn’t have time to sample either. All told, not a bad place to spend the night if you’re in North Carolina’s capital city.

I would look elsewhere like Aloft just down the road for your accommodations. I stayed 2 nights, and on arrival was sent to a mold-​smelling room with a king size bed that had a hole in the top duvet, a large white stain on the bed skirt, and half of a peeled orange rotting on the balcony. Sorry, but the cookie didn’t make up for that. The manager was accommodating and upgraded me to a Hilton honors room on the top floor that was the same as downstairs, only slightly cleaner. I tried to back out entirely of the reservation or maybe just the second night upon seeing this place, but was locked in for both nights. It’s a shame because I’ve stayed at nicer doubletree hotels (St Augustine for one). This hotel is just too old and was renovated without being actually gutted and fixed up like nicer places. Don’t be fooled by the pictures on the website, they are an idealized version of what you get. For example, the A/​C had to be set to 65 to keep the room cool. Again, it’s not a terrible place by any means, but it is not worth the price to stay here.

Me and some of my friends from college stayed here as we were just chose to get together for a fun weekend in Raleigh. I had absolutely no problem with the hotel! It’s very highly priced, but lucky for me one of my friends, had an enormous amount of Hilton points that he used to get us one of their nicer suites for one of the nights we stayed there. It was what you expected from a Hilton hotel. The suite we stayed in had 3 beds, and a common room along with 2 bathrooms. The beds were like sleeping in clouds, and the floor was quite comfortable itself.
The staff was very friendly, and helpful as they gave us a list of the cabs that serviced in their area, and even tipped us off as to what were the best places for the nightlife in Raleigh. When we came back from downtown that night, the staff member at the front offered us some warm, homemade chocolate chip cookies before we went up to our room which was a nice touch. The only complaint I have is that Hilton hotels don’t have a free continental breakfast, and should! It makes no sense to pay all that money for your hotel, and have to dish out another $ 15.00 for some breakfast that didn’t look all that appetizing to begin with. Me and my friends went to IHOP which was within walking distance from the hotel. Other than that the hotel is nice, but you wouldn’t be missing anything special if you stayed somewhere else. Unless you got to stay for a free night like I did!

Great staff. Very comfortable bed/​room. Fabulous accommodations. First hotel which I have stayed at which appeared to be green. Water saving toilets. Partitioned recycle trashcan. Very clean overall. Tub with the shower (so many places now just offer showers with no tubs). Will definitely stay here again!

Let’s get something straight. This is not a review stating this should be a ‘4 star’ hotel. It’s a review on the quality based in the price of the room and amenities provided.
Very nice room, classy and tasteful décor, nice lobby, exceptional front desk staff, housekeeping seem a bit rushed forgetting a few items while refreshing our room, mediocre lunch and dinner food, sub-​par breakfast buffet, omelette station manned by an ok cook who doesn’t understand omelettes are meant to cooked with low heat so as not to brown the egg at all. I know that I’m overly picky about food given my background so I don’t retract as many stars for this hotel as I would a restaurant.
Overall, I would recommend this hotel to anyone staying in the western Raleigh area. Although, you may be able to find a nicer stay for the money.

This is based upon my wife’s very recent (as of 10/​27/​2015) stay at this Doubletree. As she was traveling with our 5-​year old daughter, she selected this Doubletree based upon her prior pleasant experiences with other Doubletree locations.
In no particular order, she experienced the following:
A smelly room
Dirty carpet
A dirty bathtub/​shower — it was so disgusting that she refused to give our daughter a bath
Urine stains on the commode
Hair in her food.
She had other complaints, these are just the complaints I remember.

Bar staff were friendly. Suprisingly good selection of local brews in the bar. Breakfast was fine. Room was fine. Other than the nice surprise of the beer list, nothing to write home about either good or bad.

Attended a conference. Food was below average and cold.
Service was barely adequate. The place was unkept and really needed cleaning

Overall an average hotel for a good price. The quality was below par for a Hilton Doubletree. The air handler in my room was noisy. The shower faucet was broken, and the Internet sucked. Good thing I was only paying $ 129 per night and it was in a good location.

Marie at the desk took care of us while we were here. She always went out of her way to make sure everything was perfect. She made our stay awesome!

Since I’m familiar with the Hilton brands I understand that Doubletrees are consistently inconsistent since they are converts from other hotels. This one fits into that. The HVAC system is apparently very fickle. In my 3 day stay it was not working, then working, then not working again.
I could hear the entire conversation the people across the hall (yes, across the hall in their room with the door shut!!)
There is a fitness room but it is not labeled. I needed to do laundry and I didn’t find a laundry room (nor did I ask. I just went offsite to do laundry).
It is very close to NC State and some decent restaurants so the location is great and you do get Hilton HHonors points. That is what gets it 2 stars.

This review is for the restaurant in the hotel– Harvest Grille and Bistro. If you’re in the area, come here and order the Stacked Cobb salad. It is fantastic! Yummy bean sprouts, avocado, bacon, artichokes… And more. Great service from Darlene and Heather.

Substandard accommodations that we stuck out through for one night. I wouldn’t recommend this hotel. There were stains on the bed, loud air conditioning and our balcony door was off the track. No thanks

Great location close to restaurants. The staff is always friendly and they’ve got a bar in the lobby. Parking is easy and I’ve never had an issue after seven or eight stays.

Not sure why this hotel is so badly reviewed, but I stayed two weeks ago for two nights with my husband and two young children and we thought it was great. We were coming from Maryland and meeting friends that were coming from Charlotte. They were staying at this hotel, so we decided to stay here, too. We were running in the Krispy Kreme Challenge and this is one of the closest hotels to the starting line and that’s what we wanted. It is within walking distance to the bell tower at NC State.
We arrived around 4 pm on a Friday for check-​in and the desk employees were friendly and check in was easy. We booked through Expedia and there were no problems. We were offered warm chocolate chip cookies upon arrival and of course we accepted them :) They were delicious and we even got a couple more throughout our stay just by asking when we walked by the front desk.
My parents also stayed at this same hotel that weekend and so we were in all three rooms and all three rooms were nice, clean and updated. I think the renovations people were complaining about in previous rooms have been completed. Toiletries were included in the bathroom (shampoo, conditioner, soap, mouthwash and lotion) and there was a coffeemaker with coffee, tea and creamer/​sweeteners as well in the room.
The lobby area and bar/​dining room is very nice and the bartender was very accommodating with beverages and food orders we placed. The quesadillas were excellent as was the turkey club.
Free continental breakfast is not offered here, but there is a restaurant in the hotel that has coffee next to the hostess stand. I was told by the hostess that it was free, but my husband went later and was told that it was only for those paying and dining in the restaurant. Some clarity on that would be nice.
There are a couple things that keep this from being a 5 star review and that would be the following:
* No mini fridge in the room
* The heater is VERY loud and startling when it comes on throughout the day/​night
* Wifi is very spotty and doesn’t work everywhere
Other than that, this hotel is very nice and in a convenient location to downtown Raleigh.

On Sat. Jan 24^th I hosted a lunch meeting at the hotel. The food was excellent (tomato basil soup is phenomenal.) I worked with Katelyn to plan the meeting and everything went perfectly. Onsite Darlene was our primary banquet person and she was excellent, she was very nice, attentive, and helpful. Darlene was a rockstar! Looking forward to our February meeting with them.

Simply, wow! I have never stayed at another property that has gone above and beyond the call of duty. I stayed at the Doubletree for a week for work. Starting from the front desk EVERY one of the staff greeted me warmly. Even a couple remembered my name without being prompted by the computer. The room was PERFECT. It was SPOTLESS and the balcony was a lovely addition. Have I mentioned the warm cookies (quite possibly my favorite feature)? The food was AMAZING! Might I recommend the shrimp and grits?
The best part of my stay was the day of check out. The GM personally took care of shipping some items I purchased at the QVC Outlet Mall (a short half hour away.) I was blown away by the amazing customer service.
There are a lot of hotels to choose from in Raleigh but if you choose Doubletree I promise you will not be disappointed!

This is an UPDATE review to my previous comments. Just to be clear, all of my previous experiences and comments still apply. I am fair person however and want to recognize the efforts made by the manager of the hotel, Keith for trying to turn my horrible experience around.
I was only here 2 nights and I sought Keith out (he said was also going to seek me out) after the fiasco first night I experienced. Keith upgraded me to a Hilton honors floor and had a cheese plate waiting for me which was kind of him. He also followed up and made sure I did not have further issues. This is a basic customer service but I shouldn’t have to go through hell to have received this.
I will say, the upgraded room was obviously more comfortable. I did notice the heater worked not matter how cold/​hot the temperature was outside. The previous night, the awful front desk person, Tina said the temperature had to fall to a certain degree in order for the heat to come on. I don’t think it is fair that the heat only works on honors floors. Unless this was a straight out lie on Tina’s part.
Also, the cheese plate was a nice gesture (which I returned as I do not believe in wasting food as I had already eaten dinner). I find it slightly disturbing that they placed this platter in my room despite the «do not disturb» sign on the door.
I just hope they get it together. Keith definitely salvaged the rest of my stay here and I appreciate his professionalism. The rest of my comments about the staff, rooms and issues still apply and I will not be recommending or booking in the future.

If you get a good rate here (we got a pretty good one via a bid), I feel comfortable saying you’ll be just fine. Believe me, it’s a major upgrade from the former Brownstone. The renovations to the lobby/​bar area are very nice (although I’d kill for a Ledo’s pizza again).
The room we were assigned for this Saturday night was renovated just fine. It was clean and mostly comfortable. I say mostly because we couldn’t adjust the temperature. They make you think you can because you can physically move the thermostat, but it doesn’t vary the room temperature. We kept trying to turn it cooler and it wasn’t happening.
Bathroom renovation was pretty good. Liked the eco-​friendly toilet. We didn’t have any shampoo, although there was conditioner and body wash.
Walls are indeed very thin. We got lucky with considerate neighbors during the important hours. We appreciated that.
Sadly, I must report NO COOKIES. This is the only time we have ever stayed in a Doubletree and not had them. However, we don’t stay in them enough to know if they’re just fazing them out. If so, I would suggest that is a bad marketing move.
Location… well, it depends on what you have in mind. If it’s NC State, you’re pretty much right there. If it’s downtown (like we wanted… thanks a lot Priceline for including NC State in your downtown zone), then it’s not majorly convenient. You can walk it, however, if you have time. We had time to do so, but it was still almost two miles of hoofing it to get to our Marbles museum location.
The friendly guy that checked us in (Lucas I believe?) had no knowledge of the free R-​line bus service. It might be smart to make that information available to staff and visitors. We discovered that the closest stop is on Hargett near the Flying Saucer, by the way. We discovered that by walking.
Suggestion for the hotel: offer shuttle service to nearby destinations such as downtown and Cameron Village. That will make you seem much more worthy of the 3 ½ star rating, and make downtown visitors have another viable hotel option.

Unsure why so many people reviewed this place negatively? As an avid Hilton booker, I was not surprised by any of what was offered, not was I turned off. It was myself and another diamond status member in one room — we were on the top level with wonderful skyline views of Raleigh. We even asked for a mini-​fridge and they brought one up right away. We were even offered free breakfast every morning we were at the hotel.
Staff was incredibly friendly and polite — convenient location at the foot of Hillsborough St but also 5 minute drive into downtown. I’d stay here again.