The Hilton Melbourne Rialto Place is located in an off-the-beat location in Suburban Melbourne, Florida near the Melbourne Regional Airport. It is an attractive white 8-story building with blue mirrored windows blazing with Hilton signage. It was built in 1988, and has continuously operated as a Hilton, but formerly titled the Melbourne Hilton and Melbourne Airport Hilton. The Hilton offers free self-parking and a courtesy shuttle to the Melbourne Airport and immediate vicinity.
The front entrance is attractive and automatic sliding doors opened to reveal the lobby. It is a cream marble wonderland. Marble floors ran up into similar color stained wood columns and over into marble ponds and marble fountains. This design was quite neat, with clean lines…but it is starting to look dated. If the lobby furnishings were redone correctly in a minor renovation, this would look much better. But here and now it just looks spartan. The front desk is just a continuation of the cream marble. It’s almost as if Queen Midas were here and everything she touched turned to cream marble. I know…I’m on crack. Beyond the lobby in one direction was the elevator lobby and sizable conference center. The other way was a lobby lounge and the hotel’s Creole restaurant, Lafitte’s.
I waited for the desk clerk behind a pompous man who insisted on being upgraded to a Suite because he was a Hilton HHonors member. Huh, who isn’t? He stepped aside to call his wife to find out if the Concierge Level room he was offered would be OK with her. I was able to check in and be on my way up to the room before he even completed his call. I didn’t try the “I’m an HHonors Member” at my check-in. But after getting to my room, I should have probably tried for the Concierge Level myself (foreshadowing). They had me blocked to the 6th Floor, but asked to be moved up to the highest floor. He said he could give me 7th. I took it.
We left the desk and found our way through the cream marble to the elevator lobby (should have worn polarized glasses). There was a small gift shop there, with some dresses my wife admired (reasonably priced, too). We boarded the elevator and went up to our floor and exited down the corridor. The halls were dimly lit, but not to where you felt unsafe. Just dimmer than the norm.
We opened the door to our room and walked into the small foyer. The light smell of mildew or mold wafted about. There’s a mirrored closet on one side (which was open at the top, one of the hotel’s many oddities), the bathroom door on the other. This quickly opened into the Bedroom. The first thing that catches your attention is the large floor to ceiling windows, so you run over there and take in the view. It is a pleasant suburban view through six large panes of glass. However, our room had one pane with a broken seal and water crept into it and stained the glass. You couldn’t see anything through it. This is really noticeable and always caught your attention. Looking at website photos, the rooms looked cheesy, tropical and dated. I was relieved that the rooms had been renovated since those pictures were taken. Or was I…
Our room was in a traditional business style décor. Dark woods, dark green carpeting, floral print comforter and a yellow sitting chair. The yellow chair threw me. Were they going for whimsy? It looks out of place…like the original chair was thrown through the window and they needed a replacement. Maybe this explains the stained glass? But it was comfortable. All furnishings were in excellent condition (too bad, or they may have to replace them). Room décor looked straight out of a Holiday Inn supply catalog with nothing special whatsoever. The desk area looked very efficient and had it’s own telephone (voicemail), nice leather work chair and broadband internet access. Otherwise the only other furniture was the armoire housing the TV (and TV internet service for a fee). How disappointing for a Hilton, in such a great city no less.
The deal breaker for this hotel though was the bed. Our room configuration was a double with two full-size beds. The linens were extremely clean and the comforter, though drab and thin, appeared new. Our bed skirts were applied unevenly (but I’ve always found this tricky myself). Pillows were adequate. But the mattress in the bed I selected to sleep in was horrible. It felt cheap and old. A sizeable divot in the center. It had a plasticky sound to it as it compressed. It was totally unacceptable. I checked the other bed in our room and was happy to find it was better in the fact that it had no divot, but otherwise identical. Sorry kids, rank has it’s privileges. Daddy is commandeering your bed! I guess this franchiser hasn’t upgraded to a Hilton Suite Dreams Bed. I pray for future guests that Hilton will force them to soon. Another note was that the crib they delivered to us was astronomically large. It barely fit through the door and must have been 6’ long. It was very pleasant and cool looking, made of stainless steel. My 8-month old daughter looked like a dwarf baby in it.
Our bathroom was average size and had a tile floor with a beautiful limestone slab vanity and stylish chrome faucet. However, the limestone was looking pretty worn near the sink. Too bad, it’s the highlight of the whole room! Above the vanity is a large mirror with Hilton’s ubiquitous Neutrogena Bath Care products presented nicely beneath it (quickly stuffed them in my luggage and begged every housekeeper I saw for more). The bathtub/shower combo was clean with a multi-setting showerhead. Also in the bathroom was a wall-mounted hairdryer, retractable clothesline and a coffeemaker. A coffeemaker in the bathroom really freaks out some people. I would avoid it if I owned a hotel, but it doesn’t really bother me.
The Air Conditioning was controlled by a thermostat on the wall and it worked well. But I discovered this was the source of the mildew smell. The t-stat was the kind where you select a desired temperature somewhere between cool and warm. I prefer ones with actually temps because I know what 70 degrees feels like.
A potential bright spot of this hotel is Lafitte’s Restaurant. It’s the hotel’s only restaurant and it dishes up Cajun/Creole food. I know I insulted someone by lumping those two together…but I’m just a dumb Nevadan. The menu sounds scrumptious, but we ate dinner before checking in…Darn! The restaurant has floor to ceiling windows and skylights set against a plaza with ponds and fountains separating the Hilton from the Sun Bank tower next door. We took in the breakfast buffet there the next morning, and it was fair and of average Hilton quality. Room service was also available, but we didn’t use it during our stay.
The recreation facilities…another oddity of the Hilton Melbourne. I finally found the pool. It’s not in the hotel, or immediately adjacent. It’s across the parking lot. You actually have to cross a driveway through a crosswalk. Parking surrounds the pool area. The pool is relatively pleasant, I just found it’s location bizarre. Also near the pool are tennis courts. Moreover, the hotel advertises a fitness center, but I never saw it. Not that I was particularly looking for it.
Well, in final summation, I was very disappointed in the Hilton Melbourne. It really needs a significant renovation…a major overhaul. It was hands down the least desirable of all the hotels in this long 3 week trip. Substandard for Hilton. But Hilton is nearly famous for inconsistency. What’s sad is I think they just recently renovated, too. I’m just shooting in the dark, but given my history around the hospitality industry, I’m guessing they are about to leave the Hilton chain. Their renovation was not to Hilton standards, they have not changed their signage to the new Hilton logo and they are not implementing Hilton system wide standards like the Hilton Suite Dreams Bed. Just a thought. Time will tell.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
Management Response
DOS_HMRP, Director of Sales and Marketing
(Management representative)
Aug 7, 2008
Thank you for your honest feedback. I am very pleased to let you know that since your stay, we have finished the renovations that were underway at the time of your stay. We spent $10 million updating all areas of the property, to include: all 237 guestrooms and suites (furniture and bedding included!), all public areas and our 14,000 sq. ft. off meeting space. We have also recently added a brand new state-of-the-art fitness center, 24-hour business center and guest laundry. We are also making huge strides in our service. Our recent (May 2008) surprise Hilton Quality Audit scores, measuring level of service, cleanliness levels and our compliance with Hilton's strict brand standards ranks us 6th out of 285 Hilton's worldwide!
We hope to see you again in the future and have the opportunity to provide you with our incredible levels of service.
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
