We checked in to the Hilton at Universal City very late on the night of July 29 2023 after 26 hours of travelling some 6,500 miles. We were given a very warm welcome and two complimentary bottles of water! 🏨 We didn’t use many of the hotel’s facilities while here as we had action-packed busy days for our whole stay (hike to the Hollywood sign, theater visit at Hollywood Blvd, Universal Studios Hollywood VIP Tour and beach day at Santa Monica). ❤️ Our room was spacious, clean and comfortable with all the usual facilities of air-con, en suite with free toiletries, hair dryer, iron and board, secure safe, closet and lots of drawers, sofa, writing desk, clock and charging dock with USB slots, refrigerator and tea/coffee machine. The wall-mounted smart TV gave us access to our beloved YouTube, which was very helpful for re-checking the places we were going to visit each day. 🗻 Our room on the 9th floor had a stunning view of the Hollywood Hills to the south-west (Universal City Overlook) and the San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Mountains, the Verdugo Hills to the north-east. On a night, we slept with the curtains and nets pulled aside so that we would awake to the view. 🧺 Like many hotels nowadays, you have to request a room refresh. It doesn’t happen automatically every day and we think that is an overhang from when Covid affected the travel industry. We stayed at the Hilton for 5 nights and only needed the room refreshing once. We popped to the front desk and requested this, as simple as that. ☕️ For breakfast, we visited the COFFEE CORNER outlet near the Lobby for Starbucks and food. We enjoyed breakfast burritos ($14.50), consisting of “farm fresh scrambled eggs, tater tots, bacon, sausage, cheddar cheese in a flour tortilla”. Very filling and a good start to the busy days ahead! These were washed down with a Cafe Latte and a Vanilla Iced Latte ($6.00 each). Service was quick and friendly and the coffees were good. You couldn’t get a tall sized serving, it was grande or venti only, so these were big portions. 🍺 Late one afternoon, we had a lengthy wait for our Lyft to Beverly Hills, so we took advantage of the quiet LOBBY BAR and enjoyed a couple of Blue Moons ($9.75 for 16oz). The bartender was fun and topped up our drink when he thought it was a little short. 💦 There is a free Flowater water dispenser in the lobby, helping you to stay hydrated and save wasting plastic bottles. We made many visits for refills as the water had been through 7 stages of advanced purification. 🏨 The hotel grounds have a disorientating layout with the front around the back. This took a little time to get used to but wasn’t an issue. Everywhere we passed through was clean and tidy. 😀 Every staff member we encountered was polite, friendly and interested in us. 🌎 This really is a good hotel and we highly recommend it, particularly if you are visiting nearby Universal Studios Hollywood. There is a (free) shuttle service to the park, but we didn’t use it, as it was only a few minutes walk away and was well sign posted. 🚉 The hotel is around 15 minutes walk down (or uphill on the way back) to the Universal City station on the LA Metro Rail subway. This was handy for our visits to Hollywood Blvd and Santa Monica beach. We also walked to a nearby In-N-Out Burger joint and the walk back up the steep hill helped us to burn off some of the meal! 👎 It should be noted that there are no (obvious) stores nearby, such as Walgreens or CVS, and this hampered our usual habit of stocking up on cheap candy and sodas. The hotel does, however, have a small selection in the gift shop near the lobby. 👎 Checkout was very slow. We had received a welcome card saying checkout was 11.30 a.m. but confusingly signage around the hotel said ‘strictly 11.00 checkout else charges’. We joined the line in the lobby and had a 30 minute wait to reach the desk. We then had a further wait of 60 mins while the hotel checked the room before returning our $300 cash (we never use a credit card when staying at multiple hotels as all the deposits quickly add up, plus a hotel in Miami once took 2 full weeks to refund us). All in all, it took 90 minutes to checkout and this impacted on our plans for the rest of the day. We spent the time sat in the lobby talking to a friendly older couple from San Francisco. Their parents had come to the U.S. from the Philippines. 🏨 This is an account of our experience at the Hilton. Their website will elaborate more on the full facilities on offer, from valet parking, restaurants, swimming pool, guest laundry etc. our overall rating for this hotel is 4 out of 5 (mainly owing to the slow checkout). Should we ever revisit Universal Studios Hollywood, the Hilton will be our choice of hotel.…
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