World's Away - St Louis

Sorry Hilton, Oscar the Shuttle Driver was my favorite part! The hotel rooms are so cute and the front desk staff are helpful in addressing any needs you may have! More importantly, I loved our shuttle driver Oscar!! So kind, extra accommodating, caring, flexible, hilarious and fun! His level of empathy and devotion is one in a million! His service quality is wonderfully unique, prompt, and unparalleled! Hilton St. Louis Airport you are SO LUCKY to have him bring customers away and to their new home away from home! And Hilton office/headquarters you are so lucky to have won the lottery and have the opportunity to hire him as well as being your shuttle driver! Thank you Oscar!! You made my experience at Hilton all the better and I'm so glad to have met you!!

I travel in and out of town for my job and the one thing I like is the Hilton at Lambert airport. When I tell you that the customer service there is great I mean it's great! The front desk staff are so nice and helpful. But when you're in and out of town so much, there's nothing like having someone drop you off at your front door and pick up your bags. The drivers for the airport shuttle back and forth from the hotel are top notch. I had the opportunity to meet one such driver Oscar Davis and he was super friendly, nice and informative about where to drop me off and what I need to do. Not to mention, he took my bags both on and off the shuttle without a question asked. I know that might be their job but sometimes just because it's your job doesn't mean that you can't help. Again Oscar was awesome and I look forward to running into him hopefully soon since I have to travel again. Kudos to the Hilton staff at Lambert airport St Louis.

This hotel surprised me in so many ways. I'll probably save the long story for another review, but the night before I spent my first night here, I slept on a bench in Kansas City International Airport. I drove across Missouri to meet my dad, who had arrived safely the night before, and even though I expected him to be awake already, he was sound asleep in the pitch black room. The blackout curtains are no joke. It felt like a time warp to walk into that darkness from the muted sunniness of the hallway. It's both the epitome of and the antithesis of an airport hotel. EPITOME It's literally across the street from St. Louis Lambert International Airport's Terminal 2. There's a free shuttle that makes frequent (and custom runs to both airport terminals, and the shuttle drivers were both friendly and efficient. ANTITHESIS It's not a dump! Unlike most airport hotels, which tend to be on the lower end of their brands' scale, the Hilton St. Louis Airport feels like a regular Hilton or dare I say? a fancier Hilton. Honestly, it's the nicest airport hotel that's actually close to an airport that I've ever seen, aside from some of the larger hotels on Century Boulevard near LAX, but I may also be making assumptions about those hotels' fanciness based on my impressions of them as a ten year old. (We used to eat breakfast at one of them at a lot after dropping people off at the airport. It's also strategically located next to the terminals that run alongside the runways, so it's neither in any flight paths, nor do you hear much noise from the planes taxiing to and from the terminals. Because of a specific Southwest meltdown the year my Dad and I visited, I ended up renting a car in Kansas City and driving it to St. Louis. Once we were at the hotel, however, we didn't need a car anymore; so I returned it and got a very handy free ride back to the hotel from one of the shuttle drivers who gave me his phone number. We were in town to see the Dodgers play the Cardinals, and we took MetroLink (St. Louis's light rail system to and from the game, so the location was perfect for us. The hotel's free shuttle took us to and from Terminal 2, where we caught and got off MetroLink. The room was very nice, and everything was clean and in good condition. The physical layout of the hotel's interior is really strange. Different parts of the hotel have different highest floors, and there are two separate banks of elevators that don't go all the same places, so unless you happen to have a room right off the main lobby's elevators, you're going to probably get lost, especially if you try to find the stairs. You get a fun kind of lost, though, so it's not a big deal. With the exception of one flustered person who was working at night, the people who work at the front desk were universally nice. My dad had told the front desk that I was coming and that I should get a key, and when I arrived, the person working was very welcoming, and I appreciated that she actually looked at my ID rather than just handing over the key. There's a sitting area in the lobby that goes back pretty far and that is a comfortable, air conditioned place to wait for people if you don't want to suffer the muggy St. Louis summer heat.

Now that the short lived Hampton became a Wingate, I'm thinking that the already existing Hilton children must be impoverished in the industrial STL area because the hotels all look as though their glory days are well behind them and this Hilton is a prime example. Walking into the lobby offers the same dated splendor of stepping onto the Titanic. I chose it because my flight often gets in at midnight and this is one of the few hotels that offer a 24 hour shuttle. David was kind and talkative but they don't offer a modern way to tip the drivers. /sad. The host kindly offered me room 535 in the closer of the two towers. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Parking isn't free. There's no free breakfast unless you're a Diamond member and the rooms do not offer a mini fridge to store leftovers. The price was about level with other Hilton brands in the area so it's all about what amenities are most important to you.

Not the quality level I expected for a Hilton-level property. The rooms and hotel are a bit dated in decor and could use a freshening up. Food was okay, not great. Fitness center could use more newer equipment. Staff was friendly and helpful.