Cruise Holidays of Alaska

We flew from Anchorage to Miami on 11/19/09 and stayed onenight pre-cruise at the Hilton Miami airport.  My overall impression of the Hilton is positive.  The airport shuttle runs every 15 minutes so we didn’t have a long wait at the airport.  Their customer service was awesome!  The extra towels and pillow that I ordered online before leaving home were waiting for us in our room when we checked in.  However, the room itself seemed a little dated and in need of a slight face lift. 

When we landing in Seattle I was feeling a little queasy and didn’t buy any food to bring on the plane but a small bag of Gardetto’s.  I was seriously regretting this about half way to Miami, so by the time we landed I was HUNGRY.  After checking in, and putting our bags in our room, we headed to the lobby bar in search of food.  This was the biggest drawback of the Miami Hilton no real food after 10:00 pm (except for room service).  The bar only offered appetizers.  We ordered some chicken wings, and bruschetta.  Later we even ordered a pizza from room service (delivered to the bar) because we were still hungry.  It would have really been nice to have a hamburger, or salad available in the bar without having to pay the 18% room service surcharge.  The bartender was awesome, but the bar area was woefully understaffed!  The bartender and one server were expected to take care of the entire bar area which was packed when we got there.  The Hilton really needs to hire extra bar staff to keep the quality of the customer experience high.

The next morning we got spent a little time sunning by the pool.  The pool area is very nice and tropical.  Bigger than some of the other pools in the area. 

After a late check out we took the shuttle back to the airport to catch our transfer to our cruise ship.  One nice thing about the Hilton Shuttle is it was handicapped accessible.