For the life of me, I don't understand why this isn't a better hotel, except for classic apathy. It's not bad. But from the strong smell of mildew coming from the shower curtain, to the one of four elevator banks working during morning rush hour, to the gift shop not giving me change so I could tip a bellman, this is just the classic example of the non-customer focused hotel.

If it were customer focused, it could be great and make a lot more money. It's location in the arts district is supreme and views out of my room anyway can be superb.

Instead, when I walk into an empty restaurant for breakfast, I'm led to a tiny two top directly next to the bus boy's station with clattering plates and cups. Yes, it's one of THOSE kind of hotels.

Not awful. But not worth $200 a night. It just limps along, not really hustling to do above average. Whatever. Good enough. That's the motto of this coulda been a contender hotel.

I reserved a few rooms in June for a group going to a wedding. The hotel is lovely (I especially liked the pool and roof deck), the rooms were nice enough (although try to get one off the avenue side), and the air conditioning was great (it was a really hot weekend), and the people that worked there were helpful, but even with all that I'm honestly not sure I'd stay at a Doubletree again if I can help it. They messed up every single reservation I made, double charged me and the guests I reserved rooms for, wouldn't let them check in without my credit card even though I had arranged for them each to check themselves in and had reserved their rooms in their names. It must be their computer system because I got great service when I made the reservations and the people at the hotel were nice, too, but dealing with the reservations and the bills was a nightmare and not worth it.

My husband and I live in the suburbs and we got married at City Hall in March 2005, then spent the night at the Doubletree in a Junior Suite. He used points from his Hilton membership, which could explain the excellent service we received. Unfortunately, I believe the reviews that cite unhelpful/rude service staff, only because there seems to be a lot of that in the Philadelphia area. The majority are sincerely helpful though. We received excellent service, from the champagne and strawberries that were waiting in our room to the fantastic breakfast buffet. We love the view of Broad Street - and yes, you will hear some street noise, but we are city folk and don't mind. We swam in the pool and the jaccuzzi, although the children that were there made it less than romantic.
We have celebrated our anniversary there as well. The beds are sooooo comfortable! You just sink into them. We will go again as often as we can afford the Junior Suite.

We stayed here from 5/31 to 6/7 and it was our first time in Philadelphia (we are from California) and our first visit to a Doubletree Hotel. We checked in around 10:30pm and the front desk clerk was not very friendly or informative. He did not give us any information on the Executive Club Level amenties or even bother to offer any information on the hotel, the area, etc...

We got into the room (2617) and there was a VERY strong smell of urine in the bathroom. I could not figure out where it was coming from and we were so tired after flying all day, we decided to wait until the morning to deal with it. The room was fine, nothing over the top, pretty basic and a litle "worn". We slept pretty well that night, the bedding was incredibly comfortable!

The next morning I figured out the smell of urine was coming from the shower curtain. It's a very small bathroom and the toilet is right next to the bath/shower with a cloth shower curtain. I called the Careline to report it and also filled out a form that was in the room. We left for the day and when we got back it had been taken care of.

Our room faced Broad and Locust streets and the street noise in the room was quite loud. It sounded like a window was open but it was not as we were on the 26th floor, the highest floor.

The next day I asked someone at the front desk about the Executive Club Floor perks and he handed me a paper that had all the days/times for the breakfast and evening appetizers. We took advantage of this about 3 days of the 7 days we were there and it was very nice. I'm not sure why this information wasn't offered to us at check in??

Some of the people that work at the hotel are very friendly (the bell staff and the girl tht worked in the Executive Lounge), but quite a few were not and when I asked a simple question, I was given a "curt" answer, like I was bothering them.

Based on our overall experience here, I would not stay at this hotel again or recommend it to a friend. We were paying Doubletree rates and getting low priced motel service!