Hotel Hampton by Hilton di Newport News

I would stay here again though this stay wasn't the greatest. I would not expect the same issues next time, and the staff were pleasant and helpful. The hotel was under renovation so we had to enter through the back door. Made loading luggage in a little tricky, but a staff member happened to be by the door and offered to assist. At 3:30 a.m. the fire alarm went off. A staff member said it was not an emergency, that someone was smoking in their room. Thought that was strange as the guests two doors down from me said their detector had been flashing intermittently throughout the night. Ours never flashed at all, not even when the alarm outside our room was going off. The fire department came to my (adult) son's room to check that detector saying it was his that set it off. My son doesn't smoke, which apparently was easy enough for them to figure out with no smell of smoke or evidence of smoking in the room. An hour or so later the clock alarm went off. We hadn't set it. I turned it off but some time later it went off again. I unplug it from the wall. It went off again. I finally buried it under a bunch of pillows. It finally stopped. The next morning I overheard a maintenance person telling a staff member something along the lines of minimal things they could do as the fire alarm system was old and perhaps, given a big storm rolled through during the night, some water had gotten to the wires and set it off. So we didn't get a good night's sleep, but the staff were pleasant and the room was clean. In particular, the lady manning the breakfast and coffee station, Helen, was a doll. She asked everyone how their evening was, helped anyone who needed it, immediately cleaned off tables when people left, always wore a smile, and was just ever so delightful. My mother said the grits were the best she'd had in a long while. She told Helen it was obvious she knows how to cook grits. Helen smiled, thanked her and said she's been making grits for a long time. Thanks Helen, for being you! Five stars for Helen!

Despite the outside appearance, the inside of this Hampton Inn is showing its age. The place felt musty and some of the furniture was quite worn. Some visible roof repairs (poorly done) and peeling wallpaper. I had two rooms and one had no shower gel, the other no shampoo - this facet of the ”save the planet” is getting old quickly when housekeeping doesn't replenish the bottles on the walls. Several door handles (exterior and room) were tough to get to operate properly. The staff, however, was very good. The front desk and breakfast staff were particularly welcoming and happy to help with some of the issues like the soap.