When planning out our time in Tennessee, I was in two minds as to whether to book us in for 10 nights in Memphis and 5 night in Nashville or vice versa. In the end, I went with 10 nights in Nashville as it looked like we had more places listed that we might want to visit in its surrounding area than we did for Memphis.
Hotels in Nashville in mid-December weren’t as expensive as I thought they might be, but they were also higher than our $100 per day road trip budget could afford. I was therefore pleased when I saw that the Hilton Nashville Airport cost a reasonable number of points, so I booked us in there for the entire 10 night stay.
Although we redeemed a few more Hilton Honors points than I’d normally like to, it was our best value option, especially seeing as we’d have access to the Executive Lounge now that I’m a newly minted Diamond member thanks to this deal. For it being an airport hotel, it was a decent stay and it was closer to downtown than many other airport hotels near larger cities.
Here’s a complete review of our stay at the Hilton Nashville Airport, including our room, the Executive Lounge, breakfast in the main restaurant and the hotel’s amenities.
Check-In
The front desk wasn’t very busy when we arrived at about 4:30pm, so we were checked in straight away. I asked if there was a 1 bedroom suite available as we were only booked into a regular 1 king bed room, but unfortunately they didn’t have any available.
I checked online afterwards and didn’t see any 1 bedroom suites available, so she wasn’t just fobbing us off. That’s one of the downsides of booking longer stays like 10 nights – there’s less chance that there’ll be 1 bedroom suites available for the entire length of the stay.
The front desk agent mentioned that we’d have access to the Executive Lounge with my Diamond status and she also let us know where amenities like the fitness room, pool, etc. were.
Bedroom
We were given keys to room 716 which was opposite the ice machine and near the elevators. Despite its proximity to them, it wasn’t very noisy which was nice.
The closet was immediately on the left when entering the room. Just past that was the bathroom on the left, with the bedroom straight ahead. While the room wasn’t enormous, it was still an OK size, especially considering it’s an airport hotel which sometimes results in smaller rooms.
The king bed was very comfortable and had comfortable (albeit small) pillows. The base of the bed was open which is something we don’t really like as our dog Truffles likes to hide underneath when we’re due to go out and so it can be a pain getting her out from under there!
On both sides of the bed were tables that each had lamps with power outlets, making it easier to charge our phones overnight. In the corner of the room was an armchair, ottoman and side table. The armchair was pretty comfortable too and I ended up working from there quite a bit.
On the opposite side of the room was a desk and office chair, with a smaller desk being nested below a larger one.
Next to the desk was a cabinet that contained a fairly small mini fridge (which also contained a small freezer compartment) and a safe.
On top of the cabinet was a Keurig coffee maker.
To the right of that cabinet was a dresser with the room’s TV on top. Although the dresser looks like it has six drawers, there are actually only four as the bottom drawers on each side have double depth.
One nice feature was that there was an on-screen channel guide that displayed the current and upcoming programs. The TV also had a Chromecast plugged in the back, but we never made use of that (n.b. you have to download an app to control it).
The TV channel selection was OK, but not as good as some other hotels we’ve stayed at on our road trip.
As I mentioned earlier, the closet was back by the room’s entrance. This had an iron, ironing board, luggage rack, large blanket and an extra pillow.
Bathroom
When entering the bathroom, the long vanity and sink was on the right, with the toilet in the middle.
On the left of the bathroom was a walk-in shower. The water pressure of the shower was fine, but the shower door wasn’t great about keeping the floor dry, despite it enclosed all the way across. The shower base had a very short lip, so I think it ended up spraying up and over that sometimes.
The toiletries were Crabtree & Evelyn and were decent enough quality.
Executive Lounge
The Executive Lounge is on the second floor and is open from 6am-11pm Monday to Thursday and 6am-8pm Friday to Sunday.
Breakfast is served from 6am-9am Monday to Friday and 6am-10am at the weekend, while hors d’oeuvres are served 5pm-7pm Monday to Friday and 5pm-8pm at the weekend. I was pleasantly surprised to see that both breakfast and hors d’oeuvres were served at the weekend, as some hotel Executive Lounges don’t provide those on Saturdays and Sundays.
The lounge wasn’t enormous, but there was always enough seating whenever we went up there for breakfast or hors d’oeuvres.
There was a balcony overlooking the hotel’s atrium that had more tables and chairs. Other parts of the lounge included different types of seating options and meeting areas.
The Executive Lounge had a business center, but it was a slightly strange setup. You had to stand up to use it and it was right by the lounge entrance, so it wasn’t very conveniently placed.
Executive Lounge – Hors D’oeuvres
While it’s nice that breakfast and hors d’oeuvres are offered every day of the week (sort of – more on that in a moment), the Hilton Nashville Airport Executive Lounge doesn’t offer a very good spread.
With regards to hors d’oeuvres, they sometimes only offered one hot option like spring rolls and one or two other sides like brownies and fruit – that’s it. One of the reasons I’d been willing to redeem a few more Hilton Honors points than normal is because I assumed we’d be able to eat dinner there several nights, but they barely provided enough food to constitute a snack, let alone a meal. Beer and wine is offered for $3 and $5 respectively.
They also closed the lounge for several days of our stay. We were there from December 14-24 and they stopped serving food after December 21. I went to the lounge on December 22 to check out the hors d’oeuvres options and although the lights were on, there was no food set out. The drinks fridges were also annihilated, with only a few bottles of water and a couple of bottles of Sprite left.
I called down to the front desk and they said the lounge was closed, even though it was still open. This ended up being the case for the last few days of our stay and, presumably, on December 25 and possibly beyond. I don’t think any signs were put up about the lounge closure until December 24 and that was placed on the screen outside the lounge rather than on the doors, so it was easy to miss.
I’d been planning on taking photos of the hors d’oeuvres offerings later in our trip, but missed the opportunity to do this due to the lounge closure. You’re not really missing much though due to the limited food options provided each day.
Executive Lounge – Breakfast
Breakfast wasn’t much better. If you have Executive Lounge access due to having Diamond status, you’re much better off having breakfast in the hotel’s main restaurant as your options are much more extensive – and tastier. The breakfast options in the lounge were the same everyday. The only hot options were scrambled eggs and bacon and both were always way overcooked. There was also hot oatmeal that didn’t look particularly appetizing.
The freshly cut fruit was borderline inedible every day as it was always frozen due to the frozen slab it’s set on. It was sometimes impossible to even pick the fruit off the tray as it was frozen stuck to it. The photo below was one of the better days.
The other options were the same each morning. The croissants and pastries were tasty, while Shae enjoyed the muffins.
Although the food in the lounge was pretty poor, service was good for the most part. Jazmyn and Edward in particular were fantastic – very friendly, personable and hardworking. There was another lady who worked up there, but she always looked like she didn’t want to be there and didn’t want any guests to be in there either.
Executive Lounge – Snacks & Beverages
The Executive Lounge at Hilton Nashville Airport is open throughout the day, so you can get drinks and some limited snacks.
Breakfast In Two Rivers Cafe
For the first week of our stay, we ate breakfast in the Executive Lounge. When checking in, they didn’t mention anything about being eligible for free breakfast in the Two Rivers Cafe. I asked about our breakfast options with Diamond status at the front desk one night early on in our stay and the person working there looked at me like she was confused by the question.
I tried being a bit clearer by saying that I thought my Diamond status meant we were able to have breakfast at the Two Rivers Cafe, but that I wanted to check if it was for the full buffet or only for a continental breakfast option. She still looked confused, but said we were only eligible for a free continental breakfast; as a result, we continued having breakfast in the lounge each morning so that we could continue having access to some (overcooked) hot options.
I decided to check with a different member of staff a few days later and she said we could have the full buffet breakfast in the Two Rivers Cafe each morning for no extra charge, so we did that for the last few days of our stay and I wish we’d done that sooner as the options were more extensive. Even the options that were the same – such as the scrambled eggs and bacon – tasted much better as they were fresher and not overcooked.
In addition to all these options, I think it was also possible to get your eggs customized like omelets, sunny side up, etc.
Another benefit of getting breakfast at Two Rivers Cafe is that it’s served from 6am-10am during the week and 6am-11am at the weekend which is later than breakfast is served in the Executive Lounge.
Other Dining
In addition to Two Rivers Cafe, the Hilton Nashville Airport has The Atrium Bar which is open from 11am to 11pm every day.
There’s also Fresh Connection which offers coffee, sandwiches, salads, etc. and is open daily from 6am to 11pm.
As you might expect, the hotel offers in-room dining. Here’s the room service menu:
Amenities
The Hilton Nashville Airport hotel has a number of amenities. There’s a fitness room that was a little smaller than I was expecting for it being such a large hotel. Having said that, it was never busy in there, presumably because fewer people staying at an airport hotel want to use a fitness room.
There’s an indoor swimming pool; I didn’t dip my hand in there though, so I’m not sure how warm it is.
In addition to the business center in the Executive Lounge, there’s one in the lobby with a couple of computers.
Just off from there is what the hotel has called a “Tech Lounge”. I’m not entirely sure where the tech comes in, as all it seemed to be was a few seats with multiple TVs including a screen with flight information.
Next to the front desk is a gift shop where you can buy snacks, toiletries, T-shirts, postcards and other Nashville-themed souvenirs.
The lobby has a coffee station that seemed to be available 24/7 seeing as I took the photo at about 3am!
We had an Amazon package delivered to the front desk, but there’s also an Amazon Locker you can have your Amazon orders sent to.
If you want somewhere to meet up with family, friends or colleagues, there’s a lot of seating all around the Hilton Nashville Airport’s atrium. Due to all the alcoves and individual seating options, it also worked well for Shae as somewhere to teach online early in the morning.
I didn’t get a photo of it, but the hotel has a free airport shuttle that seemed to come and go very frequently. We weren’t flying anywhere though, so never needed to use it.
Random Observations
There are a few random things I wanted to mention in the review, but they didn’t really fall under any of the other sections, hence this random observations section.
On the positive side of things, the hotel’s elevators arrive insanely fast. The Hilton Nashville Airport is a fairly large hotel with 382 rooms across 14 floors. The hotel was busy for much of our stay; despite that, we didn’t have to wait more than 10 seconds for a set of elevator doors to open after pushing the call button other than once or twice throughout our entire 10 night stay. Shae and I live in hotels and Airbnbs, so we take more hotel elevator rides than your average person. The speed at which the elevators arrived was therefore probably disproportionately pleasing to me compared to your average person, but it was something I greatly appreciated as I have a tendency to be impatient.
Something that wasn’t quite as pleasing was the hotel’s entrance. It has a strangely small entrance, so if someone else was entering or leaving the hotel, you had to wait for them to get through the doors before entering or leaving the hotel yourself. Considering how busy the hotel is with people coming and going due to it being by the airport, the time you save not waiting for the elevators is time spent waiting to enter or leave the hotel!
There’s also an annoyingly-placed table in front of the entrance. When entering the hotel, the elevators are straight ahead of you. To get to them, you have to walk around the table. This might seem like a small thing, but it’s irritating given that the table serves zero purpose other than to block your route.
Pet Policy
The Hilton Nashville Airport is a pet-friendly hotel and charges a reasonable pet fee of $50 per stay, regardless of how long you’ll be there. With us staying 10 nights with Truffles, that was particularly beneficial for us rather than a per-night fee like some hotels charge.
Their website states that the maximum weight is 25 lbs. However, I saw some larger dogs which didn’t appear to be service dogs, so they might be lenient with that rule. If your dog is larger than 25 lbs though, it might be worth calling them ahead of time to verify that you’re OK bringing a larger dog.
The hotel doesn’t have much grass around the outside, other than on a slope by the parking lot, but there is a better option. When exiting the hotel, turn left and walk through the overflow parking lot. As you walk past the exit barrier, there’s grass to the left when heading towards the La Quinta and to the right when heading towards the Residence Inn.
I ended up walking Truffles around both those other hotels some days seeing as they had far more grass available.
Service
Service at the hotel was very good for the most part. Most of the front desk staff were very friendly, Jazmyn and Edward in the Executive Lounge were lovely and a couple of maintenance guys were very nice too.
One of the other Executive Lounge staff members wasn’t as friendly though, while I had a couple of weird interactions with someone working at the front desk overnight. There was the time I mentioned earlier where I asked her about our breakfast options; she first seemed confused by the question, then gave me an incorrect answer.
A couple of days later we received a call to our room from someone at the front desk letting us know our Amazon package had arrived. I went to the front desk later that night to pick it up, and this is how the conversation went:
Me: I’ve come to pick up a package we had delivered here. My name’s Stephen Pepper and I’m in room 716.
Her: (Pauses.) You don’t have a package as no one mentioned this to me earlier.
Me: I received a call from someone at the front desk earlier letting me know that the package had arrived.
Her: No one told me about this. I don’t think it’s here…………………I’ll go check though.
Her: (Comes back out with our package.) You only have one package here.
Me: Yes.
Her: (Looks confused.)
Me: We might have another package arriving in a few days, but we were only expecting one package for now.
Her: (Hands over the package.) If you have anything delivered to the hotel, you can come by the front desk and pick it up.
Me: (Internally – That’s exactly what I’ve just done, yet you seem confused about this entire procedure). Externally:Â Thank you.
It was just a really weird interaction. She wasn’t rude, but she had a really hard time comprehending me wanting to pick up a package and my previous question about the hotel’s breakfast options. Explaining what I needed to do when picking up a package when I’d done that exact thing was also bizarre.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
Check-in is at 4pm and check-out is at 12pm.
Wi-Fi
The speed of the hotel’s internet was very good. However, the connection would randomly cut out several times a day for 15-30 seconds at a time. This wasn’t always noticeable, but it proved to be an issue at times, especially when it happened while Shae was teaching online.
There were also times when I hit publish on a blog post, only to get an error message because there was no internet connection. This wasn’t a huge issue as WordPress had backed up most of what I’d already written, but it did mean I had to re-complete the category and tag selections, along with re-writing the meta description, so that got frustrating at times.
You have to log back in to the internet every 24 hours which is also annoying, plus you have to reconnect your phone every time you return to the hotel even if it’s been less than 24 hours since you last logged in on your phone. Logging in takes you through 3-4 screens and you have to enter your name and room number each time, so it’s not an instant process either.
Location
Most people staying at the Hilton Nashville Airport presumably stay there to be close to the airport, so in that sense it’s in a good location.
It’s also in a pretty good location relative to downtown Nashville. The hotel is 6-7 miles from downtown, so it only takes 15 minutes to get there when there’s not too much traffic.
Parking
Parking costs $10 per day. You can pay each time you exit, or you can scan your room key after inserting the ticket to have it charged to your room.
If you pay each time you leave, the total cost seemed to be $10. We decided to charge it to our room so that we’d earn points on the charge. When checking out though, I noticed that we were charged an extra $0.93 per day in tax. Seeing as we stayed there 10 days, that means we got charged $9.30 more than we would have if we’d paid each time we exited. That’s not a huge amount of money, but it’s a little disappointing.
The hotel has an enormous parking lot that always had a lot of cars, although we were always able to find a spot without any issue.
Cost
We paid for our stay using points as we have a fairly healthy Hilton Honors balance. It cost 28,000 points per night which is pretty good value for a Hilton.
It actually cost us less than that though as Hilton offers every 5th night free when using points. This benefit only applies if you have status with Hilton, but that can be obtained with a Hilton Amex credit card that has no annual fee. Besides, if you have enough Hilton points to book a 5 night stay, there’s a good chance you have some kind of status.
Seeing as we stayed 10 nights, both our 5th and 10th nights were free. That means we redeemed a total of 224,000 points for the stay, or an average of 22,400 points per night.
If we’d paid cash, it would’ve cost $126.93 per night which is reasonable. It means we got 0.57cpp (cents per point) of value which is slightly above average for Hilton, but not amazing. Still, it meant we didn’t have to pay anything for our stay other than the $50 pet fee and $109.30 for parking.
Final Thoughts
If you need somewhere to stay near Nashville airport, the Hilton Nashville Airport hotel is a solid choice. The rooms are fine, the breakfast in Two Rivers Cafe is pretty good and the staff were mostly very good.
I certainly wouldn’t bother paying extra for lounge access though. It’s nice to have if you have Diamond status and so get complimentary access, but the breakfast up there is very poor in comparison to the main restaurant and the hors d’oeuvres selection is even worse. The soda selection isn’t much better, with only four different types of soft drink.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives the Hilton Nashville Airport three paws out of four – pawsome! She (AKA Shae and I) like that it only cost $50 for the entire stay, while the hotel was also fairly quiet which meant she didn’t bark a lot. There wasn’t much grass around the hotel though.
Our Rating
Room = 4.1 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.3 / 5
Food = 4.1 / 5
Location = 4.3 / 5
Service = 4.4 / 5
Overall Value = 4.3 / 5
Total = 4.25 / 5
Address
Hilton Nashville Airport, 2200 Elm Hill Pike, Nashville, TN 37214
Leave a Reply