"0"^^ . . . "0"^^ . "When traveling, I look for location, amenities and comfort, plus value for the price. The Hilton Garden Inn Charlotte Uptown was booked for me, not by me, with all good intentions.\n\nAs a business traveler, I often get in late and must be up and out quite early, often as early as 5am.\n\nLocation is adjacent to major sports venue. Strike one. Urban center, so there is apt to be street noise that can permeate the rooms, and there was quite a bit of this - emergency vehicle sirens, loud auto sounds. Strike two. The hotel is not well insulated from outside sounds. The room doors and the rooms themselves are not designed to contain noise so it does not effect others. I could easily hear even not loud conversations in adjacent rooms on both sides as well as guests speaking not too loudly in the halls, even after 1am. I got precious few hours sleep that night!. Strike three, and they're OUT was the obtrusively loud plumbing sounds. When adjacent rooms used their facilities, whether it was the toilet, sink or shower/bath, I do not know. I just know that it created a roaring sound in MY room.\n\nWhen I mentioned this to the desk person the next morning, she acknowledged each of my stated concerns, indicating that this is just the way it is at this property.\n\nIn addition, for anyone in need of ready and waiting cabs, this is another negative for this property. I requested a cab pick-up for 5:50am, and was assured one would be there and waiting. As you may have guessed, this did not happen. Despite their best effort, no cab was there. About 10 minutes later, one arrived, but it is somehow unsettling when one is on a tight schedule and relies on punctuality. Of course, I built in some fudge factor so I did not go nuts, but if you need reliance on either waiting cabs at-the-ready or reliable pre-arranged on-call cabs, you might be sorely disappointed in what this hotel can assure.\n\nOn the plus side, their FREE Internet in the room was quite fast, measured at about 9Mbps down and up. This was a pleasant surprise."^^ . . "1"^^ . "2011-09-07T00:00:00"^^ . "2"^^ .