Hampton By Hilton Dundee - Detailed Review
/Damon and I have stayed in the Hampton by Hilton Dundee a few times since he travels up there to study. He switches between this hotel and the DoubleTree on the western outskirts of Dundee. See our full review of the DoubleTree here.
A one night stay in this Hampton cost £57.82. In this comprehensive review, we’ll be taking a detailed look at a Queen Room, plus we’ll be reviewing the hotel’s facilities and food options.
A Brief History Of The Hotel
In this case, I should probably rename this section to ‘a very brief history of the hotel’. The Hampton, in Dundee’s city centre, is one of the newest additions to the Hampton range, Hilton’s mid-priced hotel brand, having opened just in 2017.
The opening of this hotel is just one of a number of developments in Dundee in recent years. 2018 saw the opening of the new V&A Museum, part of a £1bn regeneration project of Dundee’s waterfront.
Location
The hotel is located right in the city centre of Dundee, just off West Port Roundabout north-west of Dundee train station.
Due to the hotel’s central location, it is in walkable distance of a lot of Dundee’s main amenities:
Overgate Shopping Centre (260m or 3 min walk)
Verdant Works (550m or 7 min walk)
Dundee Science Centre (600m or 8 min walk)
V&A Dundee (800m or 10 min walk)
RRS Discovery (850m 10 min walk)
Getting There
By Train
Dundee Train Station offers direct railway services north towards Aberdeen and south towards Leuchars (near St Andrews), Edinburgh and London (with a number of calling points). Direct services also run south-west towards Perth, Stirling and Glasgow. You can book these services through Trainline.
From the station it is just a short 9 minute walk (700m) to the hotel heading up the A991.
By Car (Plus Parking)
You can access the Hampton car park just after exiting off the West Port Roundabout on the A991.
From the west of the city, including Dundee Airport, travel along the waterfront (A85) and turn left (after the railway station) on to the A991. From the north, you can crossover the Kingsway road from the A90 to the A929. From there you can head to the A991. From the east, you can head down the A92 and turn right onto the A991.
Parking at the hotel is £6 per night and it is quite limited. If there are no spaces left, there is an NCP car park nearby but it is more expensive.
Check In
Check-in is available from 3pm. You have the option of checking in via the courteous hotel staff in reception. Or, you can skip the check-in desk entirely thanks to two pieces of innovation by Hilton, the Digital Check-in and the Digital Room Key.
Digital Check-in allows any Hilton Honours member (free to join) to select a room and check-in prior to arrival. The easiest way to do this is by downloading the Hilton Honours App. At 6am the day before your arrival, you can select your room from a list or a hotel floor plan.
On top of this, the Digital Room Key allows you to use your smartphone to unlock your hotel room door. This means that you can select your room, check-in prior to arrival and then head straight up to your room when you get there. This saves a lot of time and hassle and makes the process seamless.
Available Rooms
The Hampton has 105 rooms, including guest and accessible rooms. The guest rooms on offer include Queen Rooms (with or without sofa beds), Twin Rooms and Two Queen Bed Rooms. You can opt for a River Tay view, a car park view or a street view. The view does not alter the price.
Since this hotel, however, is located right on the edge of a roundabout in the city centre, potential noise levels should be taken into account when choosing a room.
If you want peace and quiet, the 4th and 5th (highest) floors are your best bet. But, if you can’t get room 504 (the corner Tay view room), the 4th floor might be a better option. This is because placement of AC vents on the roof of the hotel tend to make other 5th floor rooms noisier than their 4th floor equivalents.
Queen Room
We stayed in Queen Room 504. This is one of the best rooms in the hotel as it has a Tay view, low noise levels and it is a corner room (less shared walls between rooms). The room has a contemporary feel and even though it feels spacious, the space is well-used.
The large floor-to-ceiling windows allowed plenty of natural light into the room. The inclusion of both net and blackout curtains meant if you wanted light but privacy, you had that option.
Furniture
In the corner of the room was a semi-comfortable armchair and stool, quite nice to sit on for a place to look out the window. There was also a small desk, plus chair (with adjustable back support) on the left hand side of the bed. It’s in a darker corner of the room so you would probably need to use the light if you’re using it, even in the middle of the day.
The queen bed. Hmm, how would I put this, wasn’t the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in. In fact, I’ve slept on floors during uni which have been more comfortable. To their credit, the pillows are at a nice middle-ground between supportive and soft. But that bed is hard to get over, especially if you’re planning a visit lasting longer than one night.
Storage
The room didn’t have a lot of storage space but it felt like it had what was required. There was a couple of drawers on one side of the bed but the largest piece of storage space was a wardrobe next to the bathroom.
The wardrobe had a large top shelf, some hangers and a luggage rack inside. I did appreciate the design of the sliding wardrobe door. It also acted as the door to the bathroom which was quite a nice, contemporary piece of design.
Power Outlets
For the size of the room, there were plenty of well-placed charging points/power outlets. There were 2 on the left side of the bed, plus 2 USB ports and 1 on the right. 2 outlets could be found on the side of the desk, there were 2 on the side of the TV unit and there was 1 behind the armchair.
Amenities
In-room amenities included a 32-inch Samsung LCD HD TV with Freeview channels. There was also a hairdryer, a luggage rack, an iron plus ironing board, which could all be found in the wardrobe. The hotel also has a laundry service which I would always avoid due to the high price point.
Under the TV you could find a kettle along with tea/instant coffee. The selection was quite limited to Twinings Breakfast tea (x2), plus Nescafe coffee (regular and decaf), sugar, sweetener and UHT milk pots (x4).
Temperature Control
You could control the temperature of the room via a wall-mounted controller. This did work, quietly too, but it was quite slow. Since the fan was centrally controlled by the hotel, sometimes you would go to turn the fan on and it wouldn’t respond.
WiFi
We had access to the hotel’s premium high speed WiFi and it was superb. Download speeds averaged 41.2 Mbps and upload speeds averaged 33.6 Mbps. There were no buffering issues whilst watching YouTube videos in full 1080p HD.
Housekeeping
If you’re not made immediately aware of a room’s cleanliness, it’s likely because it’s very clean. We had no faults here with the Hampton. The room felt clean and fresh. No more comments necessary really.
Bathroom
The bathroom was compact but contemporary with clean, white fixtures. The shower was easy to control, had great pressure and came to temperature rapidly. It’s important to note here than no rooms in the Hampton come with a bath.
Amenities
There were plenty of soft, white towels in the bathroom. 2 large bath towels, 2 face cloths, 2 hand towels and a floor towel.
Now, if you’re a fan of small hotel toiletries, you might be disappointed here. Instead of mini-toiletries, the hotel has opted for the wholesale approach. So instead of small plastic shampoo, conditioner and body wash bottles, there are larger wall mounted dispensers in the shower.
The same is true for the body lotion and hand soap next to the sink. Whilst I did miss the mini toiletries, I think this is for the better. My optimistic side tells me it helps the environment, my pessimistic side tells me it’s cheaper for the hotel. But the realist in me acknowledges it’s probably a combination of both advantages.
Hotel Facilities
Gym
The gym is located on the ground floor towards the back of the hotel. It’s a 24 hour, unsupervised gym but you will need a card from reception to gain access. I used the gym twice during this visit, first at 9pm and then around 11am the next morning. On both occasions, I had the gym to myself, which was great.
The gym is fairly compact but is well equipped with a couple of treadmills, a stationary bike and an elliptical on the left hand side. On the right hand side you can find a range of free weights, exercise balls and a resistance trainer.
There is no pool/spa in this hotel.
Business Centre
You can find a fully equipped business centre next to the hotel’s reception area. Here you can print free of charge, fax and photo copy. A video conferencing service and meeting rooms are also available.
Staff/Service
Due to the digital check-in/digital room key we didn’t really need to interact with staff very much during our stay. However, whenever we did, they were all very helpful, considerate and polite.
Dining
Breakfast
Breakfast is complimentary with any booking in this Hampton and is served from 6am-10am Monday to Friday and from 7am-10:30am weekends and bank holidays:
Quiet Time: 6-7am (Mon to Fri) and 7-8am (Weekends)
Busy Time: 7-8am (Mon to Fri) and 8-9am (Weekends)
Peak Time: 8-10am (Mon to Fri) and 9-10:30am (Weekends)
The breakfast was self service but a staff member was also on hand if you needed help with anything.
For a mid-priced hotel, there was quite an ample selection of hot and cold food items. First off, there were a couple of tea/coffee stations serving a range of different teas (decaf was available). You could get fruit juice too. There was a breakfast cereal station which served Alpen, Cornflakes, Frosties, Crunchy Nut, Coco Pops and Rice Krispies, plus Moma Porridge.
There was a make-your-own waffle station at an island in the centre with a choice of toppings/sauces. At another station you could get white/brown toast and croissants. There was a hot buffet available too where you could pickup cooked eggs, rosti potatoes, haggis, bacon and sausages.
Other Dining Options
Aside from breakfast, there is the option of eating dinner in the reception area from 5pm to 10pm. You can also grab a bite to eat from their limited lunch menu at the bar. Whilst we haven’t eaten off their new menu (available from January 2019), we will comment on the menu prior to that.
At best, the food was completely average. At worst, a bland mass of food. If you’re staying at this hotel, we would highly recommend eating somewhere else. There are quite a few restaurants within walking distance (Nandos, Tony Macaroni’s, The Tailend Restaurant)
There is no option for room service at this hotel.
Conclusion And Scoring
The location of the Hampton in Dundee is excellent. If you're looking for a moderately priced city centre hotel, I would definitely recommend this hotel. However, whilst most of the amenities provided by the Hampton are of good quality, I would say overall it is dragged down by a few things.
Firstly, the beds need to be replaced. It’s difficult to spend one night on them let alone two. Secondly, they provide what is required but they don’t provide amenities above and beyond a 3 star standard.
The service provided by the hotel staff and the overall cleanliness of the hotel is superb.
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