The Ray Hotel Delray Beach, Curio Collection by Hilton

First, the staff here is wonderful, by the end of our stay we felt like family. Gwen at the front desk deserves special commendation. It was our 15th anniversary , and I booked a Premiere King with Large Terrace (the highest category below a suite) to celebrate. We checked in late evening, and when we got to the room, it was almost directly across the hall from a loud wedding, and worse than that, it was definitely one category below what I had booked. But I spoke to Gwen, and she took the time to review the history of the reservation and discovered that the hotel was overbooked, and so it internally “cancelled” my original reservation and downgraded us to a lower category. She honored the booking price for the lower category for that night; closed an internal door to make the wedding noise less noticeable for us; and made a note in the file that explained the situation which said we should be switched to the originally booked room in the morning. Tom, who works in the morning, took over from there, and he also deserves special commendation. He contacted housekeeping, and by later that same morning he had gotten us the original premiere room we had booked, all cleaned and inspected, with a HUGE corner furnished wraparound terrace, on a part of the floor very far away from the wedding/events venue. This relates to my biggest quibble with this hotel: it is very trendy (which is great), and apparently a very popular spot for weddings because of its unique venue: “The Cube,” a cool suspended banquet hall. Unfortunately, it is suspended on the second floor, a guest floor, right near some guest rooms. I have never seen this before at a hotel, usually the banquet facilities are far away from the guest rooms. The actual banquet kitchen, though connected directly to the Cube, has an additional door opening right into the guest corridor where some of the rooms are, complete with ensuing industrial smells and sounds. When there is a wedding (and there were two when we stayed), giant banquet trays and food carts and stacks of sodas and liquor are lined up directly outside the door of some of the guest rooms, and people are constantly running them in and out of the ballroom rather than just using the interior door which connects the Cube to its kitchen. This is a BIG design flaw. In the first place, the ballroom is loud and should not be located anywhere near the guest room floors. (It should be on the ground floor, but two trendy restaurants take up too much real estate there). Also, there does not appear to be a sufficient “prep” area for the ballroom other than the guest hallways. Even though there is a fairly spacious banquet kitchen contained entirely within “The Cube”, the staff seems to prefer to use a door that opens directly onto a guest room hallway to prep and ferry food and drink between the kitchen and the ballroom. The rooms on the second floor are most of the nicer ones with the larger terraces, so it is unfortunate that the hotel is designed such that some of them can also be disturbed by a lot of banquet noise. (Some sections of the second floor are far away enough not to have this issue). If you are with the wedding party and placed in one of these rooms, you will likely not notice any of these issues, fortunately, because you will be at the event. But the hotel is small, and so with two giant wedding parties in attendance that weekend, we were not able to find seats by the pool at all on Saturday, and all of the public spaces including the rooftop terrace were crowded and filled with various pre-and post-wedding parties, office parties, baby showers, you name it. My advice would be to ask whether there will be a wedding or other private event that weekend, and how many. Depending on the answer, I would be cautious about booking if I wanted quiet. At the very least I would request a room on the second floor as far away from “The Cube” as possible, and make sure they honor that at check-in and down downgrade you. (The rooms on the higher floors have very tiny balconies and risk noise infiltration from the rooftop). On the other hand, overall the food is great, the location is fantastic, the hotel is beautifully decorated, the pool is gorgeous, the employees are fabulous and friendly, the rooms are incredibly comfortable, our terrace was fantastic, and as I said, we felt like family. Thanks to Tom, Gwen, and the rest of the staff we had a wonderful anniversary. I do have an issue with Hilton overbooking us and “canceling” our reservation and switching us to a lower category. That is not good business practice. If I hadn’t caught it, and Gwen and Tom hadn’t been the lovely people they are, we could have been stuck right next to not one but two loud weddings on our anniversary weekend. I am a Hilton Honors member and do not expect NOT to receive the room I booked, especially for a special occasion. That is the only reason I am not giving our stay a 5 instead of a 4.

$500 night with a loud party with a dj happening about 5 ft off of my balcony on their rooftop until about 11:00 pm. I called multiple times and asked what was going on and they said it would stop soon. Music was very loud. I went down to the front desk and they said they would take care of it. Finally at 11:00, while the dj stopped the party was still going, I asked them to move me if they would not quiet the party down. Who likes to have to move rooms at 11 pm on a work trip the night before you depart? Fyi the sound from outside carries through the ducts into the bathroom.

Amazing hotel right in the heart of Delray Beach. Jackson at the front desk was so helpful and welcoming. Top rate service all the way. We will be back for sure!!

The best hotel in Delray! Modern, clean, amazing staff! Golf cart or shuttle straight to the beach! Its in a great location walking distance from art and night life! Beautiful rooftop pool and views of the city!

Like the seasons change, so does HSH’s travel. She recently has been on a whirlwind of personal travel, including a recent trip to see a friend in the Delray Beach area. Located just south of the Palm Beach’s and Boca, Delray is a cute little town with lots of fantastic restaurants and shopping. While in town, we stayed at The Ray Hotel, a Hilton property. We truly enjoyed our time in the area and especially at the hotel. The hotel has a great vibe - one could describe the style as tropical chic. I did not know I needed this vibe in my life until I experienced it for 4 days! The property did a great job carrying this vibe throughout all aspects of the hotel - from the entrance and lobby, to the room, and even within the hallways. We truly enjoyed the property and would stay here again. Pros: - Location! A few blocks off of Atlantic Avenue in a very cute part of the town - Tropical chic vibe and entire property decor. I loved every design aspect, including the poolside Barbie artwork on the walls - Sleeping room design, which included a small couch in room that was nice and cozy for a quick sit-down or to work on a laptop - Rooftop pool also had a great vibe. We enjoyed spending time up there each day with our friends - Hotel staff that made our stay extra enjoyable: Tom at the front desk was attentive and willing to help each time we needed assistance with housekeeping. He was very friendly and lovely to chat with. Tova at the rooftop bar was wonderful each time I went to her for lunch while at the hotel! Cons: - Elevator security key system was temperamental and took way too long to allow you to hit your floor button - Housekeeping. We had issues with housekeeping from the start. Upon entering our room, it was not fully cleaned. We informed the front desk and issues were addressed within a few hours. When daily housekeeping was provided next day, continued to have issues. We informed the front desk 3 times over 24 hours and eventually gave up. Additionally, our room’s hair dryer was absolutely disgusting and covered in hair product. It was unusable. - Pool waitress on Friday daytime acted like we were bothering her when we ordered (note - it was our first order of the day… not our tenth!). Hoping we caught her on an off day but it was quite noticeable that she did not want to work Recommendations: - Retrain housekeeping staff on 5th floor Overall, a good option for sure but a few little things can use some help.