Residence Inn is conveniently located to the best of San Antonio
Written: May 10 '02 (Updated May 19 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Close to the San Antonio Riverwalk and the Alamo.
Cons: Lack of drawers to place clothes in.
The Bottom Line: The Residence Inn is a very good and economical place to stay in downtown San Antonio.
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| cbrown2466's Full Review: Residence Inn by Marriott San Antonio Alamo Plaza |
I have stayed in Residence Inns for a number of years. My business trips are normally 2 to 3 weeks long. Finding a place to wind down from work is a necessity. We choose this chain because they normally provide this service. In fact, Residence Inn Hotels are Marriott's attempt to provide a home away from home for its customer's. The hotel chain has 175 hotels and does a pretty good job of providing this type of service nationwide.
My comments are specific for the San Antonio Alamo Residence Inn.
They provide an excellent complimentary breakfast every morning for a three hour period. That is a lot of free breakfasts for over 200 rooms full of hungry travelers. Every morning they service scrambled eggs, sausage, mixed fruit, three kinds of juice, several varieties of cereal, waffles, yogurt, coffee, tea, oatmeal, fresh fruit (most mornings), toast, muffins, and bagels. In addition, they provide complimentary snacks (some are more like meals) Monday through Thursday. There is free beer, wine, and soft drinks on each of these night and some examples of snacks (only one type a night) include buffalo wings, corn dogs, hamburgers (great snack), meatball subs, salad bar, spaghetti, and build your own sandwich (sliced turkey with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, mayo, and mustard). They also provide discounts for many of the local and chain restaurant nearby.
The hotel has a small, but very nice outdoor swimming pool. There is also a heated spa attached to the pool. A very nice place to unwind. The exercise room is excellent. There are a number of treadmill, stair masters and other fine equipment to burn off the meals that you've consumed in the complimentary meals and the great restaurant on the River Walk.
It is less than a block to walk to the Alamo. The museum in the Alamo is free and a good way to entertain yourself. The famous riverwalk is 2 blocks away. There are a number of excellent restaurants in this beautiful area. A must visit.
Now for the rooms.
Everyone gets a fairly nice sized room. Some of the more expensive suites have more than one room. They have a nice television with limited channel selection with only one premium channel. Each room has a stove, full sized refrigerator, microwave oven, dishwasher, kitchen cabinets, kitchen closet, and a work area for business people. Other nice to have things are laundry room on four of the 13 floors, same day laundry and dry cleaning, grocery shopping services, and a very nice staff of personnel. In fact, I had an ice maker put in my refrigerator about 15 minutes after mentioning to the beer/wine server to give me plenty of ice because my room ice maker didn't work. That is commendable and I provided comments to the manager.
My major complaint about the room is the total lack of cabinet space for clothes and shaving equipment for long term customers. The cabinets are in the short foyer between the bed and the bathroom. There is one small drawer and two tiny drawers to place all of your clothes, shaving gear, toothpaste, makeup, etc.
The other complaint is the telephone. One of the purposes of a Residence Inn is to provide a home away from home, but they charge 50 cents for each local telephone call. Most business people that I know are attached to their email at the hip and that becomes very costly to use the internet with this policy.
Those two items will probably make me think twice when another long trip is arranged for me in San Antonio.
This is a very good to excellent hotel overall.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
cbrown2466
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Location: Ocala, Florida
Reviews written: 100
Trusted by: 55 members
About Me:
Retired U.S. Government employee. Actively involved in genealogy and travel.
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