When we traveled from New York to Houston, we stayed in a variety of hotels throughout our three week trip.  Since my husband's cousin works in the hotel industry in Texas, our reservations for our nights in that state were made for us.  If we had a choice, we probably would not have stayed in the heart of the city in an upscale hotel, but since we received a nice discount, we did enjoy our stay at  The Westin Galleria Houston.

This hotel is in a very busy part of town, attached to the Galleria Mall, and with buildings all around it.  It is lacking in signage, and even though we had a GPS, a paper map, and some driving instructions from a relative, we still missed the entrance upon arrival.  There is valet parking, but there is also a multi-level parking garage next door that is shared by restaurants, the mall, Hertz Rental cars and the hotel.  Each time we came back to the hotel there was enough close parking to the hotel entrance that we had no problems using the lot and self-parking.

This hotel offers free internet in the lobby, with a charge for internet in the guest rooms but we were able to use the lobby connection from our fifth floor room, although it did go in and out on occasion.  There are twenty-four floors in the hotel so the wireless signal may not have been as strong on the upper floors.  The lobby itself was comfortable with quite a few tables and comfortable chairs, almost all of which were close to outlets for plugging in laptops or other electronic devices.

The elevators were a bit slow, and we did wait quite a while for them.    Our room was large and contained two queen beds, a large nightstand with two lamps, an arm chair with an ottoman and a floor lamp behind it. and a chest of drawers with the flat screen television on top of it.  The desk was large enough for two laptops and more to fit on it, and it had multiple outlets built into it so that we did not have to hunt for places to plug in our iPad, iPod, telephone and camera battery chargers.

It had a nice size bathroom with a large vanity, as well as a full closet with two suitcase racks, an ironing board, iron, robe and hairdryer.  There was a two-cup coffee machine, but no microwave or accessible refrigerator, although there was a mini-bar refrigerator with a lock on it hidden in the chest of drawers.

Our room had a large three-pane glass window which overlooked a street, but gave us plenty of light during the day.  In addition to a heavy curtain, there was a screen that could be pulled down to allow in light without allowing the hot sun to make the room too warm.

Overall, the staff was helpful and answered questions when asked, but I found them to be very business-like and not all that welcoming.  Even though it would have fit with no problems, we could not have a rollaway bed in our room.  We may have been able to get a different room, but as we got a special rate for this room we did without.

We were on the pool floor, which was convenient for us so that we did not have to use the elevator to get to it.  The large pool is located outdoors, on a fifth floor roof and we did get to enjoy some swimming time during our stay.  We also benefited from being just a few rooms down from the exit to the pool since that is where the pool towels were kept so that when we needed an extra one in our room, I just grabbed one from there rather than waiting for the front desk to send it up.

Although this hotel did not have any pretty scenery or nice grounds to enjoy, it was close to the highway, and close to shopping and many restaurants, many of which were within walking distance.  One of our reason for visiting Houston was to see the Astros play baseball, and this hotel was less than ten miles away from the stadium.

Two adults and two teenagers were able to live in this hotel room for five nights and we found there to be enough room to spread out and not feel like we were on top of each other.  Room rates vary at this hotel and they tend to begin at about $250 per night.  If you need to be in Houston and want to be close to a mall with an ice skating rink inside and lots of other shopping and restaurants close by, then The Westin Galleria Houston would be a good choice.

Recommended: Yes