If only the rest of the hotel were as entertaining as the tub enclosure!
Written: May 23 '01 (Updated Oct 01 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: clean, the igneous geology of the bathroom was fascinating
Cons: no restaurant, no bar, no parking, no service...
The Bottom Line: Pass on this one -- but if you can get a look at the stonework in the bathroom, don't pass up the chance (but don't pay, either).
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| scmrak's Full Review: Crowne Plaza Hotel HOUSTON-DOWNTOWN |
Crowne Plaza Houston Downtown location only
I had an occasion to stay in the Crowne Plaza downtown Houston not long ago -- a major convention was in town, and it was the only hotel within about twenty miles of downtown with a room for me.
I won't be going back.
Not that the property wasn't well kept up -- it was average or better for a hotel of this rank. Not that the location was inconvenient -- it's four or five blocks from the office I usually visit. Not that it lacked the usual in-room "amenities" -- the hair dryer, coffee-maker, and iron were there. Not that it was noisy, or unsafe, or overly expensive, or any of a host of other things that make one hotel "homier" than the next.
It just... wasn't. You know what I mean?
Consider the entire experience, from reservation to checkout:
Reservations: My client has a world-wide contract with Holiday Inn hotels (including Crowne Plaza), which I reference regularly when reserving rooms. The reservation line acknowledged the contract, but refused to quote a rate. For all I knew, I was being charged rack rate ($285/night).
Check-In: I presented myself at the counter in the Priority Check-in line, card displayed. After being kept waiting for another party to check in; which required all three personnel behind the counter to process, I was told that the room rate was $215. I reminded the clerk of the corporate rate, and it was immediately reset to $139. And they wondered why I was grumpy!
Parking: Not only is there no free parking -- okay, it is downtown -- there's no self parking. Not even for check-in! Valet parking is $19 per night... I found on-street parking and moved to a surface lot in the day (I feel responsible to my client, even if they are one of the richest corporations in the world).
Restaurants: There is no restaurant, no bar, no lounge. There is room service, but the room service menu is a bit cagey about prices: just about everything is "market price." I was expecting to see the hamburger platter listed as "market price"!
Amenities: No gift shop, no exercise facility, no business center. There are meeting rooms (I think).
Location: The property's on the west side of downtown right up against I-45. Most of the downtown office buildings are seven to ten blocks "north" and "east." The Kellogg Center and a Federal building are connected to the hotel by a pedestrian bridge, though the hotel isn't on the downtown tunnel system. There is a fair Thai restaurant (Taste of Thai) three-four blocks away and a noisy TexMex restaurant (Adrian's) across the street -- the latter is rather rowdy; featuring karaoke some evenings. There's not much else nearby for the evenings. UPDATE: as of 1 June 2001, Adrian's is closed.
Rooms: The hotel has twelve floors, but two or three lower floors are under renovation and closed. Rooms themselves -- I had a non-smoking king -- are mid-sized, with the usual amenities: coffee maker, iron/board, hair dryer. The halls and rooms are of average to above average cleanliness. The elevators are slow and creaky, and not very clean.
The high point: simply has to be the bathrooms! Well, at least for a geologist: the tub enclosure and floor are tiled with a fascinating natural stone, I think a quartz monzanite (hey -- I'm a sedimentary geologist!). The eighteen-inch square tiles of polished pale grayish stone feature fist-sized salmon-pink feldspar phenocrysts (large, single crystals). Most of the feldspar crystals have a well-displayed orange-to-red reaction rim (darker, chemically-altered edges). The corners of the tiles are biased, with each corner featuring a diamond-shaped inset of polished black gabbro or other basic rock. Absolutely fascinating!
If only the rest of the hotel were as interesting as the stone in the bathrooms -- but, alas, it's not. The service is surly, the amenities missing, the prices inflated, and the location poor.
I'd pass on this one.
Recommended:
No
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