Hyatt Regency, Houston

...was 3 nights in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Houston as well as a lot of other boring wrestling things I won't bore you with! ;)

My initial reaction when we were told and confirmed on the package, of where we would be staying for the last 3 nights of our trip, I was ecstatic. I have never been one for spending lots of money on hotels, as long as there is a bed I'm usually happy. But as we opted for a "platinum package" ...
...all honestly I think the Hyatt was the only down side to a brilliant holiday otherwise.

Price / Booking
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As I mentioned, the Hyatt was the hotel we were informed we would be staying at for the 3 nights included in our platinum package. (A Friday - Sunday inclusive stay) As such we were not involved in the booking process due to the whole hotel being booked for wrestling package holders for ... more

As some of you may already know, I have recently returned from a lovely break in Houston, Texas. The main reason for our trip was to go to "Wrestlemania", the WWE's large yearly event. Yes it is slightly sad to travel 5000 miles for wrestling, but you only live once and I am indeed sad! To ensure the expense and hassle would be worth it, we added an additional 7 night's holiday to the trip, making it a 10 night get away.

We booked our wrestling part of the trip direct with WWE and thought the packages sounded like the best deal for our money. Included was 3 nights in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Houston as well as a lot of other boring wrestling things I won't bore you with! ;)

My initial reaction when we were told and confirmed on the package, of where we would be staying for the last 3 nights of our trip, I was ecstatic. I have never been one for spending lots of money on hotels, as long as there is a bed I'm usually happy. But as we opted for a "platinum package" for our trip we were given a better hotel in the deal. I can honestly say I have never stayed in a 5 star hotel prior to this, and in all honestly I think the Hyatt was the only down side to a brilliant holiday otherwise.

Price / Booking
-------------------

As I mentioned, the Hyatt was the hotel we were informed we would be staying at for the 3 nights included in our platinum package. (A Friday - Sunday inclusive stay) As such we were not involved in the booking process due to the whole hotel being booked for wrestling package holders for the wrestlemania weekend by WWE direct, so I cannot comment on this process.

The same can be said for the price as ours was again included in the package.

However I did spend considerable time on the website drooling at the pictures and thinking about how wonderful our stay would be, so I know that there is a very simple to follow room selection function, that you can check availability and prices through. For example, selecting this Friday to Sunday tells me that a King Bed room (as we had) is £101.13 per night. So for £50 each per night this isn't as expensive as I thought it would be, although due to the weekend we stayed I do not know if the prices were raised at all.

The Actual Hotel
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The hotel itself is located in Downtown Houston. This basically being the city centre with all of the sky scraper buildings, it's quite a noisy area due to the traffic located near by but we didn't hear anything once in our room.

The hotel has 30 floors and a restaurant on the 31st top floor. There is a large check in desk with space for 4 staff members, as well as a "Customer Care" desk at the other side of the large lobby, where you can get details on the local area as well as bring up any queries with your room etc. I quite like this idea as it keeps customers with quick questions having to queue at the main desk and also keeps the main desk emptier.

Also in the lobby is a large bar with seating for approximately 50 people with TV screens. There is a small café in the lobby that sells drinks and snacks as well as freshly made pizza and little things such as travel essentials and tourist gifts like key rings and T-shirts. I found this café pretty handy for picking up little snacks between being out and about and great late night if you fancied something hot like the pizza which was very nice and reasonably priced.

Being over 30 floors the hotel had 7 glass elevators to access the floors which always seemed to be available and were actually very speedy (not so great for the likes of me who is prone to vertigo and motion sickness!!!).

The hotel also boasts its own steak house restaurant which I must admit I was very disappointed with; It is a lot smaller than the pictures on the website would imply and the menu at 5pm went we went was very limited. I mean so limited there was only one option I could have and did have. If you do not want a salad or would rather not have a 20oz steak, you have the choice of one burger. Who can eat a 20oz steak?! The smallest steak they served was 16oz, which is double what I could manage, and the staff were very arrogant and were more than happy to lean over us to clear plates and then interrupt our conversation to suggest one of their "fabulous deserts" in full detail even after we had made it clear we would not like to see the desert menu which did not cater for my other half as everything came with nuts.

The Room
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Our room was a king double bed room and was the main disappointment, we had stayed at the Hilton Post Oak (review coming soon) for the previous week and in comparison it was simply very hard not to be a little let down.

It was a pretty small room and was impossible to watch the TV from the bed (the only seating in the room) from the angle they had it set up, so we actually moved it. The décor was very outdated, 70's I would say (and not stylish 70's) the shower curtain and room curtains were a horrible dirty looking brown and the worn grey carpet was stained and showing its age. The bathroom was a lot smaller than the Hilton, yes it was large enough and served its purpose, but as I said it is hard not to compare after a brilliant stay elsewhere.

My main off put was the light switches, which in themselves were very old fashioned hard white plastic weird little flick switch types but also had a lovely orange/brown residue around the edge from when the floor was previously a smoking floor. This was a very little detail in comparison to the grander scheme of things but I couldn't help but feel let down by it all. Simply, I expected a lot more.

Service
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Overall, any staff we encountered were polite and the check in staff and room service operators etc, were very nice, but I did have a problem with the only question we really had not being answered or dealt with at all which I'll try to briefly explain...

As I said, this trip and the 3 nights at this hotel were for our wrestlemania package, wrestlemania happens on a Sunday evening, WWE have one of their weekly shows "smackdown" on a Friday evening.

Seeing as this was the day we checked into the Hyatt and had no other plans, we wanted to watch it to be up to date for Sunday's event. We had checked the room's helpful guide that detailed what TV channels they had available and it seemed they didn't have the channel the show was on. It's not the end of the world and we would have happily gone without watching it, however, a lot of the channels were numbered incorrectly and were called different names to what they seemed to actually be. Not wanting to miss out if the channel was there right in front of us, I popped down to the lobby to ask someone at the customer care desk exactly what channels we had in the room and if they knew if they had the channel the show was on. I was served by a man who seemed like he had just had a very long day and could no longer be bothered. I asked if he knew if perhaps they were showing it at the bar (as having 922 rooms booked for wrestlemania, I thought it might be an option) apparently nothing was planned. Fine. So I continued to ask if he could confirm if our rooms had "myTV network" being the channel smackdown was on. I was bluntly informed that there was a directory in the room and that should say which channels we had.

I explained that it didn't match to our TV and there were additional channels as well as miss named ones, he asked what the name of the channel was and the show, and continued to tell me he hadn't heard of the show and was not sure if they had the channel. Rather then actually checking with anyone else or consulting a file or anything he didn't seem like he was going to offer to look into it. After this I grabbed a local paper from the café next door and popped back to the desk with the show and channel highlighted. I plainly stated again "I would like to watch this tonight, do you have this channel" I was then told that if it isn't in the directory then they do not have it. Fine again, a direct answer. I can swallow that and we accepted we would miss out, we would live! Instead we planned a film to watch on another channel and settled in front of the TV for the night, the film finished and I flicked the channel off the credits (which I hate sitting through) while we decided if it was more TV time or bed time, to find and watch the last 10 seconds of smackdown on the channel next to the film channel!

I was gutted and very annoyed, had I of not seen this I would have been fine, but knowing that indeed they did have that channel, not marked in the directory and named incorrectly, and after having to try and get an answer, which I finally did out of the unhelpful man, AND that answer be wrong, they indeed DID have the channel...well as you can tell from my little rant, I was not impressed. Being late and in my PJ's I didn't complain and by morning didn't want to ruin the next few days by letting it bother me. So I let it slide.

Conclusion
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It wasn't unpleasant, but it was different than advertised, the staff were overall helpful, and the room was bearable if not a little grubby and small, so I know I wont be staying there again if I needed to, and I wouldn't recommend it. It was the only down point to a lovely holiday and I would have much rather stayed where we were!

Thanks for reading :)  

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