Review of Crowne Plaza, Houston Downtown, as posted on Tripadvisor, 09.11.2014 I am staying here as a tour guide with a group visiting the annual International Quilt Festival at the George R Brown Centre, Houston. The Crowne Plaza has proved to be very efficient, with comfortable, well maintained rooms and a good daily room service/refreshment. The hotel is clean, stylish, welcoming, spacious and accommodating in every way and sense. The room was serviced every day; has a coffee machine with decent coffee; daily renewed supplies of free water bottles; a safe, an enormous bed, lovely bed linen and towels, flat screen TV, a newspaper delivered to your bedroom door daily and has good air con. The breakfast room on the second floor is large and doubles as the restaurant by evening with the bar to one side. The serving staff are very good.. At breakfast, I seem to have been served most days by Azadine, who is supremely efficient; butler-like he just appears, serves and disappears quietly into the Art Deco themed amber-light, but it is true to say that all the servers are equally friendly and attentive. The breakfast buffet is very good too, being interesting as well as diverse - the crispy bacon is FAB! I didn’t eat dinner at the hotel, but the menu looked comprehensive and well priced, and the bar has a Happy Hour from 4 – 7pm with reduced prices on wine and domestic beer. The greeting and welcome to my group was made so kindly and warmly by Nora. I have seen her most days and she really is a star. Together with another superb receptionist, Yeme, we have been treated so well with genuine warmth and welcome, and nothing is beyond their interest of help and service. Of course this equally applies to all the receptionists whose names I havent garnered, but Nora and Yeme really stand out as full-on American hospitality specialists. One other, who has been a great help and who I have seen working tirelessly is John, the Experience Manager . Every hotel should have a John! I think he must live at his desk, as he is always there and never fails in a warm welcome and is ready to assist in every way - a great guy. The receptionists will look up the smallest item for you on their PCs, ordering a taxi for you is their pleasure and by the way, first time ever, they have two types of scales so you can weigh your suitcase before reaching the airport. Hotel landscape-wise, there is a pleasant raised area in the lobby for lounging or waiting for friends, and thoughtfully placed water dispensers deliver water with or without lemon. The hotel has an outside pool but I didnt use it, but that was only through a lack of time. The pool area looks very accommodating and relaxing. The second floor lobby area, links via a walkway, across the street, but a left turn before doing so leads ( about 100m ) to a small, smart art/sculpture gallery of sorts, and just beyond that in the next building on the same floor, is a gift-type convenience store. Although not large, it seemed to have just about everything and is so easy to reach from the hotel that you don’t even go outside. Down the escalator from there, at ground floor level, is a coffee stand for on-the-go coffees during office hours. The Crowne Plaza has excellent, free Wi-Fi ( password renewable every four days but it is the same password ). The Wi-Fi is so strong that it even gives a reliable signal in the hotel’s roadside garden. The hotel is of course non-smoking throughout, but you can smoke in the fenced-off garden which has bench seating. The hotel is actually well sited. Apart from a laid-on shuttle service, every 15 minutes or so backwards and forwards to the Quilting event, Green Line buses operate a free hop-on-and-off service for within the Downtown district from the front door of the hotel. Location-wise, turn left outside, up a few blocks, and turn left again on Dallas for the Sam Houston Park and ex-colonial type heritage building museum. Turn right outside hotel and walk south, under the freeway and right into Pearce for a really great diner, more or less on the corner of Smith and Pearce. Good food, good prices and only 8 minutes walk from the hotels door. One block further south along Smith Street, and again on the right are a number of restaurants in the Mid-Town district ( 12 minutes away ). I mention this, as you may have an impression on arrival that the hotel is isolated in a high-rise jungle. Not so. Restaurants are close at hand and with the little gift-type convenience store next door, in-house bar, a cabinet in the reception lobby for chocolate snacks, well, life is complete! I understand that by this time next year, the hotel with have their own coffee stand or bar. So, all in all, this has been a most excellent stay, and it would be churlish to deliberately look for negatives as there weren’t any, and I am very happy to recommend this as a great Houston hotel, a great experience, a great slice of American hospitality and thoroughly look forward to returning next year. Graham Parker Tour Guide.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 09:48:49 +0000
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