redslert

I had a very nice weekend stay at this property.
The walls were a bit thin but overall it was modern and good location.

When I stayed it was crowded by people from some sports convention across the road so the lounge was packed during breakfast.

DELee

*bump*

Any recent stays @ this property? How's the Executive Lounge? Will be here in a week or so.

David

DELee

(Metacomment: all of the pictures shown in the review and a few others are located here.)

Why Here?
Yet another conference. Given that this property is directly attached to the George Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston, it is the go-to lodging location if you’re here for an event that’s using the convention center and/or the Houston Toyota Center. On the eastern side of downtown Houston, you end up either needing to be willing to walk a few blocks in order to get into downtown proper, knowing where you want to go in order to ask the one of hotel’s shuttles to take you, hail a cab or pay the daily parking rate to use your own vehicle to get around town.

The Reservation:
Used the conference’s personalized web page to reserve a 2 Queen Bed room for myself and my wife – that way, I could exit my bed without disturbing her in order to get to my early AM events and meetings. One important point to make: using the conference’s reservation page generated an immediate one night charge on my HHonors Amex – instead of a credit hold - so be aware. Not knowing this, I ended up booking another room for a different set of nights as my itinerary evolved and found out later that I had close to $500 of charges already on my Amex card a month or two before the stay. While I did eventually cancel one of the nights, it took the better part of a week for the refund of the one night to appear on my card – and which I had already paid as part of my monthly balance anyway.

Location:
As noted above, this is a downtown hotel. Not particularly close to IAH and a bit closer to HOU. This is the go-to location for those going to the convention center and/or Houston Toyota Center. A few blocks southwest of Minute Maid Park (Houston Astros) and across the freeway from the BBVA Compass Stadium (Houston Dynamo). Also, the property is not attached to downtown Houston’s system of tunnels and enclosed bridges so weather can play a factor in your decision to venture out past the hotel as a pedestrian on inclement days or typical summers in Texas.

If you’d rather select another Hilton property, the Embassy Suites is just next door. However, I wasn’t able to get into that property for my stay given the demand for space. When I was reserving for my stay, it did appear that the Embassy Suites may have been cheaper. However, poking at future dates as of this writing, the Embassy Suites is coming up at least $20 more per night so your mileage/reservation success may vary. On the other side of downtown is a Doubletree if that floats your boat.

Here's how close the ES is to the Hilton:



As a photographic example from Google Maps looking south, you can see the Hilton Americas nestled in the middle demonstrating its proximity to the convention center and the Toyota Center (click for larger image):



The Property/Lobby/Check-In:
While attached to the convention center, this hotel is a convention property in its own right. Above the lobby level sit three floors of meeting rooms, ballrooms and boardrooms. On top of these sit 1,200 guestrooms, a sizeable Executive Lounge, a full service spa + workout facility, a top floor lap pool + Jacuzzi. Down on the lobby level are a bar, café and coffee service as well as a steakhouse restaurant. So, if you’re inclined, this property is set up for you stick around and spend as much as you can with them.

Rather than deal with a rental car when we were in town, we took the SuperShuttle from IAH. This put us at the mercy of the hotel’s shuttle vans, any taxi’s, the MetroRail to get to the Arts District as well as the weather to walk around downtown.

Looking now at my photos, I don’t have any of the lobby or registration desk. The Registration Desk is immediately facing you on the left as you enter. While a HHonors position is indicated, we didn’t have to wait to get to a desk clerk. A recommendation would be, if your spouse is travelling with you, to make sure his/her name is on the room – especially when she/he forgets their room key and needs to get a new one made…For those interested, I found this 360 tour of the lobby that includes registration.

Layout:
The designers of this property used a layer cake approach in its design. The lobby level has all of the hotel’s restaurants, the next three floors are the 91,500 square feet of meeting rooms and then floors 5 through 22 are the 1200 guestrooms as well as the Executive Lounge on the 19th floor. The Skyline Spa and workout facility are on the 23rd floor and the lap pool, Skyline Terrace and Skyline Ballroom are on the 24th floor.

Using the following image from the property’s website since it provides a better perspective than any of my shots, you can see this layered design as follows (shot appears to be from the middle 2nd floor deck of the convention center):



The trees of the Discovery Green Park block a view to the primary entrance and driveway for the property in the middle of the first floor for this image. The lower block of glass are the meeting room/ballroom/boardroom floors that connect to the convention center and the round feature at lower right base are a series of curving staircases that allow you to walk from level to level. For a PDF layout of floors 2 through 4, I found this.

Above this lower glass block are the guest rooms that have the gold and bluish windows. The guest rooms are arranged in a large U shape with the opening of the U facing out toward the Toyota Center (see below) so all rooms get some sort of view – ‘tho some views are clearly superior than others.

Here's a view from the park looking south toward the property:



And then from the 17th floor window outside the east elevators looking across the U:



Finally, again across the U but from the Skyline Terrace on the 24th floor:



Taking a different view again from the property’s website looking to the South, the set of glass windows at the very top that jut out are the Skyline Ballroom that faces north and the lap pool that faces west. You can just see the square cutout for the Skyline Terrace/outdoor lounge at the far upper right:



As a FYI, the Executive Lounge on the 19th floor is just below the roofline that intersects the wing that continues upwards and that shows the Hilton sign on its two sides. It encompasses the northwest corner of the central and western wings on that floor.

Moreover, even though I did not get one, many of the 35 suites (10 standard, 21 deluxe/lamar and 4 presidential) appear to be at this corner of the building. There may also be some at the ends of the wings on the south sides. For those who want to take 360 degree virtual tours of these suites and other areas of the hotel, I found them at: http://www.hiltonamericashouston.com/

From floors 14 and up, these are signed as “Hilton HHonors Floors”. Here's a shot of the sign on the 15th floor (click for larger image):



Whether this means that all who are in rooms on these floors have access to the Executive Lounge, it wasn’t clear but, given the multitudes who were in the lounge during our stay, this may very well be the case. If so, this may mean that on the order of 500 rooms could have access to the Executive Lounge.

Room 17037:





Here’s a composite view of our 2 Queen room – again click for larger image:



Other room views and details:











The only other feature I'll photographically call out is the room safe that was located under the television:



While it was big enough to hold my laptop and other things, the incline of the safe door and the cabinet door caused them to interfere. While I was able to lift the safe door sufficiently to allow them to clear, this was clearly not the case with many others who've used the safe:



(more details in Part 2)

David

DELee

Views from Room 17037:

Here's what I saw when I first walked over to the room's window:



Facing northeast, this room overlooks the Discovery Green Park/Kinder Lake, so if you generate a composite image of the view at around mid-morning on a November day, it should look something like this (Click for a larger image):



On the first night, Minute Maid Park was lit up for some reason - well past baseball season, it may have been related to Veterans' Day:



The Executive Lounge:
There are two banks of elevators in this hotel. This is important because both get to the 19th floor where the Executive Lounge is located – and there is no requirement to have a specific room key to take an elevator to this floor. However, only the elevators on the northwest corner go higher floors. Given the size and extent of the lounge, it clearly is a showcase feature for this property.

Its front door (click for hours):



You also get a card that details out both the lounge's hours as well as when it is staffed by the Concierge when you check in. A scan of the card is located here.

Since the lounge occupies the northwest corner of the 19th floor, it is big. While the Executive Lounge at the Hilton New York is probably the largest single lounge I've been in, this is definitely fairly close in terms of total square footage.

Here's the lounge in three shots:







For those who avail themselves of the evening reception, there's a small but decent bar that is unfortunately fairly expensive. Here's their collection of alcohol behind the bar:



Here are the prices (click for larger image):



Appetizers, both hot and cold, are put out at 5 pm and are kept replenished. This also includes sodas as well as bottles of water which are constantly added to throughout the day. In addition, the coffee and tea service is kept available during the day.

At breakfast, the lounge is kept stocked with a decent continental breakfast:









The lounge also has two iMacs but neither had internet access:



There are two different views that you get from the lounge. The one to the northeast is basically the same as what's been seen from our room window, only two stories higher.

To the west side of the lounge, you get a better view of the downtown skyline (click for large image):



Also, you get to see how far away most of downtown is from the Hilton:



What I don't convey in these images is how busy the lounge was most of the time during the breakfast and evening reception times.

So, if an Executive Lounge is a major reason for you to stay at a Hilton, this is one that is well maintained and managed.

(part 3 provides detail on the fitness facility, pool/jacuzzi, Skyline Terrace and Skyline Ballroom)

David

DELee

Spa & Fitness Center (23th Floor):
While I didn’t have time to use either of these, my wife who went to the spa was quite pleased with it and its services.

Here's its front desk after hours:



For those who are planning to work out during your stay, the fitness center is very extensive:













There's another short wing that's not even in these photos that I wasn't able to shoot. Given the location of the facility, you get views both toward the park as well as out toward the rest of downtown as you work out.

Pool and Skyline Terrace (24th Floor):
Again, I didn’t have time to take a swim but my wife was clear in her statement that "this was the best pool I've been in"...and I'll take her word for it.

To get to the pool, you can either ascend a flight of stairs from 23rd floor or cut across from the Skyline Ballroom and use your room key to get into the pool area and connect over to the Skyline Terrace.

Here's a shot at night:



Or at sunset, the pool is quite appealing (click for larger image):



Just beyond the pool is the Skyline Terrace that has a spectacular open air view to the east, south and west (click for larger shot):



To the west:





To the south, the Toyota Center is the dominant feature:



To the east, here's a repeat of the U of the hotel:



Skyline Ballroom:
Didn't get to attend at least two functions held up here given my schedule and lateness getting to the events, but here's the function room that's not listed on the hotel's event pages yet occupies the nortwest corner of the top floor (click either image for a larger version):





Comments & Summary:
One thing to note is that there's not a straightforward way to get from this property's main entrance over to the Discovery Green Park. You end up either walking down toward the convention center and crossing there or jaywalking across Dallas and Lamar. There's no break in the decorative fence/barrier between the hotel and the park - or none that I found.

This hotel is clearly one of Hilton's showcase convention hotels. It reminds me in many ways of the Hilton Baltimore as well as the Hilton Bonnet Creek in terms of how much attention has been paid to thinking about what a convention hotel means from a Hilton perspective.

My interactions with the hotel staff were all very positive and the flexibility of the hotel's shuttles to get around downtown were very much appreciated by my wife.

Being downtown in Houston means that you're there for business. Whether for an event or convention at this property, the convention center or elsewhere downtown. During baseball and basketball seaons, there's sure to be stays directly associated with either stadium or arena. However, I still see that the dominant guest will be the convention attendee.

Time will tell how soon the rest of downtown links up with this property and the convention center.

David

Stiff

Great trip report!

By the way, was Spencers Steak House open when you were there? I just heard that they are closed and wanted to confirm that. Shame - the bar there was so much better than the lobby bar.

fozziedoggie

Thanks DELee,

Guess I'll have to start placing more effort into my reviews! Awesome job..^

troyintn

Thanks I will be in IAH next week.

DELee

Sorry, nope. Given that we were there 5 days/4 nights, we would have seen it open.

David

bigjim

I have an upcoming stay starting tomorrow and I've never been to this property. Any suggestions on which room I should select?

19003
19014
20003
21007
22014

I like a view, but also appreciate quiet. All of the rooms are marked as being away from the elevator.

Thanks for any comments.

DELee

Well, the following photo is probably the most relevant (click for larger):



Since these were from the west bank of elevators that drop you off directly in front of the Executive Lounge on the 19th Floor, the 19003 and 19014 are on the same floor and likely same wing (west side) as the EL. Positive is the immediate access to the EL. Negative is that everyone else from the 15th floor and up have access to the EL.

The 20003, 21007 and 22014 are also on that wing but are one, two or three floors above the EL - but the thing to consider is that the Skyline Spa and Fitness Facility are on the 23rd floor on that wing - so if you want to be close to those, these rooms are in at least vertical proximity. What I have no clue is how the sound from those areas transmits through the building.

Here's the west face of the hotel (click for larger):



And here's what that side looks out over - view from the EL:



Hope that helps. Let us know which one you picked and how it turned out.

David

bigjim

Thanks David. You made some great points. Based on your thoughts, I selected the room on the 21st floor. My thought process was that the 19th floor might have too much traffic and hopefully the 21st floor won't get any noise from the gym.

I'll find out tomorrow! Thanks again.

bigjim

Well checked in. Based on what I've seen so far, I don't think that there are any spectacular views. Room is decent, lounge is huge and exercise area is great!

The views from my room appear to be identical as those from the lounge with the Toyota Center visible to the left and Four Seasons and Embassy Suites very close.

Thanks again David.

Stiff

Heading back to Houston in a couple of months - has anything replaced the former Spencer's Steakhouse and Bar in that space? When the hotel is busy with a conference they really need that additional space.

pier11

Typing from the EL after some hot evening snacks...
I'm Gold and was placed on 17-th HH floor. My room key opened EL. Is it supposed to be like that?
Or I was somehow misteriously upgraded to executive floor privilege?