Just finished a stay here this weekend and have to give this place two huge thumbs up again. A couple days before check-in, I called to ask about getting connecting rooms. After spending 10-15 minutes trying to make something work, the agent apologized profusely and said the best she could get us was rooms two doors away from each other, but that she would keep checking to see if they could make something work. So I was beyond thrilled to check in and find out my executive suite (confirmed upgrade with SNA) was upgraded to a presidential suite and the second room was connecting. The hotel was packed for the Texas football game too, so the additional upgrade was very unexpected. The presidential suite was huge and very nicely furnished. It looked almost identical to the pictures on the website, but ours was not on a corner, so the bedroom just had one long wall of windows and not the wraparound windows in the picture. It looks like our bedroom was larger though. The lounge was perfectly nice as usual, and it didn't seem as overcrowded (it was still pretty busy though) as during my prior stays. We still chose to eat breakfast in the restaurant because lounges aren't my thing, but for a domestic lounge its certainly one of the better ones. They solicited feedback during our stay, and I said everything was perfect except the hotel should have Coke products instead of Pepsi. Within an hour, I received a call explaining the Marriott-Pepsi deal (which I already knew about) that prevented them from providing coke products in the lounge, but they wanted to clarify that we could still purchase coke products at all the restaurants and a few minutes later they brought us up some complimentary diet cokes. I thought that was a great response.
The hotel has a lot of the same issues that any gigantic conference hotel has (elevator wait times, slow valet, crowded lounge, check-in/check-out lines,etc.), but I've always felt like the staff recognizes those and tries to do the best they can to mitigate any problems. From proactively warning me the night before about long valet wait times the next morning to providing valet parking at the self parking rate because self parking was full, most of the staff just seems to get it, and that's hard to find at a lot of hotels.
It doesn't seem like that long ago when the only SPG option in Austin was the terrible downtown Sheraton. Now there are three great Marriott/SPG options in downtown and a few more as you get outside of downtown and into the suburbs (Westin Domain and Sheraton Georgetown are both solid if you need to be in those areas).