Stay Report: TownePlace Suites Houston Brookhollow
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| photo courtesy of TripAdvisor.com |
I travel to Houston a lot, sometimes for pleasure and sometimes because I live in a hurricane-prone city so we need to evacuate. In one of those instances of evacuation, I was looking for hotels in Houston. I normally stay near The Galleria but that usually fills up quickly so this time I decided to book a bit out of town. I found the TownePlace Suites in northwest Houston off of Highway 290. Having driven through this area, I was familiar with the area so was comfortable with booking the hotel. It was easy to book and manage the hotel through the Marriott app.
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| photo courtesy of TripAdvisor.com |
The hotel is located on the side road of Highway 290 and there are many restaurants, shops, and hotels around the area. The hotel is set aback from the main road, behind the shops and restaurants, and it looked decent enough from the outside. We pulled up to the lobby and as you enter the front door, on the left was the lobby and straight ahead was the elevators; to the right of the entrance was the dining room and lounge where free breakfast was available. To get to the room, we took the elevators to the second floor (there are only two floors to the hotel) and walked across a walkway that was open and underneath was the lobby. Since it was an open lobby and walkway, this meant that all the noise from downstairs could be heard and amplified upstairs (it was loud and unpleasant). The room we received was located right next to the lobby so we could hear all the noise and then some.
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| photo courtesy of TripAdvisor.com |
When we opened the door to our room,that is when the unpleasantness began. The room smelled of cigarette smoke (even though we had booked and received a non-smoking room), and when I say smelled it reeked of the smell. As you open the door, on the left side is a small open kitchen with a sink, a fridge, and drawers for basic items. Just beyond the open kitchen is a desk that faced out the window. On the other side was the bathroom which was standard with a toilet, a tub and a sink but the furnishing all looked old; beyond the bathroom was a sitting area with a couch/sofa bed. In between the sitting area and the desk was a chest with drawers on the bottom and a TV stand on top. Next to the couch was a half wall that separated the sitting and bedroom area. In the bedroom area were two double beds, a nightstand in between, and a closet next the window. Even though the place is called a ‘suite’ there were no partitions or separations between the rooms so everyone could hear everything – it didn’t feel like a suite, more like a loft that somebody had just designed into separate areas. The designs of the furniture also smelled of smoke and looked dated – the room overall had a dated feel to it.
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| photo courtesy of Marriott.com |
We had reserved a room for 3 days, but we could not see ourselves sleeping in this room for 3 days so we went downstairs to ask to be switched to another room. The lobby attendant was anything but helpful or friendly and, without even looking or bothering to make any effort, said ‘we are full for tonight’. Since we had arrived late in the afternoon/early evening, I understood that all rooms may not be available that evening so we said that we had reserved for three days so could we switch tomorrow – again we got a surly ‘no’. When we informed the attendant of the smell, we got the response ‘well, it’s a non-smoking room’. We had replied saying we understood it was a non-smoking room but it still smells so is there something they could spray to at least make the room a bit more pleasant for tonight – again a surly ‘fine!’ and huffed away. It wasn’t so much the response but rather the lack of customer service (combined with the uncomfortable room) that made us decide to go looking for another hotel that night. While we were at dinner, we noticed a hotel across the street from a different hotel (check out that review here). We drove over, talked to the lobby attendant who was nice, customer-friendly, acknowledged our participation in their rewards program, and provided us with a bigger, more spacious room at a lower cost!
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| photo courtesy of TripAdvisor.com |
After we returned from dinner, we informed the hotel we were checking out the next morning and no one asked ‘why you are leaving after one day since you had booked three days’ and that is the main issue with the hotel – the lack of customer service and lack of customer attention. It was our first experience at a TownePlace Suites and it was unpleasant so stayed in one since and avoid booking their properties! To end on a positive note, the hotel does provide some complimentary amenities for guests including complimentary wifi, parking, breakfast, a fitness center, a bbq/picnic area, a pool/whirpool, as well as on-site laundry facility.
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