Hampton Inn & Suites Austin Downtown — Hotel in Austin

The unfortunate nature of limited options for so many people during SXSW has me here this year. The manager being a real prick to both his staff and the hotel guests doesn't help things. ||||Checking in was lovely and there's an extra star here for the front desk as well as the bellmen who helped with unloading our luggage, but those folks and the decent size of the room is where the "upside" ends. ||||We're on the top floor and directly under the exhaust fan - so the entire room has a 24/7 motor noise going that makes sleep pretty impossible. ||||On top of that, during a conference/festival you can imagine people are having meetings and we specifically got the larger rooms on the top floor so we could host those meetings in suite... but we're on day two of non stop calling me to report noise complaints from the room underneath when we move the conference table chairs. ||||Not only is it poor room acoustics to not put a rug under this table and chairs (and not have one on offer when I suggested it), but the manager pretended to be worried about my safety because the noise was "just so loud and ongoing"... except he didn't bother to call until several hours later. ||||When I brought this up he said "I was just trying to be tactful."||||Sir, you failed. ||||And then yelling - literal shouting at me - when I pointed out that a solutions forward approach, like finding an area rug, would have gone over better, didn't help things. SCREAMED over me - and then literally cackled at me when I asked him to stop interrupting me and yelling over me when I'm talking. ||||You know, sometimes a person has a bad day, but to then have several members of his staff come check on me - because he screamed at me in front of people - and share how horrible he's made this work environment... Lord Jesus, time to help find this man a spot in the unemployment line if he thinks people need what he's dishing out. When he then got short with the housekeeper, yelling at her for making a suggestion and that she needed to listen better and pay attention when he tells her to be quiet because he was solving the problem...||||Narrator: he never solve the problem. ||||In short, you can do a lot better. SXSW isn't a cheap festival to come to and you generally understand they're gauging you during this time, but what I'm paying here for this crappy room - their version of a "Penthouse" - is the same price as what I could have had for a smaller room at the Four Seasons, but with better management. ||||I can just live without having meetings in my suite if this loud and aggressively ego driven management is the best option available here.||||Seriously, fire that tiny man with a big mouth or you're really just waiting to be sued. He's a serious liability with...

Had an overall pleasant stay here.

Positives: You can get their wifi everywhere on the property once you're connected, even at the pool area. Can store bags with them, saw others do that, they give u bag tags for claiming back later, and it looks like they allow it before and after checkout too. Hot breakfast available everyday. Spacious room. Loved how they had a guest laundry service which was very handy when you're staying around for weeks - you'll have to download an app and load it with credit which you can then transfer onto the machines ($2.50 per wash, $2.50 for dryer). Also loved how you can get ambient or cold water in the common area on your floor, next to lift which was very handy. Excellent location, right in the middle of the city with walking distance access to heaps of food, services and entertainment, including convenience store just around the block. Easy to get Uber with vallet spot available for pick up and drop offs right outside.

Room for improvement: There were no mugs or glasses provided so you have to drink from paper cups, adds that dry taste to whatever you're drinking not to mention it's not really a sustainable practice, though I get that it's easier for cleanup for them. No drawers where you'd hang your clothes which was weird so I was using the bedside tables as clothing drawers. Netflix streaming unavailable even though their brochure advertised they did, however reception explained that they were in the middle of an upgrade to all their TVs and unfortunately it just wasn't available yet.Table and chairs not really ergonomic for someone of my height - table too high, but at least there's a portable couch table where I could put my laptop on and work comfortably from the couch, and stools provided which helps with the makeshift work area. Lifts are very slow and their staff like housekeeping and cleaners will share the lifts and block your entry - example, I could hear the lift stopping on almost every floor above me but when the door opened their cart was placed right in the middle instead of close to the side so others couldn't get in, but I just pushed in cuz my Uber driver was already waiting downstairs, that's...

Visiting from Minnesota for a week and landed about noon. We received an app notification to check in and see front desk so we did but they said they gave the room we selected the day before to someone else. They said check in officially wasn’t til 4 but why then did the app say our room was ready and why did they give the room away that we were asked to select in the app?? Finally they gave us a room at 3:55 pm. They offered us free snacks but the one we wanted was out. No wifi. Front desk blamed it on an AT&T outage. Spoke to a male manager who was rude and uncooperative. Their sign at the front desk says if you forgot something like toothpaste or whatever that they can provide it. I asked for some mouthwash and they said they ran out. When we got to our room the shampoo and body wash were all empty and the lotion was almost empty. Room service clearly missed this. The hallways were always freezing cold and we saw workers working on this so not sure what was wrong. Then one of the days we received an urgent notice under our room door that there was a water leak, and they were shutting the hot water off for several hours. Several of the days at the free breakfast, they were out of yogurt and fruit like bananas because the staff said they didn’t order enough and were waiting for a food order to arrive. One of the days I called the front desk and spoke to a male employee and told him our shower conditioner was out and needed a few more towels. He said he would send housekeeping up, but nobody ever came. The next day I saw a housekeeper down the hallway and I got some from her. It’s was our 28th...