Omni Austin Hotel Downtown — Hotel in Austin

EDIT: Omni has since reached out to me and apologized, along with issuing a credit towards my stay. The woman with whom I spoke with was very empathetic and deeply apologetic. I appreciate her goodwill, and hope that the pest situation is remediated for future guests.

I should also add that despite the problems during my stay, housekeeping did a fantastic job texting me and ensuring I had clean linens and towels. They also kept our bathroom stocked. The hotel has a disgusting insect infestation. Our stay for the Texas Tribune Festival was partially ruined by the sheer number of large bugs we spent our time removing from our room. We came across several dozen crickets during our stay in our room (932), which also included one small lizard and a beetle.

We called the front desk every night to complain, and they were not able to stop the pests from invading. While Omni did offer to move us to a different room, we chose to remain for a couple of reasons.

First, we arrived very late during the first night of our stay due to our busy schedule. We believed we had removed all the pests by doing a very thorough and time-consuming sweep, and then followed up with the front desk. They sent up an engineer, but he indicated he couldn’t do anything else for us without moving the bed, which was too heavy to move and too time-consuming to disassemble. We decided to let the first night slip, since we believed we handled the situation ourselves, and went to bed around 1AM.

Second, given the Omni’s lackadaisical attitude towards the presence of bugs, we didn’t trust that the other rooms wouldn’t have given us more problems. For us, we thought it was better to stick with the evil you know than the one you don’t. The front desk casually told us that it’s cricket season, and implied that we shouldn’t be surprised to find them. If that’s their attitude, what’s the point in moving?

So, every night we returned from the festival, we made sure to shake down the curtains, inspect the room corner to corner, and ensure that the bathroom was free of pests.

If the hotel was serious about addressing the insect infestation, they should have told us that they would prep another room, thoroughly inspect it, and assure us that the room has been properly sealed and cleaned before inviting us to move. They absolutely did not offer to do that. At all.

Additionally, water was leaking in the bathroom because of how the shower door was designed. To get around this, we stuffed towels in between the door and the floor.

This is the last time I’ll ever come back to this hotel. I will be sure to follow up with the Texas Tribune, and both Austin and Texas health departments to ensure this issue is promptly addressed and resolved. It’s sad that in this day in age, we have to publicly post issues such as these before they’re addressed.

I’ve attached pictures. Mind you, I got tired of taking pictures, so there’s plenty more you’re not seeing from this review.

NOTE: Reservation was under...

The facility was really nice and awesome location. My room had a corner view of the lobby area which was really nice. The beds were comfortable. The bathrooms were really clean and nice. The valet service was four out of five because of the energy from two of the young men. When I entered the hotel, the staff at the front desk were very welcoming pleasant with smiles on their faces. However, my room key would work and then not work every day. I had to go and get two new keys while there. Then, there was a day where a barking dog disturbed our stay. Apparently the dog was in distressed and was left behind in the room. I must say the hotel staff did come and respond swiftly which was a good thing. I just did not expect to hear a yelping distressed dog next-door to me during my stay at the Omni. Also another surprise was that there is a $100 a night charge for incidentals. I was not aware of that before my arrival. Another surprise to me was that when I made calls outside of the hotel, they were considered long distance calls. There was a $28 charge for phone calls, which I was not aware of that. I was displeased with the charges for long distance calls. This just seems greedy to me, because most of their customers are coming from out of town. Assigning a charge to phone calls in and out of the hotel is ridiculous to me the customer. I did not expect to have to scrutinize every transaction to see if there were any extra charges at a hotel such as the Omni. When I went to check out, the young lady was trying to do her job and explain the charges. But she was so loud that I know the entire lobby could hear her talking to me. Needless to say, my stay was not pleasing at all. I really had a different expectation at a property such as the Omni, which is why I chose to stay there. O yeah…My daughter ordered a room service and I must say the Wagyu burger was really good. Also, the young man at the bar that served our drinks was pleasant as well.

Although there were some high points, I will never stay at this...

The Austin Omni has an incredible staff and team! We had such a great vacation and all to thank for such a nice stay, we were treated like family. Most of all I’d like to recognize Jasmine. We needed to stay for 7 days to visit our family, we had a 2 kids so it wasn’t ideal to stay with them. She made us feel at home and gave us a lot of opportunities to make us feel comfortable and welcome. She provided a high level of customer service and personalized accommodations. I visited the coffee bar every day- Amy is a kind and caring barista and always greeted me with a smile. Adonis always took time to speak with my children upon all of our trips coming and going. Shannon helped me with my room service order and was very delighted and always a pleasure to speak with. Jarvis was my husband’s favorite staff member and created a wonderfully delicious cocktail special for him and gave him great conversation and company. Kristen was phenomenal with providing custom recommendations for places and things to do during our stay. She gave a great list of Austin highlights that we took full advantage of and my 5 year old keeps asking to go back to see her friend Kristen. Kristen helped give us such a great deal of help while visiting our family came to visit us at the hotel and for that we are so grateful. The valet staff was first class - Sebastian along with the other members Cj and Stephen G. were fast and responsive. They were great with our kids making sure we were safe and taken care of as we waited on our vehicle. I truly can’t recognize these Omni team members enough. I hope they are there when we come back to Austin in the future. Omni is lucky to have such a delightful group of passionate hospitality professionals. We loved everything about our experience and would highly recommend this hotel to all our...