Texas A&M Hotel and Conference Center — Hotel in College Station

This hotel is located across from the stadium making it convenient I assume, and has an attached parking garage, and that’s about where the benefits end. There seems to be a culture of mediocrity and incompetence among the staff. I say a culture because during my stay at one point I met both the asst. manager and manager and after those unfortunate encounters where the manager had the opportunity to work with me to resolve an issue, she chose not to. It made clear why this hotel runs the way it does. Starting at check in, the person checking me in was supposed to only put incidentals on a card as I was paying with another card, and he tried to charge it all to the incidental card without mentioning anything. I fortunately was paying attention and was able to address that, but it’s seems unprofessional that the person with the computer wasn’t even speaking to me about it. Got the keys and went up to the room. Bed was hard as a rock, but I figured it’s just a couple nights no big deal. I wanted to eat in and called down to order only to find that they don’t have room service at all. So I went down to have food at the restaurant since it was late and I hadn’t eaten all day, which is an important fact to mention as you will see why in a bit. I ordered something simple, a cheeseburger, medium. As I’m waiting the table next to me was visited by their waiter 3 times as well as the manager of the restaurant. He was so loud I couldn’t think and I was unwillingly forced the listen to their conversation, since the booth-ish place I was seated at was enclosed with this other table by two wood panel walls. Overheard the manager say this restaurant was “number 1 in college station and 44 in the state”… so I was grateful that the food was theoretically supposed to be pretty good. When my server came, with the food, I cut into it only to find that there was: 1) no sauce on the burger, 2) no cheese on the burger, 3) the burger was so well done the patty was sliding out of it since it was placed on a literal bed of shredded lettuce on top of the bottom bun. I planned to just deal with it and took a bite, and this patty was actually jerky with how salty it was. Had to wave the people next to me’s server down and she just looked at me and ignored me since her manager was speaking to her guests, so I waited. My server came and I shared that I ordered a cheeseburger. He goes in the kitchen and comes back out with two cold slices of cheese thrown back onto the same burger. I was too tired to deal with this so I ate this salty, well done patty and tried to wash it down. The tap water at this restaurant smells and tastes like it came from a public restroom sink. I couldn’t bear it and questioned if it was even filtered. So hungry so I finished the $18 burger and headed up to my room. Man, that was a mistake of a meal. I had GI issues the whole night and didn’t sleep a wink. Since I hadn’t eaten anything prior the only thing that could have caused this was the restaurant food. In between running to the restroom and the rock hard bed anytime I was just about to drift off I was awoken by the sound of a freight train that reverberated through the room. No mention of this at check-in AT ALL. The managements solution to this I noticed later was a cheap wedding favors bag with two ear plugs and a sign that basically says deal with it - reflecting the culture of this hotel. The “complementary water” in the hotel is ozarka a sticker covering the cap. If you’ve made it this far just know this was just the first half of my stay before I had to deal with a front desk error and the lack of professionalism in how that all was dealt with - which I won’t get into - but this should be enough to let you know the customer service here is severely lacking, and you might get sick. I don’t think they practice any hygiene as I even saw a staff member carrying a charcuterie board for a conference over his shoulder and his longish hair firmly resting on the sliced fruits. Would never stay here again and definitely wouldn’t recommend...

Took advantage of the hotel location for my child's recent New Student Conference. The place has a lot going for it, but suffers from some seriously poor design choices that do detract from the experience. It's hard to judge it in comparison to other options as it is usually just a day trip up and back for me when visiting College Station.

First, the high points: The rooms are nice and it good shape. I appreciated a plethora of USB ports for charging devices both at the night stand and the desk. Beds were firm but comfortable. Staff was friendly and helpful Fitness center was well equipped and kept clean and well stocked with towels and such. Nice view of the campus from the treadmills. Great location for access to major points on campus - Kyle Field, MSC, Rudder, West Campus Garage, etc. Pool and the area around it on the third floor were nice, though the pool water was surprisingly cold. It's been in the 90's for several days and my pool at home was comfortably warm. It was surprising that the hotel pool was so much colder not that far away. The doors into the hallway were impressively solid.

Now, some less pleasant elements. While the decor was nice, the "bones" of the hotel seem to be much cheaper than the facade. A couple of examples - walking down the hallway creates an odd hollow sound. It's hard to describe, but it feels like the walls and floor are thin and create strange echos. The access to the bathroom is awkward with the size and placement of the door. It would have made more sense to have it open outward into the room hallway. Also, the curtains seems to be hung up backwards. The room has a heavy dark curtain (which was nice for keeping the light out) and a translucent curtain. But, the heavy curtain sits behind the lighter one. So, you end up having to open both curtains together, then pulling the lighter one back in front of the window. Then, you've got to go dig awkwardly underneath it to get the heavy curtain back across the window. There were some other very poorly though out design choices, but these were some that stuck in my mind during out stay. While this also falls under poor design, it really has to have it's own point - the train. The train that runs along Welborn road has been there forever and it should have come as no surprise that it's noise needed to be accounted for. Unfortunately, this is where the nice looking facade crumbles and a really cheap hotel is revealed. They provide you earplugs and there is a card in the room offering other complimentary measures (noise generator, extra pillows, etc). But, it should have just been built better. I've stayed at partner hotels near Disneyland with the freeway running right outside my room. On the balcony, the sound is furious. But inside, the sound is barely audible thanks to the design and materials put in place. A&M could have and should have done a better job here, particularly for something that is supposed to be a showcase facility.

We paid a decent rate on the order of $110/night for our rooms, which was fair for what the place ultimately is. We do have some other dates booked there for this summer and the rates for those are decent as well. Looking at other dates in the fall, they seem to range from around $200 with spikes of $600 to $900 on football game weekends. I would be hard pressed to call this a $200 hotel and there's no way I could justify game day prices. Best of...

I stayed here as a presenter at SES 2022 conference. Unfortunately, this hotel provided me with an unacceptable level of service from check-in to check-out. The summary of the issue is the following.

Canceling reservation without notification Replacement 'upgrade' room lacking a proper bed (only sofa bed), again without notifying me. I recently got back surgery. The replacement room being filthy (e.g., stray curly hair in the portable bed that was provided later, used smelly pods in the coffee machine) Staff being dismissive and lacking any sincerity in the apology.

The reservation was canceled without my consent or any notifications. The staff (The only staff at the front desk on Oct 16 at 00:10) handling the mix-up was very dismissive and begrudgingly provided me a room (so-called 'upgrade to a suite,' as my original room is already fully reserved). The staff did not notify me that the replacement room doesn't have a bed, which is a big problem as I got back surgery. The replacement room was unacceptably filthy, with a coffee machine with a used and burst capsule in it, white stains on the couch pillows, crumbs on the countertops, and so on. The portable bed provided AFTER the complaint had pubic hair in it. I couldn't sleep as the ice maker machine made endless noise.

Even after laying out those issues, the manager I contacted during check-out was insincere, avoiding responsibility by saying that the cancellation was not on their end while giving a very insincere apology without even looking in the eye. The only reconciliation effort was provided by refunding the first day of the reservation, which is moot as my university has already paid me to stay there. I mentioned this point to the manager, but he didn't listen. This 'refund' actually created further issues, as this complicated the reimbursement process from my university, and I had to report this drama back to my unit to explain this.

The next room provided the next day was cleaner (I had to ask the manager whether the room was clean) but had a view that had no privacy, with cars in the garage being able to see the entire room and non-functioning screen mirroring (Chromecast) function in the TV, with the error message 'PMS service not working.' The screen mirroring function was pivotal, as I was participating in the conference as the presenter, and I needed to use this function to prepare.

I talked with several members of the Texas A&M University community during the conference, who were horrified by my experience.

I am disappointed that this is the 'one-of-the-kind howdy hospitality' hotel claims to provide. Mistakes can happen, and I am okay with that, but the resolution process and the sincerity showed how lacking...