The Sam Houston, Curio Collection by Hilton — Hotel in Houston

The Curio line is billed as a luxury brand, so I was looking forward to a one night stay on a trip up from Austin to catch the Astros game.

While I had read the poor reviews from a few months back, I was hopeful that things would have improved once it came under the Hilton banner in June of 2015, which I assumed also meant it had been renovated.

Things didn't go well from the very beginning. The area in front of the hotel was chaotic with guests arriving and leaving so I had to park directly opposite the hotel about 25 feet from the valet stand. No problem. Until the valet told me my car was too far away and that he couldn’t go get it. Seriously?

So I left my car where it was and decided to deal with it after I checked in. The fellow at the front desk was completely indifferent and offered me absolutely no information whatsoever. Nothing about breakfast, wifi, amenities, etc. Most hotel staff at least try when they see that you are a loyal customer. Not this guy. Here's your key card, now PFO. The person on duty at checkout was much better.

My room was on the 9th floor and had not been recently renovated (maybe within the last 5 years). The biggest problem was the incredibly musty smell more commonly associated with used book stores or flea markets. I was also surprised to see that there was no fridge in the room, or ice machines anywhere. You must have room service deliver ice.

The bed was comfortable, the floor was quiet and the room was relatively clean. But here is a list of the little things that made it all the less enjoyable: empty tissue box, mirror had not been cleaned and still had streaks from someone running their fingers through the condensation after a shower, sink drain was blocked causing it to take several minutes to drain, sheets were stained, the bath mat had holes in it and the toilet was very stained with rust streaks.

While I realize that it is completely out of the control of the hotel, it is worth noting that the homeless person situation is also a little hard to take. The moment I breached the doorway from the lobby I was aggressively asked for change from a man who I first thought was the valet, as he was standing at the car valet kiosk. I gave him the chips and Snickers bar I got from the hotel loyalty program but he wouldn’t give up until he got $1.

I then saw the over 100 people across the street who were waiting for the soup kitchen to open at 7 AM. As I started walking past the adjacent parking lot amongst the bail bond and bounty hunter businesses, I saw people fighting, vomiting and urinating. Time to go. I decided to skip trying to find a place for a coffee near the hotel and got out of Houston instead.

I have certainly stayed in worse hotels than this, and the two star rating has as much to do with the fact that I feel I was duped by Hilton as it does with the things that can be improved like the smell in the room, customer service and housekeeping. This is not what I expect from a luxury hotel line marketed with slogans such as "Be fascinated by a collection of hotels that defies the ordinary". It certainly did do that, though surely not...

One of my worst hotel experiences ever. Our need for a room was to have a place to sleep and shower in the morning. We got back from our venue around 10:30 and fell into the bed. outside street noise went on for a couple of hours. In the middle of the night, there was some weird electronic clicking sound that seemed to be coming from the ceiling. finally, after a not-so-good night's sleep, we both needed to get a shower to prepare for our three-hour trip back to corpus christi. The water trickled out. the water in the sink faucet was stronger. the temperature kept on changing, so we could not even shower in the trickle. in addition, the toilet was not cleaned even to normal home standards (hair, dirt and urine around one of the seat hinges, crud on the shower tile edge next to the glass door, etc. Our 300 dollar room was very small, but attractive. they clearly were using the small space to its best advantage, with a built-in desk and a tiny couch that still gave us room to move about. when i approached the manager about our situation, he apologized, explaining that only one other person had made the same complaint about the water. turns out it was a bad pump associated with just a few rooms. I insisted that this was a serious inconvenience, and he responded that i had full use of the room up to the morning, so only a small percentage of my stay was impeded. WHAT? a good shower was 1/2 of what i booked a room for. 1/2 to sleep. 1/2 to have access to a bathroom (i will admit that my wife and i both peed twice and the toilet worked each time). I think a decent shower is expected. in the end, they offered to cut my bar bill in 1/2 (about 38 dollars off a total 400 dollar bill). It was insulting and unempathetic. if this had really only happened to myself and 1 other guest, i would think 1/2 off the bill would have been a reasonable compensation. finally, when the valet brought out car to the front, he scraped the front right bumper against the curb. i went back into the manager and complained, and his response was the valet service was a contractor, and to take it up with them. looking at my bill, the 42 dollar charge for valet service said nothing about a separate contractor (it really is, but in reality, it should have been a separate bill if Hilton does not want to take any responsibility for the damage). I do not blame the valet for his mistake with my car - it was unintentional. I do, however, blame the manager, who's job is to manage his employees and contractors and be the final representative of the organization to the customers, his clients. He failed miserably at understanding and emphasizing with me on my issue, diminishing it to a percentage rather than an overall experience. I do not recommend this hotel, not because of the unusual issues that i encountered, but because of the poor customer relations in dealing with these issues. On a positive note, the woman at the front desk when we checked in...

Easily the worst hotel experience I've ever had. The lobby stinks like raw sewage when you first arrive. I asked the woman at the front desk what the bad smell was and she literally said, "What smell? Is it sweet?" LOL I can't believe she could say that to me with a straight face, but I guess she's had a LOT of practice. I turned to the valet helping us with luggage and asked in a lowered voice, "Do you smell it? Or is it just me?" He said, "Yeah, I smell it, but I work mostly outside valeting cars." I told him he was LUCKY for that. He agreed. ||||If our room had smelled like the lobby, we would have left the property immediately and TAKEN OUR CHANCES, but as it was, we only had a couple hours to get ready for reservations and the room smelled ok. So we stayed. However...||||At one point, early in the evening before we left for our event, a fire alarm went off. We ignored it at first because the sound was distant, we weren't sure if it was a car alarm, burglar alarm in another building or what, so we continued to get dressed. Twenty to thirty minutes later, an alarm in our room went off. It was very loud and said that it was a fire alarm and to evacuate. We were on our way out anyway, so we left down the stairwell, wondering if our things and the hotel would be in cinders when we got back. Halfway down the stairs, another guest told us it was not a real fire, that someone had been smoking in their room and set off the alarm. The alarm, however, had been sounding from the other room for quite a while and since they had to wait for a hotel employee to come from home to turn it off within the allotted time frame, the alarm system went to the next level of fire alert, evacuating the hotel to the street. This clearly should not have happened. Staff of every time shift should have been able to reset the alarm before evacuation, not scare and inconvenience every, single guest in the building because of one smoker.||||In addition, the hotel and rooms were in desperate need of renovation. They were shabby and dated. The mattress was the worst I've ever slept on, you could feel the springs. There was urine and fecal matter toward the back of the toilet seat. Fortunately, I travel with Lysol wipes and went over the entire room... every surface and door knob, light switch, remote, phone, etc. within 20 mins. But at a 4 star hotel, this should have been -completely unnecessary-.||||4-star hotel? Not even close. I gave one star simply because I actually stayed the one night in this room, but NEVER AGAIN. Do yourself a favor and spend a few dollars more. Also READ the REVIEWS. I wish I had, but got the reservations through Ticketmaster spur of the moment. Learn from my mistake.||||The best I can say about this hotel room is the sheets were clean, but I'm very glad I travel with...