The St. Anthony, a Luxury Collection Hotel, San Antonio — Hotel in San Antonio

What an unfortunate experience we had at The St. Anthony Hotel in San Antonio. My wife and I booked 2 suites, then phoned the hotel requesting side-by-side connecting rooms. We were informed that the connecting rooms are king & 2 queen beds. Perfect, yes please. $500 a night for each suite.|After a long day of traveling we arrived at the hotel for check in around 9:25pm. The manager informs us that he saw that we had a 2 queen suite and he adjusted it to 2 king suites ….”we wouldn’t want 2 queens”. We informed him that we phoned in this request, he just stairs at his screen, then us., then his screen. He apologizes and says that he has no connecting rooms now. Great, strike one. My wife is placed in the first room just in front of the elevators, 430. I’m placed at the furthest point from her room, 466, on the corner, with double the outside noise. Lots of outside noise.|In my room I start unpacking my bags, I just want to shower to wash the airport and day off of me, I step into the shower to find a used wash cloth and a used bath towel hanging inside, still soaking wet. Yuck!|I step out, and phone the front desk and alert them.|Housekeeper arrives and I direct her to the issue, she immediately removes the items and freshens the shower area.|I then head to the bed, because now the room feels unprepared, and unfortunately the bed was also in a used state. I pull the covers back and there are stains and hair on the sheets. The housekeeper is there and she gasps. She radios for assistance and then departs to retrieve fresh linens. A comedy of errors ensues as she cannot locate pillow cases, then the duvet cover is queen sized, not king. I offer my assistance in making the bed and it is accepted, so together we strip the bed then make the bed. |Mind you that I arrived well after 9pm, discovered that the room was unprepared at 10pm, and finally I was able to shower by 11:30pm. Not ideal with a full schedule the next morning. Definitely not ideal for a “luxury 5-star” hotel.|Before bed I fill out the breakfast door hanger for 8am arrival. At 8:20am I phone down and ask for the status of my order. I’m met with an abject attitude from the employee on the phone. Yep, she has the order, didn’t enter the time properly, it’ll be 40 minutes, but she’ll try and expedite. 9:15am my order arrives. Mediocre, but the everything is on there. My wife and I were unable to have breakfast together with the disjointed deliveries and the distance between rooms. |Depart for my offices and meetings in the area, back to the hotel around 4:30pm to change and get into a suit for the evening’s events. The front desk manager from the previous night is there and he says “I’m glad that we could get everything sorted for you last night…”. Not an “I'm sorry for what occurred, is there anything we can do, this is atypical for our property”. But I’ve come to realize that this is the actual attitude of the entire staff. Just a blasè attitude towards everything at the hotel. Basically a “you’re welcome for my service” attitude.|When I get to my room it is now daytime and the curtains are open and I can truly see the disrepair that the room is in. The furniture is chipped, bent, and otherwise heavily stained. The closets are overly dusty. My bedsheets actually have holes in them. The top sheet is carefully folded over the duvet WITH HOLES in it, that let me know that this is a known issue and an acceptable issue for this property.|I jump in the shower to freshen up and when I get out I notice that the towels are extra thin, used-to-be-white, and definitely due to be cycled out of service. “5-star Luxury”.|The next morning I am departing, my wife has 1 more event so she’s in town one extra night. We decide that room service isn’t great so we will head down to the restaurant and try that. Only one elevator is working. The center elevator is not working and blocked off by the many conferences signage occurring onsite, the right elevator is also not functioning, so that leaves the left elevator for the entire hotel. 15 minutes waiting for the elevator. We get downstairs and even though there are open tables everywhere the hostess tells us that the wait for a table is 40 minutes to an hour. |We go to the front desk at this point and ask for a manager to discuss the issues and and we start with the issue with the restaurant and he says that he will expedite room service for us and adds a $75 credit for breakfast and walks away. We were not able to discuss the other issues. I’m on a timeline for the airport so we head back to my room, place the order and finish packing. 40 minutes later breakfast arrives. Mediocre again. And I depart.|I receive 5 versions of my bill over the course of the day. The final version has a $38.11 minibar charge. I phoned the hotel and ask to speak with the manager to discuss everything I experienced at The St. Anthony and to inquire about the mystery charge. No one can tell me what the charge is for so they remove it. I don’t drink and the mystery-aged chocolate popcorn is definitely not appealing in the dingy room so I most definitely did not touch the minibar offerings.|I phoned and left the manager 3 separate messages requesting a call to discuss the issues that I experienced at his property. Much like when we were onsite, he couldn’t be bothered. The staff’s attitude clearly starts with the example from the top. |$1000 for 2 nights. They advertise 5-Star, Luxury, Service. They deliver on none of these. The hotel was surely a grande dame in her prime, but much like her linens and towels, the dusty and dingy St. Anthony is well past her prime and in dire need of a refurbishment and a deep, deep cleaning.|5-star? Luxury collection? They’d be better off saying Motel 6 and then impressing you by exceeding the low bar.|I don’t like to leave reviews, I prefer to discuss with management then go about my day. In this case management couldn’t be bothered so I guess we will have a public conversation. Cue the management response below of “I apologize we fell short of expectations, for the issues experienced, would appreciate another opportunity, etc…” Just remember that they had the opportunity to say these things to their guest in person and over the phone. Their response is performative for you and has no actual remorse for their guests who suffered through the abysmal stay at their dumpster fire property.|Plenty of options for downtown San Antonio, if I can save just one person from suffering through a stay at The St. Anthony then the time it took me to write this review will have...

I want to love this hotel and it really should be a 5 star BUT the room we arrived to is not well maintained and there have been a few service issues. Unfortunately, many issues were very evident within the first 24 hours of our stay. Aside from this, on the surface the hotel and room are beautiful, we had a delicious family lunch here, and the staff is nice when you speak with them. Our room type is spacious with plenty of storage, nice views, well labeled buttons for the lights in the room. The amenities are also appreciated. We always stay at Marriott properties and are quite satisfied. This luxury property falls short for this particular stay.

ROOM ISSUES: There were several issues including a toilet paper holder that's loose and drops the role to a bathroom fan that doesn't function resulting in fogged up mirrors and dripping a bathroom vanity after each shower. There's also the issue of the missing handle on the sliding door of the bathroom. There a other issues as well. They did send an engineer to address some room issues once I named them but few of the issues were resolved and we have yet to get any follow up information from the management about the unresolved matters. I understand that some things take time to fix. I don't understand lack of follow up from the management.

SERVICE ISSUES: Additionally, the room did not receive service the first night here so we returned after a day out to find some dirty towels still on the floor and full garbage cans. We valeted a car and were unable to use their digital system for calling the car for the first morning and afternoon here because they didn't scan the keys into the system (despite us making them aware of this issue in the morning it was not yes resolved after a late lunch]. As with the room there are a few other matters as well.

This is our second time staying here in 3 years and I hope to be able to update this review later if our experience improves for the rest of our stay. In 2021 we had a very pleasant experience free of any issues. They even had a toy bin back then and offered guests that are children an opportunity to pick one from a generous selection of toys that were superior to the standard goody bag filler toys typically handed out to kids. At the time I loved how they went the extra mile to make children feel welcome in this environment. My oldest still plays with that toy to this day. This year, they gave us a tiny plastic ring for my two year old (choking hazard) and I don't think they noticed my oldest child who was briefly out of view with a family member so they didn't offer a...

My wife and I just came here this weekend to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary. I mentioned that to the front desk when I called earlier in the week to inquire about the availability of an earlier check in time. Upon arrival Saturday, they gave us a complimentary upgrade to one of their deluxe suites that faced the front of the hotel and overlooked Travis park. We were beyond blessed and appreciative of such a kind gesture! The hotel really is beautiful. We absolutely loved the decor and the artwork throughout the lobby areas, including many paintings and sculptures. Peacock Alley is such a cool area and you can definitely see the history of the hotel through the design and architecture.

We went to the pool while we waited for our room to be ready and had a good time. The pool was pretty crowded but that was expected on a Saturday afternoon. Enjoyed grabbing a cocktail and looking at the downtown sights from the rooftop. We used the valet during our stay and every time we requested our vehicle, it was ready to go out front within 10 minutes or less. Probably the best valet experience I've had at a hotel so far, in terms of how quick our car was ready to go. The hotel does charge a daily rate of around $60/day for valet, but we used it at least 4 times and the convenience was worth it in my opinion, as well as knowing my vehicle was parked in a secure and monitored location.

What I was so impressed with was the hospitality of the hotel staff during our stay. When we left the hotel to go out to dinner (highly recommend checking out the Pearl Brewery area, which is in the new northern section of the Riverwalk), the hotel brought up champagne and a personalized card celebrating our anniversary. When we returned to our room late that evening it was such an awesome and unexpected surprise, and I can't express enough how appreciative I am. It definitely helped me make my anniversary special for me and my wife and was just one of those extra details that really sets apart a higher end hotel like the St. Anthony from other options.

Really don't have enough words to express how much we enjoyed our stay and the hotel. A great location in downtown and within walking distance to the Riverwalk and Alamo. We ate breakfast at the hotel in peacock alley, primarily because of the beautiful room and view you get out the front of the hotel towards Travis park.

Highly, highly recommend a stay here. Thank you to the entire St. Anthony team and staff for going above and beyond to make our anniversary stay a memorable and special one. We...