We just finished up a long weekend at the W Hotel in Austin, Texas, and we really had a great stay there. This stay was actually a combination of a paid stay for business and a points stay for pleasure. Luckily, we didn’t have to change rooms when the stays switched over.
The hotel is situated in the heart of Downtown Austin, not far from most of the office buildings, a plethora of great restaurants, and the Sixth Street Nightlife. It’s only a block from the river, and UT Austin isn’t for away. In terms of location, this place is tough to beat.
Checking into the hotel was painless. I didn’t take any pictures of the lobby, but it isn’t too big. When you first enter the doors from the outside, there’s a bar on your lefthand side, and there are some computers on the right that you can use to get on the internet. There are also some chairs, couches, tables, and chess tables. At the end of the room are the check-in desks. The woman working the desk told me that I was upgraded to a nice room on the 8th floor. She didn’t specify that it was a suite so my expectations were relatively low.
Once I entered my room, my low expectations were quickly blown away. This was a large corner suite. On my left was a display of cocktail glasses on glass shelves that were lit in a decorative fashion. This room had a huge L-shaped couch and two coffee tables. One of the coffee tables had a giant tic tac toe board on it. To my right, there was a huge 55″ HDTV. And unlike most hotel HDTVs, this one actually had an HD guide with HD programming. #totalmindblow. On the other side of the room was a nice desk and chair. This living room area opened up into the bathroom.
The bathroom was huge. There was no door to enclose the bathroom from the rest of the suite, but the toilet was in its own room. The sink area was quite large, and the shower and tub, along with a full standing mirror, were at the far end of the bathroom. The whole thing was in the typical W style, which I’m a big fan of.
The view from the room was decent. A higher floor would have made the view even better, but I was happy to be able to see the river from the living room, and the view from the bedroom gave another perspective on the city as it was a corner unit.
Speaking of the bedroom, it was great! There was a 32″ TV mounted on the wall for easy bed viewing, and on one side of the bed, there were a set of iPod / iWhatever speakers that sounded great. The other side of the bed had the Sanctuary <link> for charging that many other W properties have. The nice thing about this is that if you and your significant other both have iDevices, you can charge on each side of the bed. I don’t know if this is in every room or just the suites. I’m guessing it’s just the suites.
Being on the road often involves eating less healthy than I otherwise would at home. To compensate, I make sure I hit the gym regularly, and W hotels typically have pretty nice gyms. This one was fantastic! It was huge space with very new equipment. The cardio area was divided from the weights area, and there was a section with balls, ropes, and more. There was also a room off to the side where it looks like they could conduct classes, but I didn’t see any postings about classes while I was there.
The staff at the hotel were really friendly. Whenever we asked for a recommendation, they always came up with a good one. Whether it was the awesome [link] food truck or Lambert’s for their Frito Pie, they helped us discover the city. Everything was well maintained and perfect at the hotel. In fact, the only oddity we encountered were two different water bottles in our room with the same price tag :-).
All in all, this is a great property. I can’t wait to visit again next month when I return to Austin!
