The Hot tub was err.... not hot.

Our balcony door had its handles ripped off- anyone coulda broken in

This morning all of the elevators on our floor (3) were broken.. We had to lug all of our suitcases 4 levels down

Did anyone notice how the soda machines only accepted quarters? And how often they broke? I got one can of Fanta when I pressed the Minute Maid button, after putting $1.50 in for a $.75 can, and to top it all off, the can of Fanta was dented to the maximum extent. At least it tasted good.


The staff, on the other hand, were very corteous and cooperative.. They helped me everytime I needed anything..

Wow
 

I'm kinda shocked. I was under the impression that a Radisson was supposed to be a rather nice hotel (atleast the one I stayed in before was). I even thought during the past week that it would be a great place for 45 to stay next year, but now I'm second guessing that.

I thought our hotel, Ramada Inn Plaza, was exceptionally good. The rooms were decent sized and clean and the breakfast provided on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, AND Sunday was good. The meal consisted of a variation of 4 items, with coffee, coke, milk, juice, yogurt, and breakfast burritos. All in all I was very happy with the hotel.

:)

Everyone keeps dissing the Radisson. Which building were you guys in? From what I saw in the tall building, it wasn't bad (it wasn't great by any means either).

We (and most of the other teams) were in building 6 in the rear of the hotel complex.

well, the girls' room (mine & Erin's...we were the only girls there from our team) smelled like spray paint until Friday afternoonish...the door didn't close...the pools (and hot tub) were like 35 degrees...oh yeah, and I was 5 min late for curfew b/c I got LOST trying to get back to my room!

I have to agree with everyone that the Radisson was very sub-par. But let's not forget one thing: there was a bed in each room, providing the ability to sleep for the total of 3-4 hours possible during the competition each night.

it was funny when that elevator got fixed! I couldn't believe it.

Radisson-the good, the bad, the ugly
 

proximity-- good
cost-- good
room smell-- bad, but got better ( or my nose went numb)
elevators-- don't know 1st floor
breakfast-- ugly
room cleaning-- good (at least 3107)
bath water-- not good, but usable
cockroaches-- did not see any, but maybe too quick
people-- good--they tried

The area near the Astrodome went downhill after the Oilers left town-Did anyone notice the large, closed, fenced-in hotel next to the complex? The Radisson appears to be an older hotel with some updates. It's not the Ritz, but I have stayed in way worse.
My vote is try for better, but if your team qualifies for nationals in the last week and is in a pinch, it beats sleeping in the bus.

Sincerely,

Brian Beatty

I was afraid our hotel would be bad because it was in a hospital district, but I didn't hear an ambulance at all. I had heard from 1010 that the hotel was crappy, but I didn't realize how bad it was. Our hotel (holiday inn suites) just had terrible breakfast.

Team 1108 stayed in the Radisson for both LSR and the Championship.

I generally agree with all that has been said about the hotel.

Being rookies and last minute entries we got the worst of it.

Some of you may have saw us at breakfast the first day, but not after that. They failed to give us tickets to get in. Our mentors said we could get in with our bracelets, but I found that failed at 6:00 am on the second morning. We suffered to weekends of cold water and no hot tub. And room were bad too. Half the teams keys to their rooms failed to work on Saturday night because they had thought they were checking out. One family of four got place in a room with a single king size bed. And there are multiple more examples.

These are the times when I'm glad I'm an optimist. Many saw the pool as cold, while I saw it as a chance to prepare for lifeguard training which is done when it is colder than at Houston. While we were locked out of our rooms, our team spent quality time with each other in the hall. Instead of eating a terrible breakfast the second morning, I got the chance to sit in a hallway lobby and read the Houston Chronicle( which included a incorrect story about FIRST). And saturday morning I enjoyed the hotels room service for breakfast.

Whether you had a good or bad experience with this hotel you can always take the positive side of it. We may not stay at the Radisson next year but then again it was close and cheap.

wows. Radisson did suck. we got moved to the big tower, knowing that it'll be great. but, NO!! the last day of the nationals at night, one of boy rooms found roaches. ughs! it kinds of disgusted me when they killed it. LOLS. =P the weird part is when the roomies and I walked to go get breakfest on wed. morning, i think, we saw another roach crawling around on the floor in the hallways. come on Radisson, get it together! =)

Went to Houston on my own dime. Ended up with last minute accommodations (@ $62/per) that were much better than my son's:

Guest name: Jack Jones
Hotel name: Sheraton Houston Brookhollow Hotel
Address: 3000 North Loop West
Houston, TX 77092
Check-in date: Wed, Apr 9, 2003
Check-out date: Sun, Apr 13, 2003
Number of rooms: 1 room
Room: 375 Sq. Feet:entertainment center:ergonomical chair with foot rest:bath amenities:full size work desk.

+++
Hot!!! Bath water (Senior Necessity)
Real coffee mugs and glassware
Three packets/day of caffeinated coffee
A tray full (not plastic wrap) of liquid cream and real sugar.

Downside: c1998 guest computer (IBM) - no printer paper
Set for no cookies - I fixed that :)

Yeh, i definately agree, the radisson was horrible. The breakfast was disgusting, thank god i brought ceral to supply my room with breakfast. Some members of the team found a cockroach in their room. After we took apart our tv and hooked up the playstation 2, it wasn't that bad because we had movies to watch.

Rebecca

Holiday Inn at Reliant Park
 

We stayed at the Holiday Inn at Reliant Park. The hotel was adequate. Very convenient - we walked across the parking lot most days instead of taking the shuttle bus. The rooms were typical but just average - ours was missing a chair to sit in, for example. I only heard of one bug incident. After all the ramp walking at the competition I would have loved a soak in the hot tub, but it wasn't working. We would have liked a place where our team could have congregated, instead of having our team pizza dinner in the hallway outside the elevator. The package breakfast was the same every morning - scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, biscuit - no substitutions allowed. Unfortunately they were digging up the road in front of the hotel and since our room was near the road, we listened to the construction ALL NIGHT, EVERY NIGHT. But it was close to food places and the grocery store where our students bought out every bottle of Mountain Dew they had in stock!

I musta stayed at the other Radisson.
 

I was on the 6th floor. No problems except the remote control on the TV was kinda hard to press. They must have but the students in the basement.

Heh, I thought I was the only one who wasn't too keen on the accomodations, though we definitely didn't have it half as bad as some of the other people here seem to have. (I was in the 1000 range for rooms.)

The room wasn't exactly the Ritz, but it was entirely livable and all. The only problems were in the bathroom: the toilet would only flush sometimes (so you'd sometimes have to wait like 20 minutes to flush it... which wasn't the most sanitary thing), and the showers had little water pressure. Oh, not to mention that the shower heads seemed to come up to about my chin. :confused:

The exterior (and function rooms, etc.) were in tip-top shape: it looked extremely nice. But some of the inner hallways were rather unappealing (gross brown-orange ceiling tiles with holes in them), and dimly lit.

The bacon and biscuit were pretty good, although I personally am not a fan of pulp in orange juice... Most people I know seem to be that way, so I'd have thought they would have at least given you the choice. The only thing at breakfast that was truly bad were the eggs. The first day I was naeseated by them; covering them in salt and pepper made them swallowable, although only for a few bites. But a few bad eggs (pun entirely intended...) aren't a big deal.

We never used the elevator, so I didn't experience any of the problems others did. What did drive me crazy was the gate by the pool -- it slammed VERY loudly. I wonder if anyone with a window facing the pool got any sleep at all.

Based on my experiences, I'd still recommend the Radisson, but I certainly wouldn't give it high marks. None of us experienced any of the particularly nasty stuff (cockroaches, mold, etc.) that others mentioned, but there was still enough to make it less than appealing.

BTW, not that this was an entirely bad thing, but am I correct in my observation that EVERY SINGLE hotel room there had that drawing of the State of Texas with "YES" written in the middle for no apparent reason? I didn't exactly find it to be the most appealing work of art I've seen, and the "YES" kept me guessing what it was referring to.