Radisson Inn Astrodome
 

What do others think of the Radisson Inn? A FIRST recommended hotel.

Our experience was not a good one for the following reasons:

Bugs, roaches and ants in rooms

Rooms that smelled so bad we had to change 3 right away and then we were moved to the tower the next day.

Breakfast - Eggs, bacon and bisquet/gravey each day.
BTW the OJ was good.

Black Mold on the curtains and mirrors.

No water for showers - just a dribble.

Elevators that would not work if you had more than 3 people

Employees that agreed that this place is a real PIT.

Many more complaints .......

maybe im glad i didn't go to nationals.....

I think they chose it because it was very, very close, and mabye worked something out with them.

(Mabey a little off topic, but deals with hotels)
The Comfort Suites (no idea how much $$ tho) were very, very nice. Our rooms had two double beds, a sofa which turned into a bed. They had a table and chair in every room along with a T1 connection. ;) They also had a microwave & fridge. Rooms also very spacious. The Breakfast was ceral, danish, toast, bagel, and they had one of those thick make you own waffle irons. (The batter was in a cup, and you dumped it in. -Very cool) Bad thing was they out of juice. Also, the elevators were slow.

Ditto to Jack's post. The Comfort Suites was nice! If you're ever attending another event in Houston, I'd highly recommend that hotel. It's kinda small, though, so not too many teams could stay there.

I heard the Radisson was bad, though. I talked to a couple of 47's drivers earlier tonight at the party, and they didn't have good things to say about the Radisson. Sorry you guys had probems with your hotel.

Yikes, those conditions are horrible! Even if they were close by, FIRST shouldn't recommend hotels that are unhealthy.

The year before I joined the team, 691 had similar experiences in Florida. I don't know if the hotel was recommended by FIRST or not but there was the same problems with bugs, an awful stench, and an ongoing joke that the walls were in such poor conditions team members could have sworn that the wallpaper moved in the night (I still don't fully get what they meant but it doesn't sound good). Apparently our Vice Principal was appalled at these conditions that she wrote a really long letter to them and they sent a huge apology (a partial refund maybe, I'm not positive) and the hotel got major heat from their superiors to improve.

I did my hw last year as management and chose the Crowne Plaza for Seattle. They were really nice, gave us a discount, and the hotel was beautiful. The team also decided to use them again when they went to SVR. It might have been a little more money but on the bright side, nobody worried about hazardous conditions from the rooms.

...posting from the Raddison
 

location location location.....

Radison IS the perfect location.

We had 1 room with plumbing issues.....and one room supposedly had rodent droppings.

I haven't been to breakfast. LOL

Lisa T

CD web hug lurker.

234 stayed at a SpringHill Suites near I10 & 610 on the West side.
Lots of eating places close by and the Galleria Mall. The hotel was great to us - breakfast (cereal, bagels, waffles like described above) and they let us use the dining room one evening when we brought in pizza. About a 15 minute drive each way but that was OK.
:)

*curious* What do you mean by homework?

Ugh! 71 also stayed at the Raddison, and omg, was it horrible!!! First, in my room, there was a horrible stench, which eventually cleared out enough that it was livable. Then, being the handy ppl they are, some of our guys decided to take the cover off the vent to see what was in there, and discovered the source of my and Elyse's (goosefrom71) allergy problems -- 1/8 inch of mold in the vent. Eeeew! The bugs and TEXAS SIZE ROACHES completed the whole, nasty picture. Another of our girls rooms also had major roach problems. We finally got them to move us on friday night.

Breakfast was horrible, as was noted before. Restaurants were expensive for high school kids traveling, even the Shoney's in the parking lot, and there was no fast food anywhere even remotely close.

I want Disney back.

Well after the horror stories from travelling to Florida the year before, I wanted to make sure conditions were optimal for my team. After I found the hotel on expedia and called to see if we could get a discount, I went to the hotel's webpage and many other Seattle visitor resources to see the dimensions of the rooms, what their rating was, if they had parking for our rental cars and other important ammenities, if there were good and inexpensive restaurants within walking distance, how far it was from the airport and competition site, if there were any movie theaters or things for entertainment in our down time, and I saw many pictures of what the hotel looked like (oh man it was nice) and when we got there it was 100% accurate. Little more work for me but totally worth the effort.

Well, I'll just say that when I walked into my room, my bathroom had not been cleaned (or flushed...) since the prior occupant left.

The rest of my stay followed this suit. I fixed an elevator by disconnecting and reconnecting some wires to the door...

And yes, that OJ was awesome.

.. You fixed the elevator??? Uhhhh... yea, there's something wrong.

I can't figure it out.. are you guys kidding about the orange juice being good?

All of the sudden the Holiday Inn doesn't sound so bad...

The Westin Oaks in the Galleria Mall was an amazingly awesome hotel.

Yeah, the door wouldn't close all the way until I did that to the wires.

And yes, that OJ was fresh squeezed.

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.

Re: Holiday Inn at Reliant Park
 

Agreed. The location was great. Taking the shuttle bus more than doubled the time it took, actually, as they didn't seem to ever want to go right there...

We ate at various area restaurants, and for non-food meetings, usually congregated by the pools. The only problem was that we met rather late, so we had to try to keep things down -- we applauded a couple times, drawing angry stares from windows. But for quiet meetings, it seemed to work fairly well.

Sunday's breakfast was nice -- pancakes, etc. I think they broke out something else new (vaguely resembling mashed potatoes, they described it with a heavy accent as something that sounded like "grapes," although that's clearly not what it was). Admittedly not much of a change, though.

After getting past the language barrier (don't take that as some sort of derogatory comment or anything, it's just that they didn't seem to understand us too well), one of my friends managed to get 3 biscuits (nothing else) every morning.

I usually just got what they had (minus the eggs), and then purchased a box of Krispy Kremes (despite their insane cost) at the Reliant Center. Talk about good. Except that the $4.25 ($4.75?) box of donuts led for me to want a $3.75 bottle of soda... But Mr. Pibb and Krispy Kreme (two great things we in New Hampshire are deprived of) ended up making a great breakfast, even when they cost about $8 combined. :cool:

I cant really say I didnt notice anything but when you have 4 guys the room gets pretty messy anyway. We where so tired at night that I think we wouldnt care if there was a dead rat sittin in our room.

The food was HORRIBLE, especialy the eggs.

We also discovered that you had to call for everything TWICE! Nothing would get done if you just called once.

The Air conditioners made alot of noise and well the bathtub wasnt all that clean.

And one more thing, we where watching the maids clean one day... they simply pick-up the towels and replace them and than spray a pink liquid from a spray bottle into the room. No vacuming, no washing... just that magic spray! I cant wait till that comes to the consumer market!

Re: Re: Holiday Inn at Reliant Park
 

That would be grits...

I almost fogot the elevator... I got stuck on it (along with 4 of my what beacome close team memebers) for about 30min.

We called down to the front desk from the phone within the elevator and they seemed to do nothing. It wasnt till we started jumping that it actualy clicked and started moving.

Radisson sucked...

I wanted to get ice for some of my water and mt. dew, and it took 5 minutes until i actually got a little bit. then when we got back to our room on saturday, the bathroom smelled like grits and crap. What do those maids do in there? The elevators were funny. Anyone notice it said, maximum weight 2000 pounds, but only four people were allowed on at once. I just used the stairs most of the time and had fun stopping the elevator at each floor. When I walked into this Radisson, I thought that it would be better than the one at Chesapeake because the lobby didn't smell like horse manure. Obviously, it wasn't.

Wow
 

From the looks of these posts I don't honestly think my team had it bad at all - and we stayed at the Motel 6 on South Main a mile from Reliant Stadium...

Aaron Knight
Webmaster and Videographer
Team 891, Neverending Chaos...
Your Lucky Number: 3.14159265358979323846...

I wonder how many people got stuck in those elevators over the course of the week. Reply if you got stuck cause I am interested in finding the approximate number of people that got stuck in that death trap of an elevator. We had 2 different incidents with team members getting stuck for over 30 mins. One was a group of students got stuck early in the week.

The other group was some adults that got stuck after midnight, and the elevator guy was at home. We managed to pry the doors open and get them out. They were stuck very close to the 4th floor where we were staying. I think the reason it got stuck was the case of Miller Lite they were carrying.:D Unfortunatly it was warm or they would have had an elevator party.:)

Also the breakfast was horrible, but walking distance to the stadium and Six Flags was nice. The Radisson Astrodome is also one of the biggest hotels I have ever seen. They should start renovating it now before the Olympics come to town.

Hooray! As a Radisson Elevator Survivor, I know the experience. We wanted to eat one of the freshmen on our team, but we had so much bad food our stomachs hurt.

Let's not forget Mrs. O'B..."My husband's in there!" followed by "No I'm not!

And my room smelled like rotten fish and cheese on Wednesday and Thursday.

Good thing I don't like eggs, but the pancakes were stiff...I could've folded them like a sheet of paper.

we did but not for too long! apparently, 4 girls with luggage was far more than the eleavator should ever be allowed to carry.... even though the sign said it could hold 2500 pounds.... then again... i MUST weigh a good ton myself... lotsa sarcasm there!:p :rolleyes:

Precisely why I never did drink their orange juice....
The coffee, although looking very similar to mud, didn't taste too horrible and at least it woke me up enough to pay attention.:)

It was way too pulpy. I'm inclined to think that even though it wasn't horrible, all the breakfast stuff (including the pancakes) came from a can.

Yeah....
The eggs came out of a box as well.
My breakfast consisted of one biscuit and two cups of coffee.
By the time Saturday came around, I decided to try the restaurant..... yeah
The pancakes their came out of a box as well with canned blueberries. There was no where you could go to get decent food.
And what they fed us at the Astrodome for lunch is a different story altogether.
Jessica

You should have stayed at the Double Tree Guest Suites. They give you FREE chocolate chip cookies with powdered sugar and strawberries as soon as you walk in. The rooms are gorgeous!!!! 2 T.V.s, kitchenettes, 1 queen bed, 1 fold out coach, ,1 recliner, and a cot if asked, bathroom with all the amenities and no mold, plus a gorgeous view. Then we had an aerodynamics competition right in the lobby ( throwing paper airplane off the 8th floor and seeing who stayed up the longest), a wonderful pool for syncronized swimming, a huge hottub for macking it, and the list goes on and on. It was super the whole group covered 2 floors guys on the 5th girls on the 3rd

:ahh:
OH WAIT!!! DRAIGHT!!! That was in Boston cause our team didn't go to Nationals :mad: and come to think of it that wasn't even my robotics team!!!! Oh well still fun (well as fun as it could be not being in Texas!!!!)

Go stay at the Radisson Inn Astrodome for no reason then... it'll be the experience of a lifetime, I promise.

well, it had the ideal location...

Yeah....
and that's about all ;)

The location was good.
The service was bad
The rooms were bad
The showers were bad
The food was bad
The room service was bad
The orderlys were bad
The PPV was bad

Lets see, 1 good 7 bads

How do you think the hotel was. LOL