JW Marriott Hotels in Houston

I'm currently on my last night of a five night stay. I was so looking forward to staying here as the reviews are generally quite favorable and I usually like the JW Marriott brand properties. Unfortunately, my own experience during this stay was not very good. The hotel seems quite busy (long waits for the elevator some days) so they do seem to be getting traffic through the property. My suite was nice...not extraordinary...but comfortable. As far as staff go, most are quite helpful and friendly which is good. Now the problems. I saw very little to discern this property from a standard Sheraton or Marriott. Nothing about it felt like ”luxury”. It didn't have those extra touches one would expect from a JW. The bar soap in the bathroom is so tiny that only a sliver is left after two showers. It was the size soap you would expect to get at a Motel 6. The Griffin Lounge was a big disappointment. I went the first morning for breakfast and it seemed like a standard Sheraton lounge breakfast offering. Nothing refined or special about it at all. Both the presentation and the quality of the food offerings were severely under par. I never returned after that even though I was entitled to get it free every day as an Ambassador Elite member. I ate breakfast outside of the hotel for the remainder of my stay. Also, after the lousy breakfast on day 1 , I never attended the evening reception so I cannot comment on what that is like. The most glaring problem at this property is that when you call down with a service request, usually no-one answers the phone. You want to have your car brought around? No-one responds. You want to arrange for housekeeping to clean your room? No-one responds. You want laundry picked up? No-one responds. You want to know why your laundry was not delivered as promised? No-one responds. All the above things happened to me. Out of a total of 18-20 calls down with service requests, the phone was actually answered only twice. That is a shockingly poor service fulfillment failure rate. Imagine, when you want to use your car, there is literally no way to get that process started from your room...because no-one answers the phone calls. I am stunned by what a failed process they have for handling calls from the guest rooms. I actually complained to the front desk about this. The guy says the phones are answered by staff behind the scenes. However it is that they manage it, I can tell them their process doesn't work. I get to Houston fairly frequently but I doubt I would return to the JW Marriott Downtown. The combination of the sub-par Griffin lounge coupled with staff inability to answer phone calls, deems this a no-go property for me. Interestingly, this is my second JW stay for me since the pandemic started. Both were big disappointments. Perhaps the JW brand is cutting back on quality and services generally...effectively moving JW properties closer to Sheraton/Marriott standards. Overall,

The hotel location is very good, in a very downtown place. Opposite gallaria, next to walgreen, shopping and eating are very convenient. Parking is definitely expensive and hotel services are also expensive. This is the US.