Fairmont Austin

My wife and I stayed 4 days. The top values were overall experience of hotel, staff, facilities, and location in the city. The only negatives were valet parking each time we returned to hotel from excursion. The lines to drop off were extremely long due to multiple events scheduled during our stay. In addition, the prices for water in the room($7.00 bottle) and food in fridge was a bit much.

This stay will have been our last at the Fairmont. Was anticipating a quiet, relaxing 3 night stay with the Fairmont and it turned out anything but relaxing and quiet. Kids and teenagers continuously running through the halls,11pm-1am. The hotel is using an automated voice system with prompts to try to get ahold of services instead of a person answering the phone. A hotel of this supposed caliber should have someone answer the phone. I tried room service (took 50 minutes to have them drop off a requested pillow) after I was finally able to get a hold of someone. Calls to the front desk and room service went unanswered. All shops in the hotel close at 730pm, thus there was no place to find a snack after attempts at room service were unavailable. Should have stayed at the Hilton a block away for half the price.

My experience with the spa was horrible. The description of each service is NOT what you will be getting. I booked an 80 minute Tranquility Sleep massage which description lists “light and medium pressure.” During my massage there was no pressure at all. I left feeling just as I arrived, stressed and not relaxed. I spoke with the manager and she told me that this particular massage was “brush strokes” and not did not apply pressure and was more so focused on the nervous system. Had I known I was booking to have someone pour hot oil and graze their fingers across my back, I would have definitely not paid $320 for that. To rectify the situation, she basically waived the service fee and my total was STILL $320. This was supposed to be a relaxing trip for my birthday and they definitely let me down!

I had so many problems at this hotel. Apparently so did others in our group. Where do I start? When we first checked into our room I tried to connect to WiFi. No instructions, so I just tried the "Fairmont" network using my last name and room number as directed when I tried to connect to it. No luck, it said my name and room number were not a match. So I grab the phone to call the front desk to find out what to do. But there is no button for the front desk. Dial 0 and you get sent into a labyrinth of automated phone system hell, probably to some Fairmont central location rather than in the hotel but I am just guessing about that. After a few minutes I gave up and decided to call the concierge to ask. After 4-5 tries over five minutes of nothing but a busy signal I decided to go downstairs and wait in line at the desk. Ridiculous that I had to go all the way downstairs just to ask about WiFi. And what was the problem? Whomever booked my reservation or checked me in spelled my last name wrong. Hint: there are no names that I am aware of with three "N"s in a row. What else? The key cards. Both times I tried to leave the parking garage, the room key card didn't work, even though the person at the front desk said it would. I specifically asked the second time (when we were checking out) telling him it didn't work the last time, and he said yes it was set. Yet it did not work, so I had to (again) hit the "Call for help" button and wait for assistance while people were waiting behind me to get out of the garage. Others in our group had the same issue. And one of our room keys did not work in the elevators, which is the only way to get up to your room. What a pain- you are there by yourself trying to get the key card to allow you to go to your room with no luck. Finally the elevator goes to a floor it was called to and someone gets on and their card works and I was able to select my floor. What else? I am glad I was on the 15th floor, because my friend who was on the 30th floor was unable to shower in the morning due to the lack of water. Apparently a very small stream of water came out when he first turned on the shower, but after a few seconds it stopped and then nothing. The hoards of loud young high school/college kids all over the place were not the fault of the hotel, but good grief were they loud until well after midnight. All in all our entire group was pretty dissatisfied. I don't think we'll be staying here again.

This place is absolutely above and beyond. They will go the extra mile for their guests. I can't wait to go back but this time for please and not work.