Hubby & I went to San Antonio for our anniversary as a weekend getaway. I found Valencia & thought it looked lovely! Being our 3 year anniversary & since we had never been able to take a trip anywhere I decided to shell out the $200/night. \r
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Maybe I'm stingy... but if I'm spending that amt of $$ on a hotel room then I expect it to be really nice. It was decent & that was about it. It was dark everywhere. Not sure if that was supposed to make it romantic? But IMO it just made it seem dirty. The lamp shades in the room were ripped, the thermostat seemed broken (it was hot when we got into our room for the first time and we had to keep the thermostat set at like 65 in order to not be warm), the window shutter was coming off the wall, there was a weird light that kept randomly blinking throughout the night which was just odd, the TV has no cable or movies to buy (which I never buy those ridiculously overpriced movies but it was our anniversary trip!). They mostly had local channels & the few times we turned on the TV there was NOTHING good on. Just news & talk shows. We were told the elevator required a guest key to get to any of the guest floors... sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't. \r
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Also, one of the perks of this hotel was the waterfall fire patio area. The 1st night it was never turned on. We had wanted to eat our dessert out on the patio. The 2nd night we had to call & ask them to turn it on, which took another 30 mins. I will say it was very pleasant once lit. But I guess they don't have someone turn it on regularly? Not sure... but if that's one of your hotel's selling points or boasts then wouldn't you make sure it's actually being used? \r
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I will say the bed/pillows were very comfy... even though the bed was creaky. At one point in the middle of the night I refused to get out of bed for fear of waking up my husband with the creaky bed. \r
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One night we were awoken at 1 AM by the emergency system telling us that we needed to evacaute. There was a fire truck waiting outside & we were on the 12th floor. So going down all those stairs with everyone else in the hotel like a herd of cattle was fantastically fun (yes, that's sarcasm). We were outside for approx 3 mins before being told we could go back inside. That was also fun (yes, still being sarcastic). After this I had a hard time going back to sleep. I was up for about 2 hours before I finally started drifting back off only to be woken by what sounded like scratching on the wooden entry floor. Freaked me out. It sounded like a scurrying rat. I turned the light on, didn't see anything, but alas, now I could not go back to sleep AGAIN! Come to find out in the morning, the hotel staff had been trying to slip a piece of paper in our door (not under the door where you could clearly see enough space to do so) but into the door frame telling us that our check-out time had been moved back 3 hours due to the inconvenience of the night before. Nice gesture... but yeah, was it necessary to jam that notice into the door at 3 AM? The paper was all accordion style & ridiculous.\r
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Also, just FYI, there is no onsite parking. The valet is $29.00/night. If you do use the valet, make sure you call about 10 mins before you need to leave so they can go get your car as it does take a little while to get it pulled up to the front of the bldg. We did the valet the 1st night since we weren't sure of our surroundings. But the 2nd night we parked in a garage 1 block down (Houston Street Garage) for about half the price of the valet. It would just depend on your coming and going though. Obviously with the garage you would have to pay per entry whereas with the valet it's a one time fee for all day, you can come and go as often as you like.\r
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I would not recommend anyone to this hotel. It has potential but I just wasn't that impressed.
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