Boutique hotel run by people who don't know how to run a hotel
I recently stayed at the Alden Hotel during a conference. We had block booked a number of rooms and held three events in the hotel. While the hotel lobby is funky and the location is good for downtown Houston (but across the road from the Salvation Army soup kitchen), I found the staff at the hotel to be very unhelpful if not rude. I called down for a wake up call and was put on hold for so long that I gave up. I asked for the restaurant menu during a business meeting event and was told that the manager had to authorise giving us a menu. I spent 10 minutes on the phone arguing about the menu which we ended up collecting ourselves from the restaurant. Staff also kept coming in to the meeting room throughout the day which was very disruptive. On check out, the hotel refused to give us room receipts because we had block booked even though we explained that one person's credit card did not have an adequate limit to pay for 9 rooms and the card would be rejected. The only person with any customer service skills was the shuttle driver would went out of his way to be helpful.
In terms of the room, the lighting in my room could generously be called 'mood' lighting but in fact, the lightbulbs were burnt out. Every morning I showered in the near dark and it was hard to do work in the evenings due to the low lighting. The free wireless Internet in my room did not work and I ended up using a cable connection. Everyone in my group had issues with the Internet. Either they had to stand with laptop in hand by the window, use a cable or use a neighbouring hotel's wireless connection instead. One colleague couldn't get on at all.
In all, it was a bad stay not because the hotel is bad but because the people who run it don't know how to cater to the business traveller. I will never stay here again.