Iain S.
Yelp
The Strand district of Galveston is where the Bourbon Street crowd goes when they've had kids and don't want to have to explain strip joints. In most areas, it's about as classy as a truckstop, but there are some oases, and the Tremont House is one of them.
The building looks relatively plain from the outside, but the interior is tastefully lavish, and the rooms, with their towering ceilings, are nicely appointed. The stuff you find in them is nothing particularly unique, but it's solid quality--comfortable bedding, clean bathroom and shower, etc. The coffee shop in the lobby serves up good coffee and excellent breakfast. I highly recommend the traditional eggs Benedict. (They nailed both nicely poached eggs and a perfectly balanced Hollandaise).
But a word of caution with all the praise. It's spring wedding season, and the Tremont appears to be a favored spot. My wife and I stayed on a Saturday night, and there was clearly a wedding reception going on at the hall across the street. When the hall closed up for the night, the crowd spilled out into the street and saw the bride and groom off for the night. All very nice. And then they decided to close out the evening by shutting down the hotel bar, which is in the Tremont's lobby. And that's where there's a problem.
Around 10:30 or 11, the lobby filled up with many of the more--shall we say--enthusiastic wedding guests, a number of whom were also guests at the hotel, I assume. It was loud. It was really loud. And if you're comfortably ensconced in your room by that hour, it can sound like there's a band of rowdy drunks right outside your door. The reason for that is because, quite literally, there's a band of rowdy drunks right outside your door. Outside of its guest rooms, the Tremont is one big open space (one with tremendous acoustics, apparently) that allows sound to flow freely from one area to another. Thus, the table of former fraternity brothers in the bar area, shouting to be heard over the neighboring table of sorority sisters, is audible in the extreme from a room on the secoond floor. And this went on until midnight, after which many of the same guests retired to rooms and continued their conversations (loudly) in the hallways. By my watch, the last group that just "couldn't say goodbye" nevertheless managed to spend approximately 20 minutes doing just that at around 1:45 a.m. in the second floor hallway.
I know this kind of makes me sound like a wet blanket, but to me it says that the hotel isn't showing respect to all its guests. I understand there is a rooftop bar that is normally open, but it is currently closed for renovations. It might be a better place for the sort of gathering that took place in the lobby yesterday. But rather than simply inform everyone that all the usual amenities were simply not available and shutting down the lobby bar at 11:00 pm, the hotel chose to sacrifice the comfort of some guests in favor of catering to others (and accepting their money). Frankly, when shelling out over $300 per night, I shouldn't have to tell some dude-bro who's explaining to his friends how he really, really loves them in the hallway at 2:00 am that there are people trying to have some peace and quiet.
Seriously, it's a nice place, but on weekends during wedding season, I'd suggest avoiding the Tremont like a plate of bad clams.