Jens B.
Yelp
I am very glad I didn't go by the review ranking here on my beloved Yelp, since I may have raised my eyebrows and been a tad concerned. Another rating site provided a 5 star rating from 874 reviews, however in reality I didn't check either before booking my trip. If I were to give this a one sentence review, it would be, Is there a valium lick in the employee lounge?
We were having a local staycation, if you would and just wanted to get out of Austin for a few days and the Thompson looked sleek, modern and new. They had a couple of restaurants on site, access to the Riverwalk and a spa. Seemed for us a logical choice. From our first contact with the Valet's, there was happiness. We came up to checkin desk, more happiness. Bell hop bringing our bag to our room, happiness and information x 2. In fact, every friggin person in the hotel is happy and accomodating. In this world of conflict and negativity, it was a bit uncomfortable at first, but then you just roll with it. Hence my thought there is that lick in the employee lounge. However, we felt these folks genuinely enjoyed what they were doing and made us feel at home.
Upon entry, you are greeted by a massive face sculpture on your left. It resembled what I probably felt like the next morning. There is art all through the hotel as if you were in a gallery. This theme extended to your room. We were staying in a skyline view suite on the 11th floor. It was well appointed with a bar, fridge living/sitting room and a humongous bathtub and shower. The view outside was captivating for me as I woke up early to stare outside wondering if my head was stll actually attached to my neck from the prior evening's debauchery. There were black out curtains and pocket doors which seperated the bedroom from the living room. The bed was very comfortable and A/C worked well to keep us cool. There are two huge TV's which use a streaming system for all you personal streaming apps from your phone. So, if you personally subscribe to streaming apps, make sure you have them downloaded to your phone with log in and passwords. Quite handy, after I figured it out. It was easy, but as an older dude, it took a a couple attempts before I got it right. There are also bluetooth radios which you can link to your Spotify or what have you apps.
The property has a pool area which we checked out, little to hot for us, but cool cabana's and a pool side bar. A spa, which we didn't take advantage of, a roof top bar and restaurant on the bottom floor. I will review those seperately. We did get room service breakfast both mornings which is provided by Landrace. One item, you won't go hungry with these portions and you definitely get value from the price point. There is a complimentary coffee bar in the lobby as well as a nespresso machine in your room. They also have a pretty environmentally sensitive water system which provides you with your own water bottle and refill stations on each floor. Grab a tangerine while you are at it.
On check in, we worked with a lad originally from Liverpool and we had some great banter regarding footy teams and on check out, a lovely lady helped me with getting a print out and waiving our early departure fee due to an unexpected issue needing us to get home a day earlier than planned and booked. Unfortunately I do not recall their names. Mando our bell hop was a plethora of information and extremely helpful. Other stand-outs in the way of service was Diego the bar keep in Landrace and the cute little bitty student teacher gal, whose name I don't believe I asked for. A big shout out to Rem in the kitchen and upstairs in Moon Daughters, Johnny on the spot mixed a great drink and Ariel was as attentive as you could wish for a server to be.
What a great experience and we will definitely be back to stay again.