The Tommie Austin is structurally and irredeemably the worst hotel I’ve recently stayed at.
Pros: 1) The staff were nice enough but seemed under-resourced and stressed; 2) the pool furniture is nice; 3) Globalist benefits are decent, breakfast was fine (but service in the diner restaurant isn’t great), I can’t speak to parking but theoretically that’s included, so that’s nice too. 4) The AC works great, but that might be expected given the room size (spoiler)
So, you might be wondering, what is wrong with this hotel, why am I not happy?
This hotel was designed with one question in mind: how small can we make a hotel room? This is theoretically fine, lots hotels in Asia metros or Manhattan deal with the same question. The issues are that 1) we’re not in Tokyo or Manhattan, but Texas, the home of excess and oversized 2) they failed at every turn in executing.
Cons:
1) the rooms - simply put, they are not functional as a hotel room, and because of how they’re built they can never be fixed:
1A) if you have a checked bag, more than one bag, or a carry on bag that folds in half (basically anything other than a flip-top carry on bag or duffel), the only place in the room for your suitcase is the floor. You’ll be bent over digging through your suitcase for everything you pull out. There is nowhere else it can go.
1B) the bathroom is not functional. The toilet and shower are combined, so don’t sit on the toilet in socks or they’ll be soaked through. Bathmat? You can put a towel outside the shower/toilet combo, but you’ll need to move it away from the door when you come and go otherwise you’ll leave shoe prints on your clean bathmat. There is no privacy unless you want to get dressed in a wet toilet cubicle.
1C) the sink desk: the sink is combined with the desk, so your desk surface will inevitable have water droplets or a puddle on it. Hopefully you don’t have a computer or any paper on your sink desk when you want to wash your hands, otherwise you risk soaking them.
2) Miscellaneous minor things that show this hotel room was designed by people that don’t care, and are fortunate enough to never have to stay in it:
2A) there is a full length mirror, but it is positioned halfway into the bed. You can either stand 1’ away from it and awkwardly look down at yourself, or stand on the other side of the bed and look at your outfit in a 1’ wide mirror from 9’ away
2B) minor, but the lightbulbs in the room are different color temperatures. Some are warm and some are bright cool white. Might just be my brain (did you think a neurotypical person would write this review?) but this is so basic and sloppy and lazy and shows a lack of care.
2C) there is a nespresso, nice! But, there is only one decaf and one regular capsule, and there is only one espresso cup in the room. Did you want to use that one espresso cup? First you’ll need to dump out all the sugar packets stored in it sloppily on the nightstand. That’ll look nice for the rest of your stay.
2D) the bed has storage under it, helpful I guess given the complete lack of storage in the rest of the room. Be careful though, there are metal pull handles protruding 2” from the bed frame. Careful not to run your ankle into them as you squeeze between the bed and the TV
2E) the pool has nice furniture, but the pool is shared between a few hundred rooms in the Tommie/Thompson and an apartment building. It wasn’t an issue for me on an overcast Sunday to get one lounger, but is that the case every day?
2F) The light over the bed is inside a fabric lampshade. Already covered, but when you’re in bed you’ll be staring into a bright cool white naked lightbulb. However, because this lightweight umbrella-esque lampshade is right next to the AC vent, the AC blowing causes this lampshade to shake back and forth.
2G) you have a somewhat real nightstand on one side of the bed, but the other side, which has the room phone, is just a small shelf. The outlets are placed above the shelf, so there’s always a big bundle of unsightly wires hanging out.
3) I had a light burnt out in my room, but I wasn’t sure if it was the bulb or if I couldn’t find the switch. Whatever, no big deal, things happen. I called down and the front desk insisted I needed to find the dial and turn the dial for it to turn on. This hotel room has no dials anywhere in it. It took a bit of effort to convince her of this. No clue what she was thinking of and why I was temporarily gaslit into looking for a dial.
Are any of these individually a big deal? No, not at all. Is this all evident of of a lack of care/thought? Absolutely.
The entire time I was here I felt like I was fighting the room design to be comfortable, and never felt like I could unpack or take up space. Every little thing (showering, opening a laptop, opening my suitcase, looking in a mirror, using the toilet, putting on shoes, making coffee) turned into an annoyance. This is an insane feeling in an ostensibly upscale hotel.
TLDR: The rooms suck for one person. I couldn’t imagine more than one person in a room - I imagine your friendship/relationship would suffer. This hotel doesn’t respect your desire to be comfortable in a hotel, so you shouldn’t patronize it.
