We live in the Austin area and decided to take a mini honeymoon to Houston (we needed a couple of days out of town and away from family before real honeymoon in November).

The Hotel Icon is a beautiful hotel. It has lovely ambiance, and I personally like the somewhat dark decor and lighting (except in the room's bathroom, where extra lighting would have made it easier to put on make up.)

Our room: Upon check in we were upgraded to one of the suites on the penthouse floor. Although we were not told this at check in, we just figured it out when we got to our room. The room was nicely furnished, good skyline view, a deliciously comfy bed, however, it had a draw back... I had booked a junior suite because we wanted the two-person Jacuzzi tub. Instead, we got a lovely, claw-foot soaking tub. We did not dislike it, but not getting what we requested set the tone of the two nights we were there. The carpet in our suite was made of jute. This is lovely to look at, but it really hurts your feet, so we had to wear our Crocs in the room since there were no slippers. I had requested strawberries and champagne for arrival, this was not present in our room and we had to make a separate request for this. We also had to request another robe since there was only one. Again, another mark against the service.

The spa: The next day we had massages scheduled. The spa at Hotel Icon is nothing too remarkable and the gym is probably too close, since it sounded like there were wrestlers in the room next to us during our massage. The therapists were excellent and the service matched the price we paid. They also let us keep the slippers since they toss them anyway when we queried if the front desk would be able to get us a pair for our room.

Bank restaurant: First one of the best meals I have had in a long time in terms of the food quality. Food was superbly prepared and tasted incredible. My husband ordered a steak and I gave a go at the 7-course tasting menu. I received my 1st course at the same time as my husband received his meal. I did not receive my second course until about 10 minutes after my husband had finished his meal. Between the next 2 courses there must have been 15-20 minutes between each course. For the last 3 courses, they came right on top of each other. It seems there were major problems with coordination with the staff and the kitchen. We also had issues with the waiters in trying to pay our bill... we tried to get a waiter's attention and instead of checking to see what we wanted he reprinted our bill and all we wanted to do was a pen so that we could write down our room number for payment and leave.

LodgNet: After we finished room-service dinner on our first night, we decided to rent a pay-per-view movie... LodgeNet was down. However, the front desk was unaware of this and said it should start working shortly. We had to call back to tell them our TVs were still not working. Finally, the front desk said that LodgeNet was down. We watched movie on HBO instead. On the second night, My husband checked at the front desk on our way up from the restaurant and they said that it should be working. When we got to our room it was still not working. We called down and finally, someone told us that LodgeNet was still down.

So all in all, beautiful hotel, but did not have the customer service we would have liked especially since we spent about $1400.00: two nights lodging, valet parking, massages, room service dinner and breakfast, dinner at the Bank, and tips. It is unlikely we will return to the Hotel Icon.

We loved our stay at the Icon Hotel with one exception. The train that goes through town is close by and we heard the train whistle ALL NIGHT long. What a disappointment. I received an e-mail from the Icon hotel manager the next day asking how our stay was and I wrote to ask if there are any rooms where you do not hear the train whistle. I have not recieved a reply. In every other way the hotel is perfect but unfortunately, unless we can find out if there are rooms where you don't hear the train we will not be staying again.

I booked the Icon for a short romantic break.

From the moment we walked through the door we were treated courteously and professionally. The hotel has a great feel to it, almost old worldy in some ways but stylish quirky in others. It's a world away from the chain hotels I often have to use.

The room was clean and stylish, the King bed was very comfortable. The huge bathroom was accessed through double doors and included a very large walk in shower. A particluar dislike of mine in hotels is having to use tiny bottles in the shower so I was very happy to find full size bottles of shampoo, conditioner etc.

I'd booked the "Romance" package which included a bath butler so when we returned to our room after our evening meal the bath was run, surrounded in rose petals, and a bottle of champagne with chocolate covered strawberries was waiting for us. Well worth paying those extra few dollars to be treated this way.

A truly memorable stay.

This is a very trendy hotel. A boutique feel to it. My husband checked in that morning, and I late that evening. I had told him it was pretty lavish and to look for the extras, but he made a quick note of the simple things that were missing.

The lobby is beautiful and the hotel front desk staff was very professional. However, we did recognize early that they wanted to create an upscale experience. The bathroom was huge. The shower and tub were great. You could watch television from the tub, which was a nice touch. The room was a comfortable size and the furnishings were oversized.

It was very warm the week we stayed and we quickly realized that there were no ice machines. You had to call housekeeping everytime you wanted ice, which meant you were tipping for ice. My husband paid $3 for a candy bar and when we asked about vending machines or a drug store, a gentleman working downstairs looked at us as if we were from another planet. When we walked away, he looked at his co-worker and shook his head.

Most hotels will leave fresh soap, shampoo, etc. if they see you have already opened what they set out. But housekeeping did not and when we asked for fresh soap the housekeeper came up and informed us that we had not finished the one we opened, but she would leave us two anyway. (I did mention it was hot that week so we would have used the soap after taking 2 showers.) We did leave a tip for housekeeping everyday, so we could not understand why it was a hassle to leave fresh soap.

The elevators were slow, but very beautiful. The key access was a great feature since we were staying in the downtown area. Parking was valet only and tipping the valet everytime we left and came back was also adding up.

On our last night, we received a knock on the door. A young man was going around collecting the water that was in the room for purchase. The hotel had been sold, and the new owner did not want to provide water. Very beautiful hotel and expensive for Houston. We expected that more be "included". Never thought we would miss being able to get ice. Stayed in the Galleria Area twice earlier this year and saw from this stay that Downtown is over-rated.