Stayed at the Hilton Houston Medical Plaza for 4 nights in August 2008. The location to Texas Medical Center is perfect, and they have a shuttle that will take you anywhere in the TMC for free, which leaves on the half-hour, and picks you up when you call. We took advantage of this once, but it seems like a nice perk. The rooms, though, are incredibly large, and nice. Flat screen TV's in both the living room and the bedroom. Fast high-speed wireless (although it costs $9.99/day). Parking is easy, but its $12/day as well.

Ironically, it took awhile to get hot water from the tub, and it took awhile to get anything but warm water from the sink faucet. Perhaps this is because I was on the 16th floor, but you learn to deal. Run the tub for a few minutes first, and you're all set. As a hilton honors member, you don't get the "full" breakfast in the cafe, but you get a private continental breakfast in the bar in the morning. Kind of cheesy, but hey, its free, right? There is an "executive floor" for honors members, but its the same as the regular floors. Oh well.

I stayed here for a medical conference so I chose this hotel because it was close. I had a very enjoyable stay with the exception of the pool being closed two of my three day stay! The rooms were nice and clean and apparently fairly recently remodeled. The view off the 19th floor is very pretty. Make sure you ask for the city view. The other side looks off into one of the medical building. I had a truly excellent BLT in the restaurant. In contrast to the previous review, the shuttle service was fast and friendly. At least during my stay, they make it clear that there is limited service to the Galleria. I chose instead to go to Rice Village. The front desk made it clear that I needed to call for pickup. When I did, the shuttle arrived in less than 10 minutes. Although I was very happy, I would probably stay in the Marriott Medical next time just to try something different and also because it's just a little closer.

Stayed at the Hilton with my spouse for a conference at one of the nearby hospitals. Arrived at the front desk at around 11 AM and was initially told that my room was not yet ready and was told by the lady at the front desk to return after 4 hours (!!!). This despite my being a member of the HHonors. Strike 1.
We decide to place our bags at the concierge and see where we can go. Since we decided against renting a car as the hotel informed us of a shuttle service to the nearby Rice Village and Galleria (HUGE mistake), we decided to try our luck with the former since it was closer. Before leaving, I attempted to push my luck with the front desk again, this time with a different person (Maria, bless her heart). THIS time she gave us an upgrade to a King Suite on the 18th floor, which was really nice and spacious. Two toilets also enhanced the convenience despite the fairly small ensuite bathroom. The bed was too soft for my preference, but comfortable nonetheless.
After settling in, we decided to check out the nearby Rice Village, which was quaint enough, for lunch and some window shopping. The lunch was forgettable (but that's for another review). Apparently, public phones are non-existent in the Medical Center district and I had to make an international roaming call from my mobile to the hotel for the shuttle pick up since they don't do regular rounds of the place.
Here's strike 2: We were informed (rather late) that the shuttle to the Galleria (singular) leaves ONLY if there are 3 or more people leaving so my wife had to take the cab. Looking at the signboard, nothing there states the 3 or more people condition.
During the conference, we also had to call from the Medical Center to the hotel since the shuttle apparently doesn't make regular rounds (unlike the Holiday Inn - Should have used my Priority Privilege). Myself and a delegation from Norway and India had to wait 3HOURS for the shuttle and only after a terse call to the manager!
Would I stay at the Hilton Medical Plaza again? Maybe, but only if I plan to rent a car!

So from the beginning, the parkiing attendents were nice and directed me to self-parking--which was horrendous because it was an event night for both sport venues that shared a garage with the hotel. The hotel is huge, but not too difficult to find your way around. The front desk agent was very friendly and made sure to put my friend and I in a room away from the 10,000 teenage volleyball girls who were there for a tournament. The room was nice, very comfortable beds, everything was in great condition. We had dinner outside of the hotel that night, but had breakfast in the cafe the next morning. That turned out to be a mistake since we were apparantly sat in between 2 servers' areas. We waited about 10 minutes and then watched the 2 of them argue for another 10 minutes before one of them finally lost and had to come take our order. By the time she finally came over we almost missed the breakfast buffet altogether. The only reason we stayed is because we had a coupon for free breakfast.
We mentioned it to the hostess as we left and all she had to say was "I'm sorry, where were you sitting?" Then she basically sent us on our way.
When we got back to our room after exploring Houston, we found that even though we had left a "do not disturb" sign on the door, our room had been cleaned and we found our toilet was clogged. Because it was late, and we were both tired, we chose to not call the front desk, but did write notes on our express check-out receipt. When I gave the receipt to the front desk at check out, the agent did take off the $10 that was remaining from our breakfast bill from the morning before.