THE GOOD - this is the place to stay if you are a Sport Shopper. There simply is no other choice if you want to shop all weekend, enter your hotel lobby directly from the mall, drop your packages off at your room, use your own hotel bathroom, and then return to the mall for more shopping. Cannot beat this set up!

Also a good thing is your dog can accompany you. Westin is my dog's favorite spot. They will send up a doggie bed and food/water bowls upon request. However, there is not a good spot for dogs to do their business. There is way too much traffic around the Galleria areas and many drivers are inattentive to pedestrians in the crosswalk. The Westin Galleria, if you dare to cross Alabama street and make it to the other side safely, has some grassy areas. The Westin Oaks has absolutely no nearby grassy areas but for a very narrow patch of grass in the utility median that butts up to Westheimer traffic. Not a good spot for dog's potty activities.

THE BAD - Charge for high speed internet access - this is free is so many competitive hotels. It's free if you want to sit in their lobby.

Also bad was the bed on this visit. Normally, the Heavenly Bed is one of the reasons we stay. This time, it was just a worn out and lumpy mattress. There were four bed pillows - all feather pillows. If you want a conventional or foam pillow, you have to request it and then wait about 20 minutes for it to be delivered to your room.

A bedside light bulb was out - this was inconvenient because we were already in bed and didn't want to wait for maintenance to bring us a replacement. You would think the housekeeping staff could check these items to make sure they're in working order. It's just a pain to have to seek out things that should already be taken care of.

THE UGLY - - These rooms are just a bit worn. They've seen better days. The double shower head is nice - but the pressure is very weak. The shower head was not properly secured, so water splashed backward, out of the tub, onto the wallpaper, and landed on the toliet paper roll. Obviously, from the water damage, this has been allowed to occur for quite some time. Now, you have no dry toliet paper. No extra rolls in the bathroom either. You end up with a really wet floor, use all your towels to dry the floor, and then have a hand towel left to dry yourself off with. When I called to request additional towels and toliet paper, it took housekeeping about 2.5 hours to bring them.

The drying line that can stretch across the tub - where you might hand your swim suit to dry - was broken. Would not recommend putting your suit over the shower curtain bar because that's incredibly dirty!

The tile in the bathroom is cracked and the grout is gray dirty in many areas. There was unidentifiable dirt or mopping residue on the outside of the tub. The toliet seat was cracked and the toliet was tilted just enough to be annoying. Insufficient bathroom counter space for two adults.

I walk down a drab corridor lined with institution green doors. The lighting is minimal. Am I in a prison?

Find my room - the door rattles in the frame.

Turn on the lights - is that it? A single bulb glows dully on the wall. The other switch doesn’t appear to do anything.

Nice full length mirror - pity I can't see myself in it.

Put my clothes in the closet - can't see much in there either.

Go in the bathroom - the floor is wet (they fix it the next day)

Have a bottle of complementary water - 'we are pleased to offer our distinguished guests this bottle of Acqua Panna natural spring water'. Only the next day do I realise they plan to gouge me $4 a bottle (plus tax) for it - if the lighting was better, maybe I would have spotted the price tag. When I check out, I discover they have charged me for it twice, at different rates. Maybe the tax changed.

A shower would be nice. Would prefer expensive soap with no wrapper to cheap soap in an expensive wrapper, but never mind.

Strange towel - am I supposed to dry myself all over with this? Perhaps in America you use one towel for the top half and another for the bottom. Well, that’s what I'll do.

Sit down to do some work. Someone has left a tray of cakes on the desk. The tray has holes in it. Move the tray. Underneath is a sticky mess.

Look up from the computer, and find a rather unappealing and obviously jet lagged individual looking back. Realise it's me. Strange place to put a mirror. Can't be a dressing table - no light.

Plug in the computer amidst the morass of wires behind the desk. Luckily I have an adaptor. The cheap hotel I stayed in last week had an international power point in the desk, but you can't expect them to think of everything.

Try the Daily Grill. Lively, good service, excellent meal.

Bed time. Turn out the lights. Fortunately I know where all the switches are, because I spent a happy half hour looking for them when I arrived.

So finally to the 'Heavenly Bed' - hyperbole which seems inappropriate to the jaundiced eye of a European. Theres a lot of traffic late at night in Houston, isn't there? I would phone the lady in the room next door, but she is obviously having a better time than me, and it seems a shame to spoil it for her.

Why have they tucked the duvet in round the edges? Don't they know the whole point of a duvet is that it doesn't constrict you? And why are the sheets too small, so that when you untuck the duvet all the sheets come out? And the undersheet doesn’t have elastic corners to retain it, so it rucks up and I feel like I'm sleeping in a ploughed field. And the duvet (the thin one, not the arctic version that I've already discarded on the floor) is too thick, so I turn down the air conditioning to minimum, but am still to hot. And there are no buttons to close the duvet cover, so when I wake up the bottom half of me is lying on the mattress covered by the duvet - not a sheet in sight. Wonder how many other people have had the same problem, and hope they showered before they went to bed and didn't sweat as much as I did.

Wake up early - jet lag is like that. I'll read the paper for a while. Oh, that’s thoughtful - they've left it in the corridor. Makes you wonder what the big gap under the door is for.

Back to the Daily Grill: and it's good again. Why do they use those thick walled mugs so the coffee is always cold? Must be an American thing. We obviously took all the thin walled mugs home after the tea party. (Over the next few days I discover the daily grill is good 66% of the time, independent of the time of day.)

Trousers have that lived in look, but I'll need them tonight. Check the laundry. That’s good, in by nine, back by five. Get back at six, with 20 minutes to cut and run. No laundry. I guess they hang onto it until I'm back so they can gouge me for a tip.

Check out. Seems a lot for not much, but the company is paying so what the hell.

Look at my itinerary. Oh, good, they've booked me into another Westin in Denver. Now there's something to look forward to!

My stay was there May 4 -8 and I am a little picky about hotels, specially when it comes to Westin. It is one of the best Westin I have been. The location is fantastic, service and amenities are great, I didn't eat at any of the restaurants, because you don't need to. There are a lot of restaurants around and fast food in Galleria Mall. The room was 4.8 of 5.
The staff , well that is the only problem with this hotels, there isn't enough, but when they appear service is great as I mentioned before.

I intended to stay there for 3 nights, but moved for my last night. The cleaning staff stole medications from my room and the hotel did nothing for me. The hotel manager would not come to see me even when I was checking out to move to another hotel. I move to Hotel Derek. Now that is a great place to stay. It is truly a 5 star. I would not rate the Westin a 4 star, it is more like a 2.5 star.