Hotel Review: Homewood Suites Houston-Westchase, TX

After spending New Year’s in New Orleans, Shae, Truffles and I started heading west. Our next destination was New Mexico, but we stopped in a couple of places along the way.

Our first stop was Houston and we originally planned on spending six nights there due to work commitments. That didn’t give Shae enough time to visit a couple of museums for her virtual field trip classes on Outschool, so we added on another six nights to give her time for that and so that we didn’t then have to move on work days.

The hotel was fine overall, but some parts are a little run down and we had a terrible first impression when trying to check in. Here’s a full review of our stay at the Homewood Suites Houston-Westchase.

Check-In

Our check-in experience was the worst we’ve had in more than three years of living in hotels. We arrived at 7pm and found the front doors locked; we therefore had to wait for another guest to leave the hotel for us to be able to enter.

Once inside, the front desk was abandoned. We waited. We waited. And then we waited even longer. We tried calling the hotel and there was no answer. Shae called Hilton corporate to report the problem and we could hear the hotel’s phone ringing, presumably from them calling the hotel.

After 25 minutes, there was still no one at the front desk. I was getting concerned that whoever was meant to have been working had some kind of medical incident, so I called Houston’s non-emergency number to see if they could get an officer to come by the hotel to check on them.

30 minutes after we arrived at the hotel, an employee finally came back to the front desk. She shared that she was the only person working that night and that she’s had to go service another guest’s room. While she was friendly and apologetic, the fact that she had disappeared for 30 minutes without stopping back by the front desk was beyond ridiculous.

Once she was back, the check-in process itself went quickly and we were soon on our way to room 112.

1 Bedroom King Suite

We’d booked our stay using points and were able to book straight into a one bedroom suite for a very reasonable number of points. When entering our suite, the kitchen was on the left, the living room straight ahead and the bedroom and bathroom through some doors between the two.

Living Room

The living room had a sleeper sofa, armchair, ottoman and coffee table, along with a side table between the couch and armchair.

The living room had a good-sized dresser with a TV on top.

Back by the suite’s entrance there was a narrow closet containing an iron and ironing board.

Between the living room and kitchen there was a dining table and a couple of chairs.

Kitchen

One of the nice features of the Homewood Suites brand (which is part of Hilton) is that every suite has a full kitchen. This includes a full-sized fridge-freezer, microwave, dishwasher, stove top and more.

The cupboards contained place settings for four people along with other cookware and cooking utensils.

Bedroom

There were double doors leading from the living room to the bedroom. There was a fairly sizable gap between the doors which meant a fair bit of light made it through to the bedroom when Shae went to bed at night while I still worked in the living room.

The bedroom itself had a comfortable king bed. The blackout curtains worked pretty well once we used a hanger with clips to keep the curtains together.

Opposite the bed was another dresser with a TV on top.

Next to the bathroom was a larger closet containing bedding for the sleeper sofa and a luggage rack.

Bathroom

Between the bedroom and bathroom was the sink and vanity. A downside with this type of bedroom/bathroom layout is that it means if one person is up earlier or later than the other, you have to use the sink by the light of your phone as turning on the light would light up the entire bedroom.

Although there were toiletries provided, housekeeping neglected to leave a bar of hand soap.

The bathroom itself had a bathroom with shower. The shower had amazing water pressure – so good that it’s probably the best shower we’ve had at any hotel in the past year!

The shower wall had seen better days though; I’m not sure what had happened, but it seemed to have been patched up sufficiently that it wasn’t moldy from getting wet.

Overall, we were pleased with our suite. The kitchen was well-equipped, the shower was fantastic and it was nice having a separate bedroom and living room, even if the doors between the two let in too much light at night.

Breakfast

The Homewood Suites Houston-Westchase offers free breakfast for all guests. During normal times that’s a breakfast buffet with hot options, but COVID has meant they’ve understandably had to change the breakfast setup.

Unfortunately their new breakfast offering is extremely weak, consisting of a couple of granola bars, a pastry, a piece of fruit and a bottle of water. Seeing as we had our own kitchen, we just sorted out our own breakfasts after the first morning.

Evening Social

Homewood Suites properties normally run evening socials during the week providing food and drinks. Due to COVID, they weren’t offering that during our stay which was fair enough.

Amenities

The hotel didn’t have much by way of amenities available during our stay. They have a fitness room and indoor swimming pool and whirlpool, but both were closed during our stay due to COVID.

The guest laundry area was still available, with two washing machines and two dryers. It cost $2 per load for each.

The hotel has a business center with a couple of computers you can use; there might be a printer available, but I didn’t check.

There are a couple of grills outside, along with some outdoor seating. Some of the seating had seen much better days though and could do with being replaced.

The hotel also had a sports court, but that had seen better days too as the basketball hoop was missing the hoop.

If you need snacks or soft drinks during your stay, there’s a pantry area next to the front desk.

Pet Policy

The Homewood Suites Houston-Westchase is a pet-friendly hotel. They accept dogs up to 25 lbs and the pet fee is $125, although tax is charged on top of that and so comes to a total of $149.25. That’s a hefty fee considering it’s charged per stay; averaged out over our 12 nights it wasn’t terrible, but if you’re booking a one or two night stay, that’s awfully high.

There are quite a few grassy areas all around the hotel, plus there are sidewalks all around to safely take your pup for a longer walk.

COVID-19

When entering our room, there was a seal on the door to confirm no one had been in there since housekeeping had cleaned the room.

Inside, the TV remotes were in small plastic bags, presumably having been disinfected.

The staff members seemed to do a good job with wearing a mask. As for other COVID-related policies, there was no buffet breakfast, swimming pool or fitness room usage; while that’s ostensibly due to COVID, the fact that the hotel was short-staffed might have played a role in them not providing those amenities or, in the case of breakfast, some sort of more extensive options.

Service

The check-in debacle meant we didn’t have a great impression of the service at the hotel. Having said that, Shae went and chatted to the manager the next morning about what happened and the manager dealt with the situation as best she could. She listened to what Shae had to say and gave more context about what happened. She also ended up refunding the first night’s points of our stay which was appreciated.

Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi is free for all guests. The speed seemed pretty good and we didn’t have connectivity issues.

Check-In & Check-Out Times

Check-in is at 3pm and check-out is at 12pm.

Location

The Homewood Suites Houston-Westchase is about 20 minutes to the west of Houston. About five minutes north of the hotel is Terry Hershey Park Hike Trail, a lovely waterside trail that we visited a few times to take Truffles for a walk.

There are a few restaurants within walking distance from the hotel, plus there’s a shopping center and grocery store only a mile away.

Parking

Parking at the hotel is free and there are lots of spaces around the property.

Cost

We booked our stay using points as it was good value, especially when taking into account Hilton’s 5th night free benefit when booking award stays if you have status.

We paid 14,000 points per night for our two (separately booked) six night stays. That meant we got two nights free, so our total cost for the 12 nights came to 140,000 points. Due to the check-in issues, the manager refunded one of those nights which means our net cost was 126,000 points or 10,500 points per night.

If we’d paid cash for the stay, it would’ve cost $73.94 with tax per night for the first six nights and $90.58 with tax per night for the second set of six nights. Assuming the manager would’ve refunded us the first night on a paid stay too due to the issues, using points means we got 0.72cpp (cents per point) of value which is about 50% more value than you’d normally expect to get.

Final Thoughts

The situation with check-in aside, our stay at the Homewood Suites Houston-Westchase was fine overall. Redeeming an average of 10,500 points per night for a one bedroom suite with a kitchen was good value, although their breakfast offering was poor and some of their amenities could do with some maintenance.

Truffles Approval Rating

Truffles gives the hotel three paws out of four – pawsome! Having a one bedroom suite meant she didn’t get disturbed by noises in the hallway at night, while it was nice having sidewalks around the hotel so we could go on longer walks, as well as having the Terry Hershey Park Hike Trail nearby.

They don’t get four paws though because at almost $150 with tax, the pet fee is excessive.

Our Rating

Room = 4.5 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.0 / 5 (this is based on the hotel having a swimming pool and fitness room, even though they were closed due to COVID)
Food = 3 / 5
Location = 4.1 / 5
Service = 2.5 / 5
Dealing With COVID-19 (A new – hopefully temporary – category for our hotel reviews) = 4.5 / 5
Overall Value = 4.6 / 5

Total = 3.89/5

Address

Homewood Suites, 2424 Rogerdale Rd, Houston, TX 77042