The Stephen F Austin Royal Sonesta Hotel

The only thing I valued was the view, and even that was overshadowed by the state of the room. There were mystery stains on the couch and linens. The duvet had no cover and was yellowing under a sheet, and the steamer was filthy inside. When I asked for another, I was told staff were changing shifts. My daughter had to wear the same shirt as the night before. Someone eventually left a replacement outside our door. Getting help with our bags was another problem. The bellman never came. When I went downstairs, staff and a waiter were standing around chatting and laughing. I told them to cancel the bellman as I walked by with four bags, and got a weak apology but no help. The billing was the worst part. A $44 dinner we never ordered appeared on our account. Someone at the hotel charged us for their dinner. That is theft, plain and simple. When we complained, the manager offered to remove only one of the charges for the gas-station food, not both. He offered to remove parking, but wouldn’t refund breakfast. When I called back, he had already “left.” The person who answered agreed that it absolutely looked like theft. We had been promised complimentary breakfast at check-in. The clerk gave us vouchers and said it would be free, and I have Gold status, which includes that benefit. But the person who charged my card at breakfast said that wasn’t the case. Breakfast for two cost $65, and the vouchers were just $15 off per person. There was no mention of status and no adjustment, so the breakfast we were told was complimentary became another charge. We were also promised tea, a cheese board, and two sandwiches as a welcome amenity. My daughter called ahead because I was sick and we just wanted room service and to go straight to bed. Instead, at check-in, the clerk reached under the desk and handed us loose plastic packages of food and two plastic K-cups of tea. We were exhausted, he seemed to be trying, so we paid and tipped him generously. It was nothing like what had been described. In the room we saw it was gas-station packaged food, including hard, rotting cheese mixed with bacon. The “cheese board” was only a Walmart-style packet of cheap cheese and off-color pastrami. None of it matched what we were promised or was worth what we paid. If we’d known, we would have stopped somewhere on the way in. Paying twice for cheap packaged food, being charged for breakfast said to be free, getting billed for a dinner we never ordered, then being brushed off by management is a stop sign. We paid over $400 for twelve hours of the worst hotel experience I’ve ever had. We were there for barely half a day, and they still tried to take advantage of a loyal customer. I’ll never return to a Sonesta property, and strongly recommend others avoid them. ZERO stars. This property engages in dishonest billing and outright theft.