My mom was visiting from Iowa and so I took her, the wife and the three kids to stay at the Hilton Garden Inn on South Padre Island. WHAT AN AWESOME EXPERIENCE!!! When I went to take the kids out to the beach, the front desk gave the kids shovels and buckets so they could make sand castles and just asked that we bring everything back. How great is that? The room was very clean and looked right out to the beach. My mom and the kids just sat on the balcony at night and listened to the water while the wife and I watched tv. Breakfast was super, the waitresses were very friendly and attentive and the omelettes were off the cahrt!! The hotel is beautifully decorated, the staff looks like they really enjoy being there and that all tells me that the management at this hotel rocks!!! Keep up the good work!!

Very nice hotel overlooking the ocean (have to request a room that does though). Very clean and great staff. We were there in Jan. - such a beautiful pool but the weather was chilly and the pool was freezing, so all 5 days we just looked at it. Between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. the lobby comes to life of snowbirds enjoying the entertainment and free munchies. The beds are harder than I like but realized later that there is a button on eachside of the bed that you can adjust to your own level of comfort.

I'm not here on vacation, but I have to stay here for a week. I would describe the island itself as "seedy"- a mixture between ocean city, md and the jersey shore, only warmer. I am from the north east, and I found it extremely hard to find good food here. One of the only "good" restaurants here is called Gabriella's, an Italian restaurant, but I found it interesting that they didn't serve cheese ravioli, only meat, and the sauce on everything is a bit too spicy. Because the restaurants on the island were under par, I had no desire to leave the hotel, meaning I had to eat in, and that was interesting. The food was not great by any means, and the menu may look big, but it is deceiving, because there is really nothing too healthy or light. The most interesting thing about the food is that I wanted to order room service, and I looked at the menu, and it was only one page, filled with unhealthy, limited variety of food. I don't quite understand why the room service menu isn't just the same menu from downstairs, but its not, so I had to go downstairs, order food, and bring it upstairs. But once it was ready, they put it in foam to-go containers for me to bring up back to my room. As far as the rooms go, they are nice and big. I smoke cigarettes, so I found it very nice and convenient that each room has its own balcony. Each bed has its own dial so you can adjust the firmness to your liking, and I was particularly excited about that because I have back problems. I put the dial to as soft as it could go, and it is still very hard. There is a fridge in the room, but it is deceiving because it is not filled with anything. I am on the 3rd floor, and for the past two nights, I have constantly been hearing stomping, causing me head aches. I called downstairs to ask about it, and nothing has changed. As for the TV- that's also interesting. It doesn't have many channels at all, and not really many basic network channels, such as NBC or ABC. So I put on the only normal channels, and it was not what I wanted. I put on A&E and TLC, expecting some random show, but instead I got infomercials. I then called down again to ask about it, and they said that they have been changing the DirectTV boxes, and that they would send someone up to fix it. They did, and they guy came into my room to help, but didn't really understand what I was saying, so he just flipped through the channels, and got confused, and then left saying he would be right back, but he never returned. But don't get me wrong, the staff is very nice, and mean well, but sometimes just don't understand some things and aren't the most helpful. The pool is surprisingly beautiful. It is huge, and has two hot tubs in the pool, then in the back there is a kiddie pool with a cascading water wall. There is a walkway down to the beach, which is nice. I was in the hot tub one day, and looked up, and all of a sudden there were sky divers coming to the end, landing right there on the beach, so that was pretty cool. But again, something off had to happen. I asked the front desk for pool towels, and they handed me them, but once we opened them, they were the size of a bath mat. Needless to say, the towels were pretty useless. The deck outside with the pool is very large, but there are far too many tables with really uncomfortable chairs, and not nearly enough lounge chairs to lie on, although there is plenty of room. We didn't have a car down here, and the hotel has a shuttle that comes, but I once waited for it for 40 minutes. They said they could call a cab, and although I was going literally 3 minutes down the road, it would be $25. We called a cab our self, and the trip was only $7. Plus side- the rooms have free wi-fi.

Bottom line- if I ever NEED to be down on this island again, I would stay here again for the sole reason that it is probably the best on the island, but comparatively to other hotels I have been to, it is far under par.

I loved the location--out of the ruckus of "downtown" but still very convenient to everything,and just steps from the beach. At the beach, I could turn left for quiet isolation, or right to run into more people. My room was very comfortable, the staff was great, breakfast was wonderful. I liked the community aspect of Happy Hour, with well-priced drinks and food that could have been a little more creative, but worked as a light snack. There was mysterious and repeated banging at 4 one morning, as if someone was slamming a door over and over.