Hotel Galvez

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! The Hotel Galvez made our wedding day a picture perfect event of a lifetime! The staff was incredibly accommodating and with their help my husband and I were able to enjoy our very special day without having to worry about a single thing. Every detail of our wedding was nailed to perfection - food, service, layout of our reception, expertise, basically everything down to the napkin folds:) Gosh I could go on for days telling you everything that they did!
I would, without a doubt, recommend The Hotel Galvez to anyone planning a wedding! I am extremely appreciative of the Hotel Galvez and their FABULOUS staff for their A-class service!

When I signed a contract with Hotel Galvez, I met with someone who no longer works there. When I heard she was leaving, I was worried, but the service from Angie I got after the other woman left was amazing. She caught up to where I had left off with the other woman, and went above and beyond my expectations. She was always willing to work with me on things, and give me help and advice when I was not able to figure something else. She kept to the contract just as I had hoped, and was very responsive every time I had a question, often after her working hours were over. I did not see her on the day of the wedding, which I knew I would not, but the banquet manager was amazing too. I was at the hotel the morning of the wedding dropping things off, and I made a couple changes at the time, and they all worked out perfectly, even being so last minute. I brought in a chalk board, and he immediately brought me an easel to display it on.
Everything leading up to the day, all the way to the end of the night was amazing.
Thank you Angie and Hotel Galvez for making my wedding day everything I could have ever...

To make a long story short, from my understanding the Hotel Galvez, despises canned beer. No guest staying there is permitted to bring any such item or items on the premises. From my understanding with hotel management, the hotel has strict procedures to extract such items or you are asked to take such items off their property. In other words, the Hotel Galvez has a strict policy against canned beer.

That being said, April 14, 2012, the Hotel Galvez took the liberty of serving CANNED BEER at my daughter's wedding reception. We purchased a four hour Gold Package, which served champagne, wine, bottled beer, and other liquors including an additional martini charge for her signature drink. The Hotel Galvez' catering department failed to order an appropriate amount of bottled beer for our counted guests, and took the liberty of breaking their own house policy of CANNED BEER. I'm assuming one of the catering department employees ran to the local store and bought the cheapest they could find, which were CANS. To make matters worse, the hotel security is trained to tackle CANS! The Hotel Galvez' security honed in on the BEER CANS and actually asked a couple of our guests to surrender the CANNED BEER. The guests actually declined on surrendering their beverage, and at that time they were asked to vacate the premises. Now remember, this is during our reception. First of all, what hotel serves canned beer at a reception? Evidently the Hotel Galvez does. Apparently the Hotel Galvez also has a communication problem amongst its employees, otherwise their own security would have known of the situation regarding the canned beer. During our own reception my husband had to explain to the security guard and the front desk manager that the hotel itself served their own violation. Wow, is the way to conduct business Hotel Galvez?! This makes great memories for the photo album!

Not to mention, the hotel charged two of my guests $515 for their room, when their rooms were prepaid by myself in January. Our contract, which was typed up by the Hotel and signed by all parties, requested ocean front rooms all on the 5th floor; in which we were scattered on two floors with no ocean view. The hotel lost air conditioning in 200 plus rooms and, yes; our guests occupied 2 of those lucky rooms. The honeymoon suite, which cost $516 per night, tub wouldn't drain, and when I called to report this, front desk "smarties" hung up on me. The food was nothing like our food tasting. Two out of three of our Hors d 'Oeuvres were inedible and one looked like dead squirrel?! Our steak was extremely bloody; the second round of steak was dry. Out of the five chicken dinners I ordered for the kids we received two, twenty minutes after everyone was served. The kids were lucky to get the two I suppose! All I can say is, poor poor quality for 5 star food, and extremely embarrassing for such a ritzy, prominent establishment.

After checkout, the bride (my daughter) realized she left her AT&T Wireless internet card and a memory card from her camcorder. She called the hotel and the guy at the front desk that she spoke to, told her that all he found in the suite was a memory card. She headed back to hotel to pick that up and to file a report with security that the internet card was lost. And to no surprise, no one at the front desk knew anything about a memory card. The guy my daughter spoke to apparently left so she would have to call back when he was there. It has now been a week and they have not returned her messages. Here again, I see a communication problem

There were 4 other weddings going on the weekend of; we heard another wedding party voicing dissatisfaction, with some of the same issues we endured. Due to the conscience neglect of the contract and unsatisfactory service, I do not recommend this hotel or venue to any guest or future bride.

Everything was great except for two things. The entrees were very average and did not taste like what we had tried a few months prior. I was actually embarrassed by the food. The other issue was my ceremony was on a Sunday evening and that morning was the Sunday brunch so we couldn't decorate the room until an hour before the ceremony which made things rushed.

Hotel Galvez is the ultimate in class. My wedding theme was old Hollywood Glam and the Galvez was the perfect fit. There's no other place like it. It is also a perfect venue for beautiful pictures.

Angie was great to work with. They really did make it easy to have a wedding and reception there. They were very flexible and accommodating.

This is a beautiful hotel that is supposed to be a five star hotel; unfortunately, it fell short in everything they promised. I paid a lot of money to get married here but I felt like I got jerked for the price. They have a new catering manager that does not know what she is doing.The food was awful. When I went to the tasting the food they offered me was spectacular. In my reception, the steak was raw, the mash potatoes were hard and dry, the sting beans tasted like crap, the bread was so hard you can hit someone over the head with it and actually give them a concussion. I ordered a signature drink that the bartenders didn't know how to make, there waiters were rude to my guests and to top it off, the grass of the garden where I had my ceremony was uncut, which made it hard to walk on and my bridesmaids and I almost fell on our faces. They offered me the bridal suite for the honeymoon night and they promised that it would be cleaned and with a bottle of champagne and strawberries for myself and my husband but when we got to the room there wasn't any champagne, no strawberries and it wasn't cleaned. In fact, some of the stuff I had left on the bed was under the covers. This hotel is insane. Oh did I forget to mention that when my groom was getting ready in his JR suite with his groomsmen he was thrown out without giving him the opportunity of paying for another night. Yes, while he was supposed to be taking pictures he was moving to another suite because they had booked that suite for someone else. The worse thing was that I wrote to the manager of the hotel with my concerns and disappointments and instead of just apologizing and accepting responsibility, he actually blamed my planner, which was working her butt of to make this wedding happen since she was only given 2 hours to set up the Garden for the wedding and the reception hall. This hotel, even though it's beauty says one thing, their service sucks. I am still waiting on a refund they owe me. Do not get married here if you don't want your wedding day to be filled with disappointments and issues. Every single thing from their garden to their food was a disaster. After our wedding we had to go eat at Landry's because everyone was starving. Oh I booked my wedding a year and a half in advance so they had enough time to get it right, another thing, even though they knew I was having my DJ set up in the garden they didn't check the electricity so, my wedding started late because of that and to top it off, they closed the bar, which I had paid for ,one hour early. Yes I had an open bar that my guest didn't enjoy the full time I paid because they closed it an hour early. Ladies think about it. This hotel is going to promise you everything in the world and on your wedding day, you will be disappointed and upset. They have new management so, while the service there was great, when Jennifer Norman was the catering manager; now it's a complete disaster.

AMAZING! You cannot pick a more beautiful location inside and out. The wedding and reception were a dream thanks to the wonderful staff at the Galvez. Jennifer (the catering manager) was on top of everything and always quick to respond to calls and emails. The food and the reception staff were awesome, our guests couldn't say enough about the food and service. Very classy from beginning to end!

WONDERFUL!!!! The entire team at the Galvez made the entire weekend of my wedding a dream come true.

I cannot say enough how great they were in accommodating everything that we had wanted for our big day.

The day of the wedding it had been raining... Thankfully it had cleared up just in time for our outdoor ceremoney... And the Galvez crew was outside basically drying the grass to ensure that the event could go off without a hitch.

Over all we felt and our guests compliemented on...
Beautiful Venue, Great Service, Delicious Food, and cannot wait to go back to visit again!

The Galvez is a splurge, but it is totally worth it. We had our reception in the Terrace Ballroom. I loved the unique layout of the room. It wasn't the regular boring square hotel ballroom. The venue is gorgeous with great views of the Gulf, and the wait staff was excellent during the reception. Our guests really felt pampered.

The food was amazing. We didn't really love any of the selections on their standard catering menu, so I explained our family backgrounds (Cajun and Italian) and the head chef created a completely custom menu for us around that. They didn't charge extra for the custom menu - they gave us the standard buffet per-head cost that was listed in the catering menu. While they created a custom menu for us, they do have a lot of catering rules (which I found to be common for a hotel venue). Can't bring in any food besides the cake, no kegs (only bottles), can't take any food but the cake out at the end of the night, etc.

We worked with Angela, their catering manager. There were a few emails I sent her that she never answered, but overall I felt she worked hard to make sure we were happy and all our needs were met. As an example, we served Haagen Dazs ice cream and I mentioned that my grandmother doesn't eat anything but Blue Bell. She actually got a pint of Blue Bell and served it specially to my grandmother during the reception!

A word of caution on their room blocks for your guests: They require 100% attrition on a room block contract (meaning if you don't book all the rooms, you still have to pay for all of them), which is high for the industry. You can get a room block without a contract, but the room rate isn't guaranteed to stay the same until the wedding (ie they can increase the rate as you get closer to the wedding date). We did not have a contract, but our rate did not change. However, our guests found that about two months before the wedding, the regular rate online was LESS than our room block rate! Some of our guests paid even less with AARP and military discounts. Warn your guests before they book through your block to check online first!

I am so happy we decided to splurge and have our wedding at Hotel Galvez. We have had nothing but great feedback from all of our guests, everyone loved it. Jennifer was great, so easy to work with, she responded to our e-mails so quickly throughout the planning process. Everything turned out so perfect!

The Hotel Galvez is a beautiful place. We had our reception there and the catering managers were extremely helpful! We were able to work with the chef to customize our menu, but their buffet options were great too. Jorge, the banquet manager, was amazing during the reception! He was very attentive and made sure everything went smoothly. The waitstaff was great too, they kept their eyes on us and made sure we had our drink of choice at all times. I highly recommend the Hotel Galvez, but it is not cheap. The average amount we spent per person was about $80. But it was worth every penny. Oh and the food was great too! Try the potato martini bar, fantastic!

I can't say enough about the staff at the Hotel Galvez. From the first time we considered having our wedding there, my (now) husband and I received the most amazing service. Jennifer Norman was our catering coordinator and Rashida Jolivet was our sales contact. They and their assistants were all extremely helpful in planning our wedding. I called and/or emailed both of them numerous times and got helpful responses within the hour for even the most minute details. In addition to providing quality service, they were both very flexible in helping us handle some sticky situations. You will not match the service, quality of food, or overall value of this venue anywhere in the Galveston or Houston, Texas area!!!

The Hotel Galvez knows how to do weddings and receptions! They made it very easy.

The rooms interior and the views are amazing. In our room we had a view of the pool and the ocean. The interior was great for pictures and it was interesting enough that we didn't have to order much other decorations. This is by no means one of those boring hotel event rooms.

The only real problems we had was that they had problems remembering our reservations. They forgot to reserve me a room to get ready in for my bridal portraits and they didn't reserve my honeymoon suite for the two nights we were staying there. They fixed everything with no real hassle, there was just some waiting time.

Angie was great. We needed a longer bar time and they allowed it to happen because the majority of our guests stayed at the hotel. The one thing that surprised us was the cost; we didn't realize how pricey certain things were once added on. The staff was great and helped get things in order, before, during, and after the wedding.

The Hotel Galvez was the venue for our wedding ceremony. We had it on the front lawn of the hotel. The staff was incredibly accommodating. They were helpful in every aspect of planning an outdoor wedding. They were flexible with me constantly adding rooms to my hotel block and made sure that I had an ocean view suite. They had the chairs set up just as I had asked as well as a table and table cloth for our sand ceremony. They were quick to respond to any questions I had - and I often had them. They let me really do my own thing and run my wedding as I saw it fit. They weren't running around and directing people. They let me and my crew do what we needed to do. That was nice - I didn't have people telling me what to do on my wedding day! Oh and they also had 4 other weddings going on the same day - I would have never known. There was no commotion or mass hysteria. Everything was completely organized. I absolutely love this hotel and I hope to go back sometime soon - even though I live 40 minutes away from it. I would definitely reccommend this hotel to anyone looking for an exceptional venue.

The food was wonderful! All of my guests agreed. I had to ask several of our guests to please leave us alone so we could eat since I knew how good the food was. I made sure I ate on my wedding day. The only complaint I know of was the food service time. My husband and I chose to have an attendent making and serving pasta in our pasta buffet. This does slow down the service. Unfortunatly the attendent didn't really let the guests know that he was there to make custom orders if needed. That's the only drawback I encountered and I don't feel it was a show stopper at all. The Galzev was WONDERFUL to work with. All of my questions were answered in a timely mannor and everyone was great work work with.
The ceremony and reception were perfect! The weather was perfect for an ourdoor ceremony infront of the hotel's fountain. The hotel is beautiful and my reception was decorated exactly the way I wanted it. The ball room provided the optimal reception for all of our guests. All of the staff was wonderful to work with and I feel that my husband, myself and our guests were compeltely taken care of. I recommend this venue!