We will be in Houston for a week in May, primarily to attend theatre(Alley and the Masquerade), museums, shop, and a side trip to Nasa. What hotels would be recommended (a pool would be nice).

Alley Theater is in Downtown, and the Masquerade is in the Heights area, about halfway between Downtown and the Uptown/Galleria area, where the main upscale mall is at. The Fine Arts Musuem, Menil Collection and the Rothko Chapel are all closer to downtown than the Galleria.

Most of the best hotels like the Omni Houston, Houstonian, are in the Galleria area, but there's also the Four Seasons in Downtown. What price range are you looking at?

You'll need a car to go anywhere basically, except to the Alley from a Downtown hotel. And most of the better hotels in Houston do have a pool.

I think we could go up to $100 per night. We will have a rental car and can drive to the theatre, etc..I'm looking for a "home base" while we scoot about the city.

If I were you I'd look at biddingfortravel.com, and then bid on a 4* hotel on Priceline in the Galleria area. All of those are pretty nice. Most people are getting them for about $65-70.

Also, people are getting the 4* Hyatt Regency Downtown for <$50. So, that's another possibility. And make sure you don't add Downtown 4* if you get rejected for a $60-70 bid for Galleria, or else you'll certain overpay for the Hyatt Regency Downtown.

These days downtown Houston is really experiencing quite the rennaissance with lots of excellent restaurants and night clubs, the theatres, Minute Maid Park for the baseball fans and the glitzy new Toyota Center for baseketball fans...not to mention the new light rail that can get you to places like the Museum District and Hermann Park in about 5 minutes.

Downtown now makes a lot of sense.

The big news in the downtown hotel scene is probably the brand spanking new Hilton Americas -- over 1,000 first-class rooms within blocks of everything.

Hope this helps!
Mark
www.tiogringo.com