The hotel just opened recently, and I had my first stay last week. It's beautiful, from the rooms to the outdoor (enclosed in January) patio bar area. For me, the best part was the extremely comfortable beds and HDTV's. And it actually had HD channels (not like alot of other hotels, who have the fancy TV's with no HD channel, so what's the point?).

However, maybe their still going through some glitches since they opened. When I checked in, I requested a wake up call at 6:30am (and watched the lady write it down). I woke up at 5am to an incorrect wake up call. Also, a couple of the days the water for the shower was cold for 5+ minutes, until it would suddenly warm up.

Other than that, the gym was excellent and the restaurant was great too (although over priced). I'll try the Crescent or Zaza next time, but may go back since its extremely close to the office. Overall, I would say its a great hotel but not quite up there in perfection yet.

I think the Ritz Carlton is experiencing a modern problem. It is a very nice hotel. Beautifully decorated, with well trained and courteous staff. However, it seems to have been pulled straight out of a "how to build and run a luxury hotel" box - just follow the simple to use instructions! Ritz Carlton have a great formula, but here is an example that they are resting on their laurels. There is no attempt to up the game, or push boundaries.

The highlight of the hotel is Fearings. Dean is THE celebrity chef of Dallas. It was a real coup for the Ritz to lure him away from the Mansion on Turtle Creek. The menu reflects the hype and we ate there a number of times and were consistently impressed. The staff were also very friendly and efficient. My only critisim would be that breakfast is not as slick as lunch, or dinner - service was a little slow. The restaurant is split into three dining areas. An open plan kitchen style, a more formal dining room and a conservatory. The bar scene was very busy on Thursday and Friday nights. It is supposedly the place to be seen in Dallas. Maybe if you come from a small country town - but it did not rock my boat.

I had a lovely corner room. It certainly had everything you would expect from a luxury hotel. Stand out points were the oversized bathroom and HD TV. Decor was not my taste - a bit too old fashioned.

There is a large gym, with good equipment. The spa is also very good and extensive. I had one treatment and my therapist was excellent.

I would definitely recommend the Ritz Carlton. Especially if you are in Dallas on business and want efficient service and ammenities. I would not say it is a hotel that will last in your memories.

This is a good and promising hotel, but some of the basic services were uneven or neglected. I expect more perfection from this property at these rates. That said, I'd be happy to stay here again.

I stayed 6 nights alone in a "Deluxe" room. The room was spacious with a lovely view, and the furniture and appointments were all high quality and attractive. The bed was quite comfortable. I would have liked another chair perhaps, and some artwork on a relatively blank wall would have been nice, but it was a very pleasant space. Room service (breakfast) was excellent, and staff were very nice and accommodating when I encountered them.

The rough edges:

- I was delighted to see a coffeemaker in the room, with two doses of coffee. But after two days they had not noticed that I was actually drinking it, and I had to ask them to deliver more. Minor, of course, unless you don't notice it until 6am!

- There was no room service menu in the room and I had to call and request one.

- I like to sleep in a coldish room and set the temperature to 60 or so (outside temp at night probably 40s). In fact this was somewhat important because the bed had a top sheet and then a duvet, which tended to make me warm. I felt like the room temperature really never dropped that much (the wall unit did not tell you the current temperature, only the set point), and the A/C unit sometimes had a spasm of dull clunking when starting up. Pretty distracting.

- Footsteps at 6am from above, hard shoes on hard floor. My room was carpeted so I'm not sure what was upstairs. I'm very surprised that this brand-new building allows this sort of sound to travel between floors. Earplugs to the rescue.

- At one point the hotel staff wanted to deliver me a message about my stay, and so they sent me what they call a "text message" -- delivered somehow through their voice mail system. Using the "messages" button on my room phone, the robot said something like "to retrieve your text messages, press 5". When I pressed 5, it transferred me to another line that rang forever with no pickup. After 2 days of having all 3 of the phones in the room blinking madly and brightly (think nighttime), I asked the front desk to make it stop. I mentioned that my attempt to retrieve the message sent me into phone purgatory, but I'm not sure they picked up on the need to investigate this whole system's reliability. I really don't get the concept. Just leave me a voice message!

- I couldn't figure out how to make the TV display the signal from the provided DVD player, after pressing many buttons. I called the front desk for assistance, asking to speak to someone who knew how to work it. They forwarded my call to engineering when I ended up in an apparently off-duty employee's voice mailbox (8:30 pm). This was not helpful.

- $10/day for WiFi. While not exactly a rough edge, it's extremely peculiar to me that the high end hotels all charge for this and the lower end hotels never do.

- One of the things about this level of hotel is the huge amounts of staff hanging around wanting to greet and help you. On one occasion I must have seen 8 staff members lingering in the front vestibule -- they weren't in the way, but it seemed like overkill. The doors themselves are somewhat heavy, and there is no power assist on them. The theory must be that the plentiful staff means you rarely have to handle them. Except that the staff aren't always there! I'd say I had to open at least one of the doors about 1/4 of the time coming and going. When I arrived at 1am from a late flight, there was no one in sight. Now I don't mind opening doors!-- even with my luggage, these weren't bad. But I did find myself wondering how elderly guests feel about this. I think a wheelchair-bound person would have to just sit and wait until someone wandered by and saw them...

We stayed at the Ritz for one night in a room with two queen beds. The room was not "amazing", but was perfectly nice -- slightly on the small side but decorated well. I was surprised that we did not have a deep soaking tub (shouldn't that be standard in any room at a Ritz???), so if that is important to you, ask before booking.

The service was excellent -- we had some minor problems with our room which were fixed immediately. Check in/out etc. were smooth and everyone we encountered was polite/friendly/helpful.

FYI -- this is a business hotel w/o a property -- it is not like other Ritz's with wonderful grounds and views etc. Fearing's restaurant is also good, although for the price there are other places in Dallas that I enjoy more (Abacus, Mansions, Stephen Pyles, Bijoux, etc.).

Another thing worth mentioning is that I thought was a a bit tacky that there was a fee to use the hot tub (it is part of the "spa", and not near the pool area) and a fee to take a class at the gym. In my opinion, if you are paying a lot of $ to stay at the Ritz, these things should be included.

If you are coming to Dallas -- esp. for business -- this is a perfectly nice and not outrageously priced place to stay. However, I would not call it an amazing or unique experience, esp. for the well-traveled.