Best Hotels Near the Riverwalk

My Personal Choices

Within each category I'm not listing an order of preference.  It's too close a call for most of them to pick one over another.

My list if money is no object:

My personal favorites 

(based on hotel charm, size and overall feel, not just on location):

My list of top tier hotels:

My list of second tier hotels:

My Third tier of hotels:

The Bottom of my list:

I probably have to explain some of my reasoning for the above rankings.  For example, the St. Anthony Hotel which I list as one of my personal favorites.  I'm judging the hotel based upon the ambiance of the hotel, its character, its location and its rooms.  The hotel is old and doesn't compete against the lavishness of newer hotels.  But in my mind it's got so much elegance and history.  My grandmother always stayed there when she came to town.  This was the place to stay. This in the days when people would come and stay in town for weeks at a time.  My uncle and his family would always stay there.  In fact, I had two cousins who I used to play with in that hotel.  The hotel has two sets of elevators, one at each end of their long hallways, and our parents would let us play tag in the hotel.  One kid would chase the other two.  We would literally take elevators up and run across the floors to the other set of elevators at the end of the hallway and take those down to another floor with the chaser hot on our heals.  We played all over those floors. 
 

There also was, up till just about ten years ago, a private club on the ground floor called The St. Anthony Club.  The Club was probably 60 years old when it closed and every business man worth his salt was a member.  I remember several times dining with my grandmother in the dining room listening to the quartet playing.  And if this isn't enough, I promise you the following story is absolutely true.  Around 1975 I was traveling through Mexico with some friends and while we were in Chihuahua, Mexico we decided to see the Pancho Villa museum run by his widow at her home.  This was in the time when the following didn't seem particularly out of place.  At the visit Pancho's widow was bed ridden, but nevertheless being a good proprietoress, she had us come into her room and say hello.  When we told her we were from San Antonio, she said, "Ah, yes.  I stayed in San Antonio for many months, years ago, at the St. Anthony Hotel.  During the troubles in Mexico Pancho had me leave the country and go to San Antonio."  As a consequence of all these experiences the hotel ranks high on my list.  But just comparing hotel room to hotel room it wouldn't compete with a Hyatt Regency.