GALVESTON ISLAND.

Ambiance & Amenities

Galveston Island offers big-city amenities with small-town convenience. It offers island ambiance, a temperate climate, and historic charm, all only 30 minutes from Houston's Hobby Airport.

For meetings, Galveston Island offers 4,000 sleeping rooms and more than 130,000 combined square feet of meeting space at various hotels. The Galveston Island Convention Center at Moody Gardens features 37,500 square feet of exhibit space and 11 fully equipped meeting rooms with movable acoustic walls in 9,100 square feet of space. The center is adjacent to the Moody Gardens Hotel that opened in late 1998 with 303 guest rooms and meeting space.

Two more hotels, the Hampton Inn & Suites (120 rooms) and the Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites (63 rooms) are now under construction and will open later this year. Two existing properties offer conference centers -- the 243-room San Luis Resort & Conference Center and the 230-room Victorian Condo-Hotel & Conference Center. Other meetings-oriented hotels on the island include the Galveston Island Hilton Resort, Flagship Hotel Over the Water, Harbor House, Holiday Inn on the Beach, Tremont House, and Hotel Galvez, a historic, beachfront hotel recently restored to its original 1911 grandeur.

Moody Gardens: A Complete Meetings Package

Moody Gardens offers everything needed for a great meeting -- a luxurious new hotel just steps away from a spacious convention center and numerous attractions, all surrounded by a tropical paradise just 45 minutes south of Houston via I-45.

This outstanding meeting package became complete last year when the Moody Gardens Hotel opened in the midst of the 242-acre Moody Gardens recreational-education complex on Galveston Island. The 303-room hotel offers more than 20,000 square feet of meeting space, including a 15,000-square-foot ballroom. A business center, full-service spa and salon, exercise facilities, fine dining, and exotic outdoor pool complete the experience.

A covered walkway directly connects the hotel to the Galveston Island Convention Center at Moody Gardens, which features 9,500 square feet of meeting room space and 37,500 square feet of exhibit space.

The Moody Gardens complex provides one of the most exotic and unique meetings destinations in Texas. Guests can enjoy white-sand beaches and blue lagoons, cruise Offats Bayou aboard a Paddlewheeler, or visit lush gardens. Moody Gardens also is home to America's first 3D IMAX Theater and thrilling IMAX Rideflim theater. Its Rainforest Pyramid has more than 1,700 species of exotic plants and animals, and the NASA-built Discovery Museum's Mars Habitat exhibit complements 60 other interactive space exhibits.

Last June, yet another spectacular attraction debuted. The Aquarium at Moody Gardens is one of the world's largest aquariums, with 1.5 million gallons in a 130,000-square-foot pyramid. Marine life from various oceans of the world are on display in fascinating exhibits.