We stayed at the Residence Inn in Tempe from February 15 to 18, 2007. We were in Tempe for a wedding. It was me, my husband and our 16 month old son. We chose this hotel because it had two bedrooms and a separate living area plus a full kitchen with a refrigerator and because it was a good location.
We arrived at around 5:30 PM on the 15th and check in took less than two minutes. Very efficient. We'd requested a crib and a ground floor room. We got the ground floor room and the crib was in the suite already.
The suite itself was nice enough. It was a bit outdated. The cabinets were dark and looked very 1980's. The appliances were that beige color with knobs instead of buttons. The bar furniture was also big chunky dark wood ala 1985. But none of that took away from their use. The full size fridge had an ice maker. The kitchen was fully stocked with every kind of dish you could need. There was a 10 cup coffeemaker but not a lot of cream and sugar. Bring extra if you're a serious coffee drinker. There were two bedrooms. Unfortunately, they both had double beds; no queen or king. There were 3 TV's in the suite; two full bathrooms; three closets. The TV's had limited channels and there's no guide so you have to flip channels to see what's on. I brought my laptop and the hotel provided complimentary internet access. Our plug in was missing the little piece that snaps to keep it connected to your computer so I had to be careful and always check to make sure the cable was still connected. You also had to sign in every 24 hours so if you had anything going at the time when your 24 hours was up, you'd lose it. The bedroom doors aren't solid. They have panes of glass with sheer curtains over them which means you can't have lights on in the living area and have a dark bedroom. The showerhead in the bathroom we used was very old and leaked pretty bad. The towels are small basic hotel towels. It would be nice if they had bath sheets. Overall, the suite itself was good for our needs even though we had a few glitches.
The hotel provides free hot breakfast every day. That's a great benefit. We had eggs, sausage, potatoes, waffles, cereal, yogurt, juice, pastries, etc. They also have a nice pool area that was open and we used it. They provide towels at the pool and you use your room key to access the pool. The hotel is 100% non smoking. If you're caught smoking, there is a $250 fee. Our neighbors smoked like chimneys and the day they left we had to listen to loud carpet cleaning machines for a few hours.
The hotel is located directly across the street from the Arizona Mills Mall that has every store and food chain imaginable. It's also within a block of every fast food chain you can think of. Lastly, there's a CVS Pharmacy in the parking lot of the hotel which is very handy for buying juice, milk, etc. The hotel also offers room service from early AM to around 11 PM.
The only thing I didn’t like about the hotel was the $250 a night price tag. It was a nice suite but I don’t think the suite warranted the rate. I think $200 would have been more appropriate. But we needed that configuration and we’d never been to Phoenix so we went with what we could find online. I’d recommend this hotel but try to find a better rate. They also offer studio and one bedroom suites.
