The Red Roof Inn in Bellmawr is a great place to stay if you're looking to save some money and planning to drive into Philly. It's in a benign suburban-sprawl neighborhood, near some fast food joints (McDonald's, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts) and a few other discount hotels that didn't look as nice. It's a quick drive into Philadelphia for a $3 bridge toll, and it cost us about 1/3 of the price of anything that looked decent in Philly itself. One downside is that it would be pretty tough to figure out how to take public transportation into Philly; the train station is too far to walk to, and I didn't see any bus lines or taxis. The parking lot at the hotel is free and spacious, but parking in downtown Philadelphia is expensive!

The hotel is pretty new, and everything in our room was clean and in good repair. We had a flat screen TV (the hotel model with no input jacks for our DVD player) and a hair dryer, iron and ironing board. No fridge or microwave in the room, but an ice machine and a microwave are in the lobby. The high speed internet worked great. The shower head is high, which my tall husband appreciates, and the hot water was steady. We liked the computer desk with its own lamp.

There is no pool or playground nearby, so kids will be restricted to the hotel room until you drive them somewhere. The only other clientele I saw were construction workers and sports teams, and I felt safe at this hotel. It's nice that the building is pretty new; there was no used-to-be-a-smoking-room smell and my clothes didn't smell like a hotel when I got home either.

If you don't get out of your room by 11am every day, the maids will not clean it, but you can get extra towels. The day manager seemed grumpy about our comings and goings--we were on California time with a 2-year-old so we never got out of our room "on time:--but everyone else was pleasant. We left our laptop computer and DVD player in the room for 5 nights without incident.

Overall, I would recommend this place to anyone who is OK with a budget hotel environment and who doesn't want to spend big bucks to stay in Philadelphia.