I had the pleasure of staying at this hotel with a friend over Valentine's Day weekend. I got an amazing deal via priceline. This was my second stay here and this place is awesome. Although it's an extended stay hotel, it covers all the bases and would be good for any type of traveler.
This hotel has a lot of freebies. There's a free breakfast buffet, a free dinner reception on certain nights during the week, free wi-fi, free internet in the business center, free fountain soda and coffee anytime, free USA Today, etc. There's a swimming pool, basketball court, gym, DVD player, and cable with lots of channels.
The breakfast buffet is very good. I've paid for worse buffets. There are scrambled and hard-boiled eggs, waffles, bagels, toast, yogurt, oatmeal, fresh fruit, french toast sticks, cereal, muffins, pastries, milk, juices, and either bacon, sausage, or corned beef hash. This buffet tided us over to dinner so we didn't have to worry about lunch. And if someone were staying for an extended period of time, there's enough variety that he or she could have something different everyday.
One minor gripe about the buffet is that I couldn't find any trays. I wanted breakfast in the room, so I had to make multiple trips. It wouldn't been nice to have a tray to transport the food and drinks. Another minor gripe about the buffet this time was there was no bacon, which is my favorite food. I hate sausage and that was the breakfast meat for all 3 days. There was enough other stuff. I just wish they would've changed it up with some bacon or taylor ham-anything but sausage.
The hotel is quiet and cozy with a fireplace greeting you when coming in from the cold outside. The rooms are nice. We just had a small studio room, but the hotel offers suites with 2 bedrooms and 2 baths that are huge. They all have full kitchens with things someone might need if they wanted to cook for themselves. It was nice to have a big refridgerator to store our leftovers in and to have plates and utensils to eat with. They have menus for Baldwins (really good pizza) and TGI Fridays if you want to order in. We used the DVD player to watch a lot of movies and the free wi-fi was fast.
There were a few minor problems we had with the room. We both agreed that the pillows were bad. They're too soft and not firm at all. We also found the pullout couch to be more comfortable to than the bed because it was right next to the air vent. We slept a little better over there.
The walls were thin. We could hear a baby crying next door (which didn't bother us) and we were very loud so I'm sure they could hear us too. The hotel wasn't very busy when we were there and we wondered why they put people so close together. Selfishly it would've been nice to have a few rooms between us and others so no one had to hear us, but I'm sure it's good for cleaning purposes to have everyone together. My friend was also disturbed by the black curtain that was there for decoration and wouldn't shut because she wanted the room as dark as possible.
Check-in and checkout were a breeze and all of the staff were friendly. Free Internet in the business center was nice for printing out directions and boarding passes even though nothing ever printed out quite right. There didn't appear to be any security. Anyone could come over, walk right in, enjoy the free breakfast buffet, and do some free laundry without anybody catching them. Everytime I walked in or out there wasn't anyone at the front desk. I didn't feel unsafe. It's just something I noticed.
The hotel is located very close to I-80, but it's secluded, there's no sign for it. and you'd easily miss your turn if you didn't know where you were going. I wouldn't recommend this as a New York City destinaton hotel. It's doable either by car or train, but that commute's a killer. It might be a good hotel to go to if you just need to go to the city once or every now and then.
Despite my very minor issues with the hotel, I would strongly recommemd this place to anyone because of the aforementioned amenities. None of the problems I had were dealbreakers and I will definitely stay here again. For the price I paid I coudn't do any better. It was cheaper than lower-rated hotels that offered no amenities and offered more amenities than higher-rated, way more expensive places, so staying here was a no-brainer.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC