After being informed by my employer that I would be on business travel to the Mt. Laurel area for 6 Months, I knew I had some work cut out for me in finding a good hotel that I would be able to handle for that period of time. Some of my co-workers have been on travel in the area and they recommended this hotel over the Residence Inn. I was told that the residence in was fairly new, however, was extremely unclean.
With that in mind I went ahead and booked the Towneplace Suites for a month of my 6 month stay, just in-case I would want to switch to a different hotel down the road. The exterior of the hotel makes it look very modern, and clean. Upon entering the building I began to understand why people said the hotel is outdated, which it definitely is. The lobby is very small, but what more do you need for an EXTENDED stay hotel? The staff was very personable, and even told me about the weekly raffles they do for Marriott rewards points. Being the winter, they have a raffle where you chose one out of two NBAl teams playing that night. If you choose the winning team, you receive 500 bonus Marriott points!
The door between the lobby hotel rooms sounded like one in a secured building / jail. You needed to use your key to enter this part of the building. Although this might have lead some people to question the location of the hotel, I liked it because it definitely made me feel safe. Going up to my room on the 3rd floor (of 3 floors) via the old creaky elevator, you could really start to see the age of the hotel by the style of carpet and wallpaper.
When I arrived at my room, I was pleasantly surprised at how clean it was. The kitchen, bathroom, sofa, and bed all looked to be kept up well! The sofa was located at the foot of the bed, and would NOT be good for a family with children as stated in other posts, but for my short term business travel needs it was perfect. The bed was comfortable, couch was hard but clean, and the kitchen had all of the supplies one would need to cook dinner for 1 or 2. The room also had a table, which being on business travel I used more for a desk than anything, and a fairly good sized closet.
The TV is in somewhat of a weird spot, but you can easily make it work so that you can see the TV from the table (desk), sofa, and bed, with a small turn of its stand. Since I was staying in the hotel for an extended period of time, I wanted to be able to watch netflix so I brought along my PS3. Go to find out, that these are very special hospitality flat screen TVs where you can hook up devices to their inputs, but will not be able to change the input on the TV to view them. They only give you a comcast remote, and the TV has no buttons on it to change these settings. (I looked for a universal remote, and have not been able to get one to work).
Another downside was the speed of the internet. My god was it one of the slowest I have ever used. They have a wired hookup in the room, and have wireless throughout. One of the most annoying things was that you had to renew your internet connection, agreeing to terms and conditions, every 24 hrs.
Overall this hotel had everything I needed and served its purpose. The hotel was only $57 a night, so for that rate it has gone WAY past what it had to do. The hotel was clean and had enough amenities to get by for 6 months.