Just got back from a 2-night stay. Here are my thoughts:
*It was a nice location; easy walk to the park, close to food places. We thought the walk was much nicer if you cross the street at the first light and walk down the DL side.
*There is a nice lobby and some on-site amenities like restaurant, pool table, and shops.
*The layout is very old-fashioned, with rambling 2-story buildings interspersed with atriums. I viewed this as funky chic and thought it was cool. My adult dd was less impressed, not having grown up when those things were common and therefore not experiencing the nostalgia factor, I guess.
*There is a huge pool, but we didn't use it so I didn't even go over to look. We could see it from our room, though, and it looked great.
*The staff was nice, albeit not what you'd find at DLR. For instance, the lady who checked us in had a handcuff necklace, facial piercings, and other sort of gothic-type fashion statements.
*The room was large, pretty clean and they did have a mw, small fridge, and bathroom amenities like shampoo, lotion, conditioner, and shower cap.
Now for the negatives:
*The decor was old and tired, the beds standard old motel beds, and the AC was either on or off. I'm funny and hate having air blowing on me, but when it's hot you have to do something. I just don't like having the AC blowing on me all night.
*It was a mistake to look too closely behind the fridge/mw, which I did when looking for an outlet for charging my phone. That and my next point are what made me give it a *pretty clean* rather than a *very clean* rating.
*There was a very bad odor that came out of the sink drain after running the water. We later noticed a bunch of gnat-like bugs congregating there and the smell was a sewer-ish odor. Very unpleasant; the smell permeated the whole bathroom and encroached on the room a bit. I think there must've been a hair clog or something along those lines in the line somewhere. It made it really hard for me to get water for my pill out of that sink or to brush my teeth, but I did both and survived. I knew it wasn't the water that was the problem.
*When taking a shower, I could NOT get the temp adjusted. I think other people using showers in other rooms impacted ours because it would be just right, then suddenly burning hot. By that I mean practically scalding--I literally had to call my dd in to change the setting for me because it was too hot for me to reach through to adjust. She had to turn the dial to almost completely cold before it was ok, and then after a few minutes, of course, it was totally cold. My dd had showered first and had no problems, though. I could hear the water running in the room next door during mine so I think that's what happened.
My conclusion: if I were to do it over, I'd pay the extra $30/night and stay at BWPPI. It's directly across the street from the main entrance and also a clean, standard motel. I like Hojo's, but their rate at the time of our stay was double what we were paying for APH.
SO...for $58, you get a good $58 basic motel room. If you're expecting or wanting more, then you'll need to pay more.