Hampton Inn or Fairfield Inn?

[Babs Johnson]

I used to be partial to Marriott brands (Fairfield) but for about 10 years now I prefer Hilton (Hampton). Hampton is a step or two up from Fairfield IMO.

 

[sam_gordon]

First off, paragraphs are your friend.

I'm sorry you've had bad luck with Holiday Inn Express. We've only had good luck there. A lot of them are individually owned, so it's up to the owners to keep them in good shape.

OTOH, we DID have issues with the Residence Inn-Mystic when we stayed there a couple weeks back. The plumbing in one bathroom was leaking. They made a couple attempts to fix it, but it was still problematic when we left. They gave my DH 5000 points (Bonvoy, maybe?) as compensation. We would still stay there again--we like the hotel generally, and have had good experiences there in the past (I grew up in the area--this is the hotel we stay in when we're there).

Now that you mention it, the last couple of Residence Inns I've stayed at have been a little rundown. Nothing worth complaining about, just a lot of wear and tear in the rooms and public areas.

 

[DodgerGirl]

My parents and I also have tried Best Western hotels too and Best Western is really cool and you really get your money's worth and their beds are so comfortable and Best Western has the greatest pillows on their beds that are real soft that when you lay down on one of the pillows it feels like sleeping on a plush stuffed animal and I never had seen pillows very soft like these before. But Best Westerns I never ran into any problems with our room there at all. But I think Courtyard By Marriott needs improvement mainly in their housekeeping department because when my mom and I tried to get our room cleaned once we waited for a housekeeper to clean our room and when Mom and I finally called housekeeping the housekeeper finally came to clean our room in the afternoon before they left for the day and when my mom and I told my dad what happened to us he couldn't believe it. And as I mentioned earlier our first room at Courtyard had a leak and we had to go early in the morning to move to a new room and it was Thanksgiving and Mom and I were gonna go to the mall to see Black Friday sales and the whole entire time we stayed there the roof was never fixed because of renovations and then we had to deal with a fire drill just before we went to sleep and they never figured out the cause of the fire drill and guests were freaking out and everything. Did anyone ever witness these problems with Marriott hotels when you stayed at one?

 

[QueenIsabella]

My parents and I also have tried Best Western hotels too and Best Western is really cool and you really get your money's worth and their beds are so comfortable and Best Western has the greatest pillows on their beds that are real soft that when you lay down on one of the pillows it feels like sleeping on a plush stuffed animal and I never had seen pillows very soft like these before. But Best Westerns I never ran into any problems with our room there at all. But I think Courtyard By Marriott needs improvement mainly in their housekeeping department because when my mom and I tried to get our room cleaned once we waited for a housekeeper to clean our room and when Mom and I finally called housekeeping the housekeeper finally came to clean our room in the afternoon before they left for the day and when my mom and I told my dad what happened to us he couldn't believe it. And as I mentioned earlier our first room at Courtyard had a leak and we had to go early in the morning to move to a new room and it was Thanksgiving and Mom and I were gonna go to the mall to see Black Friday sales and the whole entire time we stayed there the roof was never fixed because of renovations and then we had to deal with a fire drill just before we went to sleep and they never figured out the cause of the fire drill and guests were freaking out and everything. Did anyone ever witness these problems with Marriott hotels when you stayed at one?

Again, paragraphs! You have a stream-of-consciousness posting style--nothing wrong with that, but it's hard to follow in big chunks.

Water problems can be a huge issue anywhere, and it's one of those things that will only get worse with time. The problem is, in a lot of cases, they have to take the room off-line to really fix a water leak, and hotels are loathe to do that. At our recent Residence Inn stay, we had no cold water in one bathroom. They came and turned on the valve under the sink. We found out the next morning, the valve had been turned off, due to a leak. They weren't able to fix it during our stay.

In 2018, we stayed in this hotel: https://www.hotelsbarriere.com/fr/collection-fouquets/paris.html
It was newly renovated. The toilet leaked. We complained several times, they came in to "fix" it several times, it was still leaking when we checked out. They needed to get a plumber in there for a few hours, with the room off-line. This is a 5-star hotel, right by the Champs Elysees, in view of the Arc de Triomphe. Allegedly a super nice hotel, but we couldn't pee without getting our feet wet.

 

[pks_domer]

We would have no problem staying at either-- we have Marriott points, but most of our points are Hilton, so we tend to do Hampton. We have two young kids and usually figure out the hotel while we are in transit, based on how the kids are doing and how far we feel like going that night. Whoever's not driving will just pull up the Hilton app and pick something 60-90 minutes before we want to stop. If there's no availability we'll just switch to a Marriott. Luckily, we've not really had to invoke a plan C other than maybe stopping a little earlier/drive a little farther.

 

[EACarlson]

Between the two I'd usually go with a Hampton. I also have status and a Hilton CC so I get bonus points. Now if I had a choice and could find one, I'd go with a Hyatt Place or Hyatt House over either one of the options above. But they aren't nearly as ubiquitous as Hampton or Fairfield. I end up staying between a few and a lot of nights annually at all of the budget versions of the chains. There isn't all that much of a difference between them overall, but vast differences in individual properties.

 

[disneychrista]

Whichever one costs less. I’m not a hotel snob.

 

[DodgerGirl]

Another Hilton owned hotel chain that my mom thought we would like but it was a disaster is Embassy Suites. And my parents and I were gonna try Embassy Suites when we went to visit Texas and from the time we got in our suite we had troubles. First the suite smelled smoky and there was no way to get the smoke smell out and we had to go to Target and buy Glade Air Fresheners to spray the suite which helped a little. Then when my parents and I got ready for bed we discovered our bathroom was leaking and it was spreading to the rest of the suite and we had to switch suites at 1AM and so we got the new suite and went to sleep and then we got up and discovered the air conditioner wasn't working and so we had enough. And so we complained to the manager of Embassy Suites and we got our money back and went to another hotel in Texas. We did get a goody bag and the only good thing about Embassy Suites was their free happy hour where we got popcorn but we never stayed at another Embassy Suites again

 

[sam_gordon]

Another Hilton owned hotel chain that my mom thought we would like but it was a disaster is Embassy Suites. And my parents and I were gonna try Embassy Suites when we went to visit Texas and from the time we got in our suite we had troubles. First the suite smelled smoky and there was no way to get the smoke smell out and we had to go to Target and buy Glade Air Fresheners to spray the suite which helped a little. Then when my parents and I got ready for bed we discovered our bathroom was leaking and it was spreading to the rest of the suite and we had to switch suites at 1AM and so we got the new suite and went to sleep and then we got up and discovered the air conditioner wasn't working and so we had enough. And so we complained to the manager of Embassy Suites and we got our money back and went to another hotel in Texas. We did get a goody bag and the only good thing about Embassy Suites was their free happy hour where we got popcorn but we never stayed at another Embassy Suites again

Again, a single stay should NOT turn you off to an entire chain. I've stayed at some REALLY nice Embassy Suites, and some that were just "OK". I've had fire alarms go off at 3am at Courtyards that kept us out of the room for an hour (when our alarms were set for 630a).

I've also been in worn down Hamptons and Holiday Inns.

When choosing a hotel, I look at TripAdvisor reviews if it's going to be a couple night stay. If it's just a single night (like in the OPs case), I'll go with the known entity (Hampton, Fairfield, Holiday Inn Express, etc).

 

[kymom99]

Again, a single stay should NOT turn you off to an entire chain. I've stayed at some REALLY nice Embassy Suites, and some that were just "OK". I've had fire alarms go off at 3am at Courtyards that kept us out of the room for an hour (when our alarms were set for 630a).

I've also been in worn down Hamptons and Holiday Inns.

When choosing a hotel, I look at TripAdvisor reviews if it's going to be a couple night stay. If it's just a single night (like in the OPs case), I'll go with the known entity (Hampton, Fairfield, Holiday Inn Express, etc).

Agreed. I even check the reviews for a one night stay. Sometimes reviews will point out issues with the location of the hotel which can be helpful.

I generally love embassy suites. I stayed at a nice one in Tucson. The room itself could have used some love, but the grounds and lounge were very nice. And that cooked to order breakfast can’t be beat.

Closer to home there is one in Lexington that is usually a good choice, but one time we got a corner room and it was freezing. We told the desk and they sent someone up, but it didn’t help. The whole hotel was cold.

 

[monsterkitty]

My parents and I also have tried Best Western hotels too and Best Western is really cool and you really get your money's worth and their beds are so comfortable and Best Western has the greatest pillows on their beds that are real soft that when you lay down on one of the pillows it feels like sleeping on a plush stuffed animal and I never had seen pillows very soft like these before. But Best Westerns I never ran into any problems with our room there at all. But I think Courtyard By Marriott needs improvement mainly in their housekeeping department because when my mom and I tried to get our room cleaned once we waited for a housekeeper to clean our room and when Mom and I finally called housekeeping the housekeeper finally came to clean our room in the afternoon before they left for the day and when my mom and I told my dad what happened to us he couldn't believe it. And as I mentioned earlier our first room at Courtyard had a leak and we had to go early in the morning to move to a new room and it was Thanksgiving and Mom and I were gonna go to the mall to see Black Friday sales and the whole entire time we stayed there the roof was never fixed because of renovations and then we had to deal with a fire drill just before we went to sleep and they never figured out the cause of the fire drill and guests were freaking out and everything. Did anyone ever witness these problems with Marriott hotels when you stayed at one?

Another Hilton owned hotel chain that my mom thought we would like but it was a disaster is Embassy Suites. And my parents and I were gonna try Embassy Suites when we went to visit Texas and from the time we got in our suite we had troubles. First the suite smelled smoky and there was no way to get the smoke smell out and we had to go to Target and buy Glade Air Fresheners to spray the suite which helped a little. Then when my parents and I got ready for bed we discovered our bathroom was leaking and it was spreading to the rest of the suite and we had to switch suites at 1AM and so we got the new suite and went to sleep and then we got up and discovered the air conditioner wasn't working and so we had enough. And so we complained to the manager of Embassy Suites and we got our money back and went to another hotel in Texas. We did get a goody bag and the only good thing about Embassy Suites was their free happy hour where we got popcorn but we never stayed at another Embassy Suites again

We stayed at AKL about a year after it opened for a few nights. We did a split stay - a week at POP and 3 nights at AKL.

We had absolutely no issues at POP.

AKL was a different story. We were in a balcony room so it was more expensive. The first day we were there, the shower dripped constantly. We didn't say anything because we are just go-with-the flow people. Housekeeping had maintenance fix it while we were out that day. The bed was incredibly uncomfortable. It seriously reminded me of the "mattresses" we had in our camper when I was a kid. It was very loud - the hallway, the room above us, and the people next to us. We won't mention the cost of breakfast at ALK compared to POP.

Using your reasoning of one bad stay at a hotel = all of hotels in that brand are trash, all WDW deluxe WDW resorts are trash but the Value resorts are amazing and have no issues.

In reality, while part of a chain, the majority of hotels are independently owned and operated. It doesn't matter what hotel brand you stay at, you may have issues.

You can't judge an entire chain because you had a bad stay at one of the hotels. As I showed, you can even have a bad experience at an expensive WDW resort, but that doesn't mean that the rest of them are bad or even that resort is bad. It could just be a one-off.

 

[QueenIsabella]

We stayed at AKL about a year after it opened for a few nights. We did a split stay - a week at POP and 3 nights at AKL.

We had absolutely no issues at POP.

AKL was a different story. We were in a balcony room so it was more expensive. The first day we were there, the shower dripped constantly. We didn't say anything because we are just go-with-the flow people. Housekeeping had maintenance fix it while we were out that day. The bed was incredibly uncomfortable. It seriously reminded me of the "mattresses" we had in our camper when I was a kid. It was very loud - the hallway, the room above us, and the people next to us. We won't mention the cost of breakfast at ALK compared to POP.

Using your reasoning of one bad stay at a hotel = all of hotels in that brand are trash, all WDW deluxe WDW resorts are trash but the Value resorts are amazing and have no issues.

In reality, while part of a chain, the majority of hotels are independently owned and operated. It doesn't matter what hotel brand you stay at, you may have issues.

You can't judge an entire chain because you had a bad stay at one of the hotels. As I showed, you can even have a bad experience at an expensive WDW resort, but that doesn't mean that the rest of them are bad or even that resort is bad. It could just be a one-off.

+1

Despite our issues with the Residence Inn-Mystic, we'd definitely stay there again. Although our issues didn't get fixed, they were clearly trying, and compensated us with Bonvoy points. Plus, we like the hotel and we like the location.

 

[RedAngie]

I belong to both Marriott and Hilton rewards programs so either is fine. It depends on location and price.

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

In Walterboro, SC.

We've stayed at the Hampton Inn there just at the end of last year. It's not the greatest, but not bad. It's just a place to stop and sleep. I remember it being quite expensive for being kind of in the middle of nowhere. I would probably stay there again just because we typically use Hampton.

 

[JLTraveling]

I picked Other. My choice is, "whatever's cheap and has availability whenever I'm ready to stop." For one night, as long as it's a bed with a bathroom and there aren't roaches everywhere, who cares?

But we usually drive until we're too tired to drive anymore, and then get going super early in the morning. So maybe it matters more if you're planning to spend a long evening at the hotel?

 

[kymom99]

I picked Other. My choice is, "whatever's cheap and has availability whenever I'm ready to stop." For one night, as long as it's a bed with a bathroom and there aren't roaches everywhere, who cares?

But we usually drive until we're too tired to drive anymore, and then get going super early in the morning. So maybe it matters more if you're planning to spend a long evening at the hotel?

I agree but one time on the way to Florida we couldn’t find a room with 2 beds in any of the reputable hotels when we were ready to stop. So we ended up at a quality inn a bit away from 75. It was pretty awful. We made due but from then on I planned out our stops.

 

[Cadiewampus]

I picked other. My choice would be a Hilton Garden Inn