Semi-budget Philadelphia Area Hotel

[disneysteve]

Hi, I also agree with staying in either Old City or Center City. Much easier than driving back-and-forth to a suburban location each day.

While I agree that staying "on site" is easier, it also tends to be more costly, as OP is discovering. We have traveled to numerous major cities: NYC, Washington, DC, Boston, San Francisco, etc. and we have often opted to stay some distance away to save money. When we go to DC, we always stay in either Arlington or Alexandria and take the Metro into town. For Boston, we stayed in Dedham and either drove or took the train. For NYC we stay in Secaucus, NJ or at the Meadowlands. Doing this has saved us thousands of dollars over the years in hotel costs.

 

[badblackpug]

I don't know what your price point is, but both the Hilton Garden Inn, and the Society Hill Sheraton have rooms that will accommodate 5.

There is also a Residence Inn in Deptford, NJ that has a pool and is about a 25 minute drive.

 

[trinchick]

Another vote for the Marriott across from City Hall. We stayed there a few years ago using Priceline (which I know you said isn't an option for you, but I definitely think it could work; we brought our DD and had no trouble getting two beds. I'm sure they'd let you rent a cot for $10-$15 a night additional) and the cost was very reasonable.

The location worked out very well for us. We found a garage in Chinatown (block away) where we parked our car for the entire stay for $10 a day. We were right across from Reading Terminal Market so had breakfast there every day. Also walking distance to subway station for our trip to a Phillies game. And Philly Phlash stopped right outside our hotel.

 

[gillenkl]

If you go on groupon.com under Philadelphia there is a special for embassy suites downtown - $99 that you might want to checkout.

 

[disneybound31]

subbing...planning a trip to philly for June

 

[Karenj2]

We've stayed at the Courtyard Marriott Downtown which is right across the street from the city hall. When we booked, they were having buy one night, get one night for free, so it made the hotel very, very affordable for us.

Slightly outside the city (we had family living in Bala Cynwyd that we were visiting), we got a room at the Crown Plaza City West on City Ave. right off of 76. We got it through Hotwire and got a great rate. I forget the name of the road, but there's a road right next to it that takes you down to the Schuykill River and you can take it all the way into Philly... it's a very nice, scenic drive that avoids the highway congestion.

DH and I have stayed there too - it was nice, and relatively reasonable. We live nearby (about an hour away), and we were deliberately staying overnight in the city. We've also stayed at the Indepence/Independant Hotel - something like that. I liked that one too, and would probably try that again, but the night we stayed the street crowds seemed VERY loud - we had a hard time sleeping...

*IF* you should decide to go outside of Philly, another good area to look is along the R5 regional rail line - that way you can leave your car behind. Towns like Ardmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Radnor*, and even King of Prussia or Valley Forge (a bit farther off the Main Line) probably have hotels. (*The Radnor Hotel is where I had my wedding 15 years ago - I think it's still getting good reviews - not sure of the pricing, though.) King of Prussia, Valley Forge and Devon seem to have some chain hotels that you'd be more familiar with. The R5 line is a commuter rail, so it's generally very clean/friendly, and it can drop you off at 30th Street Station or the Reading Terminal Market.

If you didn't mind a farther drive, and wanted to catch some of the battlefields, I live near Longwood Gardens and the Brandywine Battlefield, and can recommend some local hotels for you... Oh, and the plus to where I live is I'm halfway between Lancaster (Dutch Wonderland, Hershey, outlet shopping, a Train museum, Amish farms/corn maze in the fall) & Philly, in case you wanted to see more than the city.

 

[3boymthr]

Thanks for the tips everyone. We priced it out and several places looked really good (really liked some of the places in Mount Laurel and the Springhill Suites definitly was in our price range - of about $1,000 for the week - with AAA savings) but just couldn't make a week in Philly (with visits to Valley Forge and a couple of days in Hershey) fit in our budget. Not because of the hotels but because even with continental breakfast we'd have to eat out twice a day and with 5 people that gets pretty pricey - our food budget for the week was going to be equal to the budget for the hotel - and then add on the cost of activities. Usually we rent a cottage or condo for a week at the beach or in the mountains and the food budget is only $50 more than our regular food budget as we only eat out one time and we spend our time doing free stuff all week (swimming/hiking, etc). We've moved on (well back) to either renting a cabin on Moosehead Lake (Greenville, ME) or a cottage in the Outerbanks (Hatteras Island area).