Outside the city but near anything you possibly need
Written: Dec 29 '07 (Updated Dec 29 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Suites available, full kitchen great for families. Amenities and breakfast. General vicinity good for shopping.
Cons: East Spokane, well past downtown if that's your need.
The Bottom Line: For larger families needing more space and amenities this is a solid choice. Overall vicinity is also a plus for shopping and dining.
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| imaginetr's Full Review: Residence Inn Spokane E Valley |
Price = B+, Location = B+, Amenities= A, parking = B, Room = A, Pool = B,
We stayed three nights, two days in late August, attending my nieces wedding. At the time of our stay we are a husband & wife with three kids, 6, 3 & 1 1/2. So, we needed space. We're always seeking out hotels with 2 bedroom suites and they seem hard to come by. Residence Inn is a good choice for us. This is the second stay in a Residence Inn for us, the other was in Portland, Or.
This hotel is in East Spokane, well past the city center and just off of the I-90 freeway making it easy to get to. I gave the location a B+ because while it is well past the City Center, it was an easy hop on the freeway for us to get back downtown or back to South Hill to visit family. However, It's not in a place where you could step outside and walk to the riverside park or downtown shopping and restaurants. You still have to drive and find parking for that.
Parking at the hotel was competitive. It seemed there wasn't enough parking near each 'wing' of the hotel to accommodate all guests staying in that particular wing so if you come back too late you may have to walk a little further. Otherwise parking was well lit and clean. Room keys provide access to all but the main entry which does not require a room key.
We stayed in a two-room suite. Each bedroom has it's own full bath, closet, TV, dresser, full window with sheers and darkening drapes and queen bed. Not a lot of floor space all around the bed but sufficient.
The bedrooms are separated by the main living room and kitchen combined. The kitchen has a full fridge, stove/oven, microwave, cabinets, dishwasher and one sink. Dinning ware is included. Having three kids, the fridge and microwave are surely needed.
The room HVAC worked effectively and is controlled within the room.
The hotel includes breakfast in the main lobby. This is a full breakfast with eggs, sausage/bacon, biscuits, gravy, fruit, pancakes or waffles, milk, juice, cereal, pastries, toast, coffee and yogurt. Definitely enough to fill up on. The dining room is a good size and there is a conference room immediately off the dining room that allows for overflow of diners if the first room fills up.
In the evening, there is complimentary wine and beer in the lobby for a limited time, I believe 6-7:30pm? Coffee is also readily available in the lobby during the days. There is also a large, flat screen TV over the fireplace in the lobby and comfortable couches and chairs to sit on.
The rectangle Pool is modest in size and ranges in depth from about 3.5' to 5' so toddlers must be accompanied. The water, in August was cool, perhaps 80ish. If you know pool water, that's cool. There is a hot tub immediately off the pool, in the deck and was quite hot. Still, you know that could vary at any given visit. It's nice to have. All deck surfaces are ceramic tile. Towels are provided. Restrooms and saunas are outside of the swimming pool area with no direct access into the pool area. Room keys provide access. All in all an average pool, good for a dip and kids always like pools.
The general vicinity is a plus. The Spokane Valley Mall is just down the street. I suppose you could walk it, there is a continuous sidewalk and only one main intersection to cross. Besides the actual mall itself, there are dozens of other retail stores surrounding the mall including major stores such as Circuit City, Best Buy and more. Numerous places to eat from subway to Red Robin and more.
Still in the vicinity, within a short driving distance across the freeway and up the hill is even more retail including major grocery stores such as Safeway, Fred Meyers, gas stations, fast food outlets, and many other misc. stores and banks. So the general vicinity has everything you might need should you forget, lose or want something.
Travel time. We did drive the freeway downtown to the Riverside park one day and did not have trouble with traffic, this was a Friday. Other trips using the freeway were no trouble also. Also, as luck would have it, the wedding was in North Spokane at Bozarth Mansion which meant that instead of taking the freeway back to City Center and then taking the painful stoplight route through Spokane, we could take the less crowded back highway and much more scenic route through the country. Either way maps out about the same in distance but less time using the back way and better scenery.
We paid $169/night + tax. Overall worth it. Factor in no "additional" breakfast , parking or recreation costs as we likely would have paid downtown. We made a trip to the grocery store and used the fridge which was also a benefit of convenience.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
imaginetr
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Location: Pacific Northwest, Washington
Reviews written: 33
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
Husband and father, born in Washington 1961, military brat and college grad.
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