PDA

View Full Version : Staybridge Suites?



tlovesdis
03-26-2003, 11:58 AM
Has anyone stayed there recently and if so can you tell me about it good or bad?

Thanks so much,
Tina in Antioch, CA

iceblue42
03-26-2003, 01:38 PM
Can't tell you from personal experience about the Staybridge since we're planning on going the early part of June but our travel agent's boss was just down there and she said the suites were very nice and a good size for larger families (good for us as we are a family of 6). Hope someone else can share their experience.

PARK_HOPPER
03-27-2003, 10:03 PM
Staybridge Suites is a newer hotel and opened in October 2001.

It is part of the Holiday Inn chain, and a Holiday Inn is next-door.

Staybridge Suites is modeled after Residence Inn and Homewood Suites. At this Staybridge, you share common facilities with the Holiday Inn (pool, jacuzzi, fitness), but the rooms are in their own building separate from Holiday Inn.

All of the rooms at Staybridge Suites feature full kitchens, unlike other suite hotels that may only provide a mini-frigerator, wet bar and microwave. All of the suites have VCR's.

The Staybridge offers four types of rooms:

Studio--sleeps 4 / 1 queen bed and 1 double sofa sleeper
King Suite--sleeps 4 / 1 king bed and 1 double sofa sleeper
1 Bedroom Suite--sleeps 6 / 2 double beds in the bedroom and 1 double sofa sleeper
2 Bedroom Suite--sleeps 8/ 2 double beds in first bedroom, 1 queen bed in second bedroom and 1 double sofa sleeper.

The hotel does not offer rollaway beds or connecting rooms.

They do provide free continental breakfast each morning. The hotel does not provide shuttle to Disneyland, they use the Anaheim Resort Transit System Trolley which is $5.00 per person, per stay. They also provide free parking.

This hotel accepts pets for a $75.00 non-refundable deposit.

You should be aware that the Staybridge does not provide "full" housekeeping each day. It's only done once per week, or per stay, whichever is less. They do provide replacement of towels, emptying of trash and making of bed.

If daily housekeeping including a daily change of bed linens is important to you, this hotel is probably not for you. If you can live with it the Staybridge offers great value, especially for a two-bedroom suite and you earn Priority Plus points.

A neat feature of this hotel is that they have a free evening reception on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Another "secret" feature is the FREE self-service laundry. They have four washers and four dryers...and they DO NOT charge (you pay for soap) for the use of the machines!

iceblue42
03-28-2003, 07:55 AM
Thanks very much! that's good info:)

Bill Catherall
03-28-2003, 08:40 AM
We'll be down there at the end of April and have been looking at the Staybridge Suites. We found an online price of $90/night. But that's a guaranteed stay, meaning no cancellations. From what I've seen so far, it looks really good.

The big rooms, the kitchen, the breakfast, and the low price that we found are basically what we're looking for. It's not really close to Disneyland, but with a quick ride on ART it really doesn't matter.

jslivinski
04-02-2003, 03:44 PM
I'll look forward to reading everyone's reviews. As a Residence Inn customer this sounds like a good alternative.

Bill Catherall
04-29-2003, 02:32 PM
We stayed there for 4 nights last week. Tue 4/22 through Sat 4/26. We had a 2 room suit which cost us $179/night (the internet rate). We had 4 adults, 2 kids, and 1 baby in the room. One room had a queen bed and a bathroom. The second room had 2 full beds and a bathroom. There's really a third room between the two bedrooms that has a sofa sleeper, TV, and a full kitchen. The rooms are very nice and clean. The kitchen has a dishwasher, sink, microwave, stove top, and a refrigerator. No oven. It also has all the plates, glasses and utensils you'd need. I wouldn't say the rooms are huge, but they are roomy enough.

The hotel offers in-room movies and high speed internet either through the TV (with an IR keyboard) or through a data port you can connect your computer to. Both of these features cost extra. Other than that you get standard cable TV. In fact all 3 rooms had their own TV.

The beds were comfortable but the pillows were a little too flat for my taste.

The hotel pool and hot tub are very nice, big, and clean.

We had a room on the first floor right out in front, which faces the freeway. And it's very close to the freeway. You could spit on it from the front door. (Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but not much.) That made for a bit of a noisy bedroom. However, I only really noticed it in the mornings and it never kept me up at night even though I slept right by the window. Nobody else seemed particularly bothered by it either. It might have been worse on the upper floors. I don't know.

The breakfasts are served by the lobby and have a menu that changes day to day. So you aren't being offered the same thing everyday which is a bit refreshing. On the 3 breakfasts we ate (Saturday's breakfast doesn't begin until 8:30am and we had to check out at 7:30am) the changing "menu" items were scrambled eggs and bacon on day 1 (the scrambled eggs looked like they were boxed and reheated patties), pancakes and sausage on day 2, and biscuits and gravy on day 3. The other items that are there daily are cold and hot cereal, toast, english muffins, bagels, boiled eggs, donuts, and other pastries. They offer milk (fat free, 2%, and whole), sodas, and juices to drink.

In some evenings they also serve snacks to hotel guests. Tuesdays and Thursdays is chips and salsa. Wednesday is barbecue night.

The hotel lobby has a nice atmosphere with a small fireplace and nice woodwork. It's not as elaborate as the Grand Californian, but it looks like somebody made a "budget attempt" at that kind of theme. It gives it a bit of a cozy feel to it.

It also looked like there were basketball and tennis courts available, but I didn't go out and explore them.

The only downside to the hotel is the distance. To get to and from the Resort you have to use the ART bus system (unless you want to drive it yourself or call a taxi). From my experience ART is not very reliable and hardly ever on time. They claim that a bus will arrive every 10 minutes (or 20 minutes depending on the time of day), but that isn't always the case. And if they do arrive on schedule they are so small that you may not get a seat and will have to wait around even longer. This is usually a problem in the mornings when everyone is leaving the hotel for a day at the parks. Returning to the hotel wasn't such a problem.

But there was one time where we wouldn't fit on the bus leaving the parks. We had 3 babies with two strollers, 3 young kids and only 3 adults. An attendant at the Resort stop saw our dilemma and immediately called up another bus to come pick us up. He came within 2 minutes and had us loaded and off to our hotel. I thought that was a very nice touch. In other cases where the bus was too full to pick up any other riders at the other stops the driver would call it in and request another bus to come get them instead of just leaving them stranded for another 20 minutes.

So although the system isn't perfect they seem to be doing their best to serve the riders. And for $5 for a 3 day adult pass, that's not bad (kids under 10 are free). The ride to or from the park is about 5 minutes. If you need wheelchair assistance to the park, many of the buses are equiped with lifts and places in the bus to strap in the chairs. Strollers are allowed, but must be folded up.