SanFrancisco - NewYork

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I've seen beautiful Super 8's and horrible ones, just like most of the other chains.

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I'm finding that to be very true on this trip. One thing that helps with Super 8 - pick up a printed directory. If the particular hotel has a "Pride of the Super 8" banner, it's going to be good. On this trip (last day today - will be home tonight!) I've stayed in 5 Super 8's - I would rank one excellent (Durango CO), one very good (Van Buren AR), two "OK" (Moab UT, Dodge City KS), and one terrible (Page AZ). Both Motel 6's I stayed in were very good (Holbrook AZ, Yuma AZ).

One good thing about Super 8 is that there wi-fi service seems to be consistently good, The one I stayed at in Elk City OK had the most pathetic breakfast spread I have seen at any motel. For a one night stay all i need is clean bed and floor, hot shower and wi-fi and coffee and a muffin in the morning. If the furniture is a little worn, I don't care. I'm usually outta there by 7 am anyway. I just sayed five nights in five different motels and the details of each are starting to get fuzzy. They were all clean with a shower and wi-fi. Although the Comfort Inn in Santa Fe NM was a dissapointment. I used a coupon which gave me a good rate, but it had a depressing interior corridor and was one floor down from the lobby. Somehow the window was still on the first floor. I guest it must have been on a hill. At first glance the room looked like a winner and then I saw a big ugly cigarette burn in the beadspread, even though it was a non-smoking room. later I tried to log into the wi-fi, but had to glom onto the signal of the motel next door. That signal faded out and for a short time I got oin the comfort Inn signal, only to have that fade out too. After that I couldnt get any signal. I decided to take a nice hot shower, and discovered there was no hot water. In the morning I mentioned it and the desk girkl just said you should have let us know last night. Yeah right, Im ready to crash and I'm gonna mess around changing rooms when all my stuff is already scattered all over the room? Forget about it.

I actually had some problems with Super 8 wifi this trip. More and more of them are using a commercial proxy which does not always play very nice. The one in Page is using one that has an invalid security certificate which was a real pain to get around - and it kept freezing and logging me off. This is unsat. The one in Dodge City is using one that is incompatible with Windows 2000, and I had to call their tech support and get a static IP to be able to use it, then it worked fine. My room in Moab did not get a strong enough signal to log on, I had to head for the lobby to use it. The one in Van Buren was slow slow slow, it looked like an overloaded DSL connection. Durango worked great.

Super 8 is not the only one with lousy wifi - I had a lot of issues everywhere this trip. I'm almost tempted to get an aircard. There is no reason why an old IBM Thinkpad with a Linksys PCMCIA wireless card and Win2K shouldn't be able to work well - it works fine on my home wifi and in hotels that use a simple system. It worked great in a mom and pop motel that had a simple home grade router connected to a cable modem sitting behind the front desk, even though I was only getting about 20% signal strength in my room.

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Originally Posted by Midwest Michael

Welcome to the RTA Forum, Rainman!


I too am a big fan of the roadside coupon books, although you have to watch them for restrictions. Often times the discounts are only available on weekdays and for a room with only one bed, and only if you walk up (no reservations). However, as long as you know what the restrictions for a coupon are, they can be great, and I've found some excellent deals with them.

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Could you please tell me what is this coupon book and how do you get one?

Shane

As was said in the previous posts, motel coupon books are usually available at highway rest areas and information centers. They can also be found at some truck stops or diners located near a freeway. There are a couple different companies that produce them and they usually are organized either by state or region.

Ok I went back and read the posts again. Missed the bit about state centres. I guess thats the tourist information centre. I'll see about getting one of these books when I land in LA

Shane

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Originally Posted by carshamus

Ok I went back and read the posts again. Missed the bit about state centres. I guess thats the tourist information centre. I'll see about getting one of these books when I land in LA

Shane

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Shane, the information centres of which Michael speaks are out along the highway, mostly at the State borders.

You can however, also get those coupons on the net. I do not know the web address, but I am sure if you are any good at doing a Google search, you will find them.

Let me warn you though, that even though most offer Microwave and/or fridge, in my experience cleanliness is not always top of their list.

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Originally Posted by AZBuck

Comfort Inns

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seconded.

stay in cities with reasonably-sized dots on the map and you'll be good.
this is a useful tool for finding their hotels along your route

btw, depending on your budget, some Hilton-brand hotels (including hilton, doubletree, etc) can be had for ~$100 in some cities. If you're nervous about a certain stay/city it might be worth it to you to stay somewhere like that.

I would keep an eye out for newer hotels. I have found that all of the chains out there, whether its Days Inn or Holiday Inn will have nasty rooms. The nasty places tend to be the older hotels that are not kept up. If the place is new or recently renovated, chances are it wont be a dump. If you do take a room tour before checking in(here in the States you are allowed by law to inspect a room before actually laying down money for it), chances are you will get a show room that is rarely used. My sister works maid service in a large chain motel(its an older facility and not really maintained all that well) and let me tell ya, there are some horror stories about what gets done to rooms. If she didnt take pics, I would never believe it.

If you are just driving around and getting rooms without online reservations, ask around, the local tourist center or visitors center can be of great help when it comes to choosing a nice place for a little cash. They might even have suggestions for out of the way bed and breakfast places for the same or less money.

I went ahead about 2 weeks ago and booked our hotel accommodation in LA. The booking is at the custom hotel which sounded like a very different to stay from the online feedback plus they had 50% of the rooms. We were looking forward to staying there. Unfortunately I have just received a email from the booking agent telling me the custom hotel has went into receivership and there future is uncertain. I can see that in these difficult times if your booking ahead a few months it could pay to keep an eye on your bookings in case anything nasty happens. I will be canceling our booking and going elsewhere as we have another 3 months till we fly to LA and begin our trip. Last thing I want is for us to land in LA after 20 odd hours flying to find the door closed at our accommodation.

Shane