canyonwalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
canyonwalker) wrote2023-09-16 10:31 am
canyonwalker) wrote2023-09-16 10:31 am
Entry tags:
Away2 Home2 Suites
When I drove out to Roseville Wednesday evening ahead of a customer visit Thursday morning I stayed at a Home2 Suites hotel. Home2 Suites is one of the many brands in the Hilton Hotels portfolio. (How many? Hilton currently has 18 distinct brands.) Although Hilton is one of the collections of brands I always check when I'm planning a trip, this is only my second stay at a Home2 Suites ever... and my first stay was over 6 years ago.
Why so few stays? Well, that one stay years ago kind of turned me off the brand. I felt they were cheaping out compared to other budget-business traveler brands, and their style of marketing to Millennials rubbed me the wrong way.
This stay reminded me that there's not anything fundamentally wrong with Home2 Suites. Maybe their materials seemed cheap 6 years ago, but nowadays they seem in line with most other mid-range hotels. And their rooms are more spacious than most. The photo above shows a room with a king bed, a bureau, a sofa, and a generously wide desk. Oh, and there's a kitchenette!
This kitchenette is actually a plus vs. most other mid-range hotels. It lacks the stove top that Residence Inns have, but the full size fridge and microwave (which Residence Inns and a few others also have) is a big improvement over the dorm-size refrigerators and tiny microwaves common in most other hotels. The full size fridge means that on a longer stay I can stash some mornings eats and evening snacks in the room... and if I take home half a pizza after dining out, there's no worries about fitting that pizza box in the fridge.
Speaking of eats, Home2 Suites' breakfast remains a minus. This is where the brand's Millennials-focused marketing turns me off. They style their breakfast as young and hip and appealing to a younger, hipper clientele. They contrast it with the staid, generic, prepackaged crap that other mid-range hotels have descended to offering. But Home2 Suites' breakfast is just fancy-looking prepackaged crap.
As with most Millennial marketing I hate, Millennials aren't the problem; it's the people writing the ad copy that treats Millennials as chumps that irks me. Well, with that big fridge I had plenty of room to bring my own dang breakfast... which I ate in my spacious room at the desk more than wide enough to spread my two computers out.
Why so few stays? Well, that one stay years ago kind of turned me off the brand. I felt they were cheaping out compared to other budget-business traveler brands, and their style of marketing to Millennials rubbed me the wrong way.
This stay reminded me that there's not anything fundamentally wrong with Home2 Suites. Maybe their materials seemed cheap 6 years ago, but nowadays they seem in line with most other mid-range hotels. And their rooms are more spacious than most. The photo above shows a room with a king bed, a bureau, a sofa, and a generously wide desk. Oh, and there's a kitchenette!
This kitchenette is actually a plus vs. most other mid-range hotels. It lacks the stove top that Residence Inns have, but the full size fridge and microwave (which Residence Inns and a few others also have) is a big improvement over the dorm-size refrigerators and tiny microwaves common in most other hotels. The full size fridge means that on a longer stay I can stash some mornings eats and evening snacks in the room... and if I take home half a pizza after dining out, there's no worries about fitting that pizza box in the fridge.
Speaking of eats, Home2 Suites' breakfast remains a minus. This is where the brand's Millennials-focused marketing turns me off. They style their breakfast as young and hip and appealing to a younger, hipper clientele. They contrast it with the staid, generic, prepackaged crap that other mid-range hotels have descended to offering. But Home2 Suites' breakfast is just fancy-looking prepackaged crap.
As with most Millennial marketing I hate, Millennials aren't the problem; it's the people writing the ad copy that treats Millennials as chumps that irks me. Well, with that big fridge I had plenty of room to bring my own dang breakfast... which I ate in my spacious room at the desk more than wide enough to spread my two computers out.