Days or Comfort Inn?
 

Continuing from advice I've been given about hotels and motels, does anyone have a particular experience of either of these chains or precautions about them? Which is considered the best of the two, or is there very little difference? Thanks, Clem

We stay in Comfort Inns quite a lot and are very happy with them. I believe they are nicer than Days Inns and usually get better ratings by AAA. They also have a great frequent stay club which provided us with 7 free nights on our last vacation.

I will not stay in a Days Inn because I have heard so many negatives about them ... Comfort Inns are usually just fine, though I prefer Holiday Inn Express, Hampton Inns or Residence Inns.

I've had only good experiences with various Comfort Inns.

A new Day's Inn in a good section of town, will probably be much nicer than an older, ill kept Comfort Inn near an Expressway. And vice-versa. It's going to vary from place to place. Prices will vary accordingly. We have been in both, and I wouldn't pick one over the other.

We were in a nice, clean reasonablly priced Comfort Inn just a couple of months ago. We were well pleased with it even though it was on a busy highway surrounded by service stations, liquor stores, etc. It just LOOKED good. Imagine our surprise when we found out that strange huge building across the way was the new county jail. It couldn't have been in a worse location, but we were tired and it was there!

I can think of plenty of worse locations than acros sthe street from the county jail!

I also prefer Comfort Inn over Days Inn. They are more modern with better ammenities. Comfort Suites are quite nice and roomy for the price, too.

I also prefer Comfort Inns, and especially Comfort Suites. I have also had good experiences with Sleep Inns, as they are usually newer and have a price comparable to Comfort Inns.

Half dozen of one, six of another.

In general Comfort Inns are slightly better then Days Inns, but it really depends on each individual hotel - there are good and bad ones in both chains. An old Comfort Inn may not be as good as a newer Days Inn, etc.

When we do use motels we tend to stick to Holiday Inn Express (again, the newer ones are quite nice). The La Quinta chain is normally nice as well as are Hampton Inns.

Hampton Inns and Hol. Inn Express also serve a fairly decent continental breakfast, i.e. cereal, fruit, etc. are also included whereas some of the cheaper hotels will just have coffee and donuts.

Along with everything else in this world the location of a place is one of the key factors. If it is a nice area there generally will not be run down hotels/motels. Just stay clear of rundown neighborhoods. If a place does not look "quite right" to you pass it by. I know in our city many of the older motels (and I am not only talking about independents the county/city often uses them as a place to house "minor criminal types" - some not so minor too. Quite a fuss raised recently about paroled sex offenders being housed in older (independent hotels).

Just take a good look at the kinds of cars in the parking lot and the surrounding neighborhood. If it looks seedy, it probably is. If there are chain restuarants like Applebee's, Outback, it may indicate it's an OK area.

All the advice you have gotten is not meant to scare you about car travel in the US, but it is a good idea in this day and age to be a little more careful then it was back in the "old days" :-)

I think most of the big chains go through highs and low cycles. A few years back you could not have given me a room in a Holiday Inn, they have sence appeared to get thier act together. Latley I avoid Ramada. My experinences lately have been they are old and run down and not giving you any bargins onthe price. Ramada appears to be a little late to the party with thier veriosn of Holiday Inn Express ( for what they call it) As for Days and Comfort, right now they are about the same. Middle of the pack, some locations are good other need some help.

I've never stayed at a Comfort Inn, but I have stayed at a couple Days Inns, and as others have already said, some are good and others are not.

As others have said, both chains will vary from location to location.

As a guy who travels a couple hundred days a year for work, I have experienced more than my share of both. In general, Comfort Inns are more consistant than Days Inn. Not much help, huh.

Days Inns are usually dumps. Comfort Inns are much nicer.

I use the travelocity hotel section alot - even when I don't book with them - because they have the traveller reviews. It generally gives me an accurate idea of how nice or run-down a particular hotel might be. tripadvisor.com offers the same thing. We've generally been very happy with the Comfort Inn and the Comfort Suites. We use their frequent stay club and find it is pretty easy to accumulate free stays.

I've stayed in perhaps 20 Days Inns in the past 3 years. I can only remember one that was less than ok. There is a great variation in their continental breakfasts and some do not have the CB. Their rating system of 1-5 suns is pretty accurate. Comfort Inns are also nice but tend to be more expensive.

Book Days Inns on their internet site. Everyone gets their best rate which is less than the AARP or AAA rates.

I agree with those who say that it depends on the particular hotel. We've stayed in great Choice Hotels (the chain that owns Comfort Inn). We've stayed in some that weren't so great. The same goes for Days Inn. And, for that matter, Super 8 tends to be the same way. With all of those chains, if you stay in a relatively new one, you're probably going to be fairly happy with it. The older ones are more hit or miss.

However, as I typed this, I realized that I had just run across one exception. There's a fairly new Super 8 (probably less than five years old) a few miles from my in-laws'. The first few times we stayed there we were very happy with it. The last year or so, we've been increasingly unhappy with it. To the point where, when we were there last week, we tried the Microtel down the road. Purely by chance, a friend happened to mention to us that the Super 8 had changed hands a year or so ago.

Obviously, all of these chains are franchised. And while you would hope that corporate headquarters would exert some quality control, it really depends on the franchizee.

BTW, we were quite happy with the Microtel. And with an AmeriSuites we stayed in recently in Milwaukee. These are both chains I'd seek out again.

The age of the property does have a lot to do with it. In the "Choice Hotel" family, "Comfort" is one of the newer members (Sleep Inn is the newest, but you'll see a newer name soon. All Sleep Inns are new, not a conversion) and therefore will tend to be new properties. Days Inns were around at least in the early 70's, and you will tend to see a wide range of quality at them. Cendant Corp, parent of Days, HoJo, Ramada, Super8, and others, is going to start using customer surveys more heavily to decided what properties are deserving of an inspection, and will be dropping franchises for lesser faults than it once took. Competition for more quality is heating up and altho it will mean higher rates it will also mean more value as well for the customer.

We just returned from a long driving trip (Alabama to north rim of Grand Canyon), and I agree with the opinions expressed.

Of the chains we stayed in, we ranked Hampton Inn as our favorite, followed by Comfort and then Days Inn, some of which were nice, some iffy.

All the rooms we had were clean, but some were in need of renovation. Breakfasts varied greatly, from coffee and sweet rolls to ham and eggs, and one (Comfort Inn in Sedona) had cook-your-own waffles.

At least half of the rooms had refrigerators and microwaves, and I think every room had a coffee maker.

Since this was a plan-as-you-go trip, we had no reservations anywhere, and were always able to find an acceptable room, even in popular Sedona.

Byrd