Pros:
- very comfy bed…read more- cruelty free toiletries available in the shower and bathroom, various herbal / fresh citrus scents that were not too strong
- very friendly front desk staff that accommodated our needs around check out - we were able to keep luggage with them for many hours after check out and extend our parking time for no fee. The woman who checked us in was very friendly and gave us a tour of the common areas
- entrances are locked to the public and secured with a password for extra safety
- our room was big
- I was pleasantly surprised to see that they offer Nespresso coffees with lots of fix ins available (even dairy free milk in the fridges!), grab and go snacks like Himalayan Gold popcorn and flavored almond mixes, and fresh made more substantial snacks like a chia seed pudding with coconut flakes and pineapple that was so good, I had it twice! Also available at any time in the fridges were Apple streussel yogurt parfaits and hard boiled eggs. Chocolate chip cookies are baked throughout the day.
- nicely decorated lounge area on first floor and deck patio space
- you are able to leave items in a designated shared refrigerator space in the kitchenette on the first floor, a clever solution to no fridges in the rooms (at least not in mine). The thought of a communal, unmentioned fridge with strangers did give me pause though, but it's nice they offer it.
Room for improvement:
- I understand I came in a heat wave and summer is not prime season in Salem, but the room was so warm. The air conditioning would not go below 67° setting, but the real room temp was always much higher according to the thermostat (this morning it was 76!) I was sweating and had a hard time sleeping. They gave us a box fan when we asked if the AC could go any lower...I wasn't even sure it was on....and that helped a little but still wasn't enough. Please let people turn down the temp so they can sleep without waking up sweaty! The AC units also made a decently loud bubbling noise
- this seems to be in a part of town near where an unhoused group of people hangs out. To walk to the off site parking lot, which was not far away at all thankfully, you have to walk through a big park full of many unhoused people, some begging or shouting. It made me feel a bit unsafe and I wasn't thrilled to leave my car in an area of town like that. Head's up. On our last day here, there was also a seemingly unhoused woman hanging out on the front steps of the hotel's (beautiful!) lawn for many hours. At one point when we walked by, she was starting to get aggressive and shout at people walking by.
- the bar in the lounge area, prominently featured on their website, is non functional as they do not have a liquor license, which would have been a nice place to enjoy a cocktail
- the tvs have lots of streaming apps advertised on the TV main screen, but none are logged in to the hotel's account. I guess that's standard in some cases, but it felt frustrating to not be able to watch a lot of what was shown to us.
- not the hotel's fault, just a product of the location (which was otherwise very convenient and centrally located!), but there were loud cars with booming stereos driving by at all hours of the night on a weekday that occasionally woke me up.
- the lot they let you park in temporarily while you unload luggage, while a nice gesture and made moving bags much easier, is very tight and took quite a few maneuvers to be able to get out of.
- there's really only one heavy duty lock on the door, but overall the closing mechanism felt very lightweight and I didn't have a ton of confidence in it. We were only given one key for two people staying in one room.
Overall, the location and service were nice, but the temp issue was pretty hard to get past since it made me feel so stifled. The snacks came in handy more than once, but for the price, I'd look around at other locations before automatically coming back here, I imagine you could find something cheaper that isn't on the fringes of a sketchy neighborhood. It is right next to Hauswitch, which was one of my favorite shops in all of the many, many options in town, so that's a plus, but they really need a better AC system for summer guests. Thank you for a cozy stay other than that and for such welcoming treatment!