Filmed on July 10-11th, 2024.

Here is the 2nd (the 4th filmed and actually stayed at) of 5 hotel tours from this trip to have been uploaded to the channel! This one being of a Residence Inn located halfway in between Downtown Harrisburg & Hersheypark! And not only is this just ANY Residence Inn, but an Old School/First Generation Residence Inn too!

From the time Residence Inn was first founded as a brand in 1975 up until the early 1990s, all Residence Inn properties were built using a Unique Apartment complex style design where each of the properties were laid out in groups of little 3 story houses, each with 8 rooms (4 accessible on 2 corners of each house) per house, and it gave the properties a VERY Homey & Well, RESIDENTIAL Feel to them. After about 1991, Marriott starting building Residence Inn properties more like Traditional Hotels (essentially making them Fairfield Inns with oversized rooms with Kitchens), and over the years, Marriott has slowly been getting rid of the franchisees who own these 1st Gen Residence Inns, and many of them have either been reflagged as Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham, MainStay Suites, Extended Stay, Sonesta or just flat out are becoming apartment complexes! This one, however, has survived so far, and I'm glad it has! I stayed at MANY of these growing up as a kid, and when I saw this place when looking at hotels to stay at when visiting Hersheypark and saw that it was actually quite a bit cheaper than the Days Inn, Howard Johnson and Travelodge properties closer to the park (The rates for this hotel started at $170 a night vs. $250+ for those!) combined with the nostalgia I'd get from staying here, I decided to book this place and give it a go.

And for the most part, this hotel delivered pretty well. This hotel was built in 1987 and most of the rooms in the hotel have that traditional Old School Residence Inn design, however, interestingly enough, this particular one has a 3 story interior Corridor wing that was added in the 2000s. As to why this was done, I have no idea, but it definitely makes this property more unique in addition to giving the place more room types for guests to choose from. (Funny enough the one I stayed at in Merrimack, NH as a kid was also like this, and that place is now an actual apartment complex) The room I got was a Studio in one of the original buildings which despite being the cheapest room available in this hotel (at $170 a night during my 2 night stay here) was still VERY SPACIOUS! You could EASILY sleep 4 people in the room with both the Queen Bed and Sofa Bed combined, and the bedroom area combined with the living area was absolutely MASSIVE and felt SUPER Residential, and this room also had a proper full and complete kitchen too with full on stove and an oven, a massive household fridge, you name it!
The room was VERY NICE, VERY Spacious & IMO is the proper way for an Extended Stay Hotel Room to be. In addition to that, there is BOTH an Outdoor Pool as well as an Indoor Pool in the addition, a Tennis Court, a Courtyard with Benches, and all added together it gives this place a very Residential & Peaceful vibe that feels both nostalgic as well as Homey & Community like which is just not something you get in many hotels. The exterior building layout is also an excellent design, from being great for situations like the COVID-19 pandemic and the buildings all set up in a way to where you can drive up to them like a motel, but the place doesn't feel like a cheap motel at all, but rather A HOME! (And the pools add a bit of a Resort vibe too)

With that being said, for as much as I loved a lot of things about this hotel and it's original 1st Gen Residence Inn design, that's not to say that this place doesn't have its drawbacks. While the owners have changed all of the Signage for the property recently and they've replaced a few furniture items and soft goods in the rooms here, you can tell that most of the decor and furniture in the rooms is on the older side and while it doesn't look terrible and it's definitely functional, a lot of it is definitely showing it's age. And in addition to that, there were a few housekeeping issues that are shown in the video as well. Nothing truly major to complain about here, but I do feel this hotel is just decent when it has the potential to be a really great one. It almost feels like this place is doing minor things to keep up with Marriott brand standards but is refusing to invest in a complete room renovation cause they don't know if they can keep the priperty as a Residence Inn in the long run.

Overall, this is a pretty good hotel for families as well as business travelers visiting the area, and I definitely enjoyed my stay here, and I thought it was a good value for the money/area. Like I said though, this mostly decent hotel could go from that to being something truly great.




MY RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Camera details:
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra
Mic: Built In

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