Candlewood Suites Hartford Downtown by IHG — Hotel in Hartford

I am very glad that I decided to stay at the Candlewood Suites on my Hartford trip. I stayed for ten days and was comfortable the entire time. I was a little hesitant about wandering around outside, but I never saw any real reason to be concerned. It just looked a little rough, and there were not any places to eat in easy walking distance that I could see. I went to the grocery store, and made heavy use of the kitchen which worked out just fine. On the other hand, the location was great in that it was within easy driving distance of all of the places I needed to go but was located on a street without heavy traffic.

Inside the hotel, I had no problems. The bed was comfortable. The room was larger than I expected, and everything in it worked. The staff could not have been more friendly if they had tried! Everyone was unfailingly helpful and pleasant. The noise level was pretty good. There were two very loud events in the area while I was staying in the hotel, and I could hardly hear them once I got inside my room. I did get a little cross-room noise from the room next door that had a connecting door with mine. I never heard anything from the room on the other side except for the toilet paper roll moving (so there was someone in the room).

The room did suffer from the two problems that every Candlewood room I have ever stayed in has. Somehow, the company manages to find the world's loudest ice makers and dishwashers. Trust me. Turn the ice maker off before you go to bed. Best to run the dishwasher early enough that it is finished before you go to bed. Both are incredibly loud (as they are in all Candlewood hotels).

If I made one suggestion to the management, it would be this: put more utensils (especially spoons!) and coffee mugs in the cabinets. I do not wash dishes if I can possibly avoid it, and I ran the dishwasher many times with only a few items in it. I understand that they do not want more than the maximum occupancy in the room, but most people can use more than two spoons, knives, cups etc. in a single day.

Overall, I highly recommend this hotel, and I will definitely be booking a room here next time I need to come...

Really confused about all these great reviews - I suppose if you're used to staying in motor inns and motels this place is decent.

I had to stay at this hotel due to a last minute booking and every other hotel being sold out. I had stayed at another Hartford hotel last week, and while that hotel had it's own issues, I didn't realize how lucky I would have been to stay there again this week.

Lets do a quick pros/cons list.

Pros:

King size bed

Full kitchen (if you need/want that) that's rather new

Free parking

10 minute walk to the "downtown" area

DirecTV so you have a lot of channels to watch in the room

Probably the last hotel to sell out on the off chance there are a lot of events in town

Cons:

People live at this hotel. Saw people walking in in their Target uniform with their 4 kids. The pool always has a large number of screaming children - unusual for weekdays at 5pm.

Rooms seem nice, but stained towels were an unpleasant surprise. Plenty of hair not belonging to myself in the bed as well.

Moldy bathroom, poor water pressure and a fun mixture of cold and hot water.

Broken treadmill in the sad excuse for a gym.

Poor service from front desk. Asked for toothpaste and was told it was for sale (but they ran out), but I could walk down the road to a gas station was the best the front desk agent was willing to do.

Poor location - It's only a 10 minute walk to downtown, but across a number of major roads and under bridges. You also get to walk past a homeless shelter and a number of abandoned offices. It's not a safe area and not a place I felt comfortable walking.

Came back after a long day and my key didn't work. The woman at the front desk simply asked for my room number and made a new key. No ID, last name, any type of identifier that I was even staying there other than a generic hotel key.

All in all, it's a cheap hotel that was misnamed "Downtown" to attract people, even though it's certainly not downtown. I have spent over 50 nights on the road this year already, and this is hands down the worst hotel I've...

We booked this hotel for a theatre run and to visit Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe Museums. FYI… The hotel is in an isolated location with no food options nearby. The major issue we experienced was that our initial room and room we were moved to smelled like raw sewage. When we arrived in our first room, we noticed an off odor like a stinky diaper but wasn’t sure why it smelled that way. We had been traveling over 7 hours and had an event to get to. On the way back we purchased some air freshener, sprayed the entire room and crashed. We woke early the next more to the awful smell of raw sewage. Called the front desk and requested a room transfer. We were told that we had to wait for the manager. After an hour of no communication, my husband went to the front desk to express how bad this room smelled but he was told that the manager was not there and had not responded to the issue. An hour later the same response was given. When my husband returned, we could hear staff in the hall talking about the smell issue and they were completely familiar and aware that there is an issue! After about 4 hours, we were told that we would be moved. We were shown another room that initially smelled fine, we dropped our belongings and rushed off to our museum tours and a play. Upon our return, we noticed that this room also had the off smell of sewage though not as bad as the first room. Still it smelled of sewage. The hotel had posted signs indicating it was “Sold Out” so I knew we could not change rooms. I search for nearby hotels only to find that most hotels were sold out due to a few large events in the Hartford area that week and weekend. So we were stuck. I have never been so happy to leave a hotel as I was this one. Something is clearly wrong at this location and the Health department needs to investigate the issue. The manager was of no help and IHG sent me back to him after I called for their support! I do not recommend staying at...