Shae and I spent a week in Montpelier, Vermont last year on our 50 state road trip, so we wanted to come back to Vermont to see even more of the state.
We’re spending three weeks here this year, with the first of those weeks being in the Burlington area. Pet-friendly hotel and Airbnb prices in Burlington for our dates were fairly high, so we looked a little further afield.
I noticed the Hampton Inn Colchester had a decent rate when staying for 7+ nights, so we booked a week there. Colchester is only ~5 miles from downtown Burlington, so going for the lower cost option didn’t involve too much of a trek for when we wanted to visit Burlington.
Here’s a complete review of our stay at the Hampton Inn Colchester, Vermont. Read on to see why it’s an OK hotel, but also the reasons why I wouldn’t choose to stay there again.
Check-In
We’d stayed the previous night in Buffalo, so we didn’t end up getting to the hotel until about 8:15pm. We’d booked a room with two double beds as that had been the cheapest option, but asked if it would be possible to get a room with a king bed when checking in. The room was booked in Shae’s name and she has Gold status with Hilton, so I figured it wouldn’t be a problem changing room types like this, but it wasn’t so straightforward.
The front desk agent advised that a complimentary upgrade to a king room would’ve been possible if we’d only been staying one night, but not for a seven night stay. That must be a hotel-specific (or made up) policy, as that’s certainly not a Hilton Honors program policy.
She offered us an upgrade to a king suite for an extra $10 a night. Figuring this would give us the one bed in a much larger room, we agreed to that. Looking at their room types now though, it looks like we weren’t actually upgraded to a king suite.
Instead, we received a ‘King bed study with sofabed’. Other than the bed type, there doesn’t appear to be anything different about that room from the 2 double beds room we’d originally booked, other than the fact that it had a sofa bed rather than an armchair. It certainly wasn’t the ‘king bed studio suite’ pictured below which is more what I’d been imagining when she mentioned a suite.
The $10 per night surcharge is in keeping with the pricing differential between the ‘2 double beds’ and ‘1 king bed study with sofabed’ room types; it’s just a shame she referred to it as a suite as that was completely misleading.
Bedroom
The new room we were assigned was room 214. The hotel lobby is on the third floor as the property is on a hill, so we had to take the elevator down rather than up to get to our room.
When entering our room, the bathroom was on the left, with the bedroom ahead and round to the left.
Our king bed was very comfortable. The lamp on the left had a power outlet available, while there were several outlets and USB ports available on the right side of the bed.
In the corner of the room was the sofa bed. We didn’t make use of it as a bed, but it was a fairly comfortable couch. One downside is that there was no coffee table.
Opposite the sofa bed was a desk, office chair and coffee maker. There was a helpfully-placed set of power outlets at desk height.
To the right of the desk was a unit with a couple of dresser drawers and which also held the room’s TV, microwave and mini-fridge.
The TV channel selection was OK; there was no printed channel guide, but channel 1 listed current and upcoming shows on all the available channels.
Back towards the bathroom was the room’s closet. The closet and bathroom shared a sliding door, so when you closed one door, the other one was open which was a bit of a weird design.
Inside the closet was an iron, ironing board, luggage rack and some bedding for the sofa bed.
Bathroom
When entering the bathroom, the sink and long vanity were on the left hand side. Despite the vanity being so long, the sink was the smallest hotel sink I’ve ever seen.
As with all Hampton Inns we’ve stayed at, the toiletries were Neutrogena and were decent quality.
The bathroom also had a bathtub with a shower. The water heated up pretty quickly and had good water pressure.
As far as hotel king bedrooms go, the room was fine – it just wasn’t the suite we’d expected. There were two issues with the room though.
First, the blackout blinds did very little to block the light. There was a fairly wide gap around three of the edges, so it let in a lot of light.
We also had a bad ant problem in our room. It wasn’t just in one location either – they appeared beneath the window, beneath the desk and by the door. Housekeeping vacuumed them up one day, but they soon reappeared. We therefore went out and bought some Raid spray which worked pretty well, although it had to be sprayed each day to keep them at bay.
Breakfast
The buffet breakfast at the Hampton Inn Colchester is free for all guests. It’s served from 6-10am every morning, so I loved that we didn’t have to go for breakfast until 9:45am.
Having said that, you might want to go for breakfast earlier than that at the weekend. On either the Saturday or Sunday morning we were there, the only hot option left when we arrived for breakfast was potatoes, despite it only being 9:40am. The heating trays had been emptied, so the staff knew there were no eggs or breakfast meat left, but when we asked they advised that with “only” 15-20 minutes left of breakfast, they wouldn’t be making any more. There were at least a dozen other guests who arrived for breakfast after us who also seemed disappointed that there were no eggs, sausages, bacon, etc.
The day I took the photos there were cheesy omelets, biscuits and sausage gravy. Other days there were scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, sausage, bacon, etc.
The other options were the same each day:
There was also a coffee and tea station that I think was available 24/7.
The breakfast area itself was a very good size, so there was never a problem finding a table and chairs, even when it was extra busy at the weekend.
Amenities
The Hampton Inn Colchester had a pretty good-sized fitness room compared to similar types of hotels.
The thermostat could also be controlled by guests which I appreciated.
The hotel has a guest laundry area. It was cheaper than using a laundromat, but at $2.50 for the washing machine and $2.25 for the dryer, it wasn’t as cheap as many other hotels we’ve stayed at.
The Hampton Inn Colchester has an indoor swimming pool, but no whirlpool. We didn’t use the pool, but I dipped my hand in and it was fairly warm.
There was a business center at the back of the breakfast area near the lobby which had two computers and a printer.
At the back of the hotel is a courtyard area with a covered seating area which appears to be used as a smoking shelter. I have a tendency to procrastinate when taking hotel photos, so I took the photo below one night as I walked Truffles around in case I forgot to take one during the day. Needless to say, I forgot to take a daytime photo.
Pet Policy
The Hampton Inn Colchester is a pet-friendly hotel and doesn’t charge a pet fee which is nice. The maximum size is 165 lbs, so pretty much any dog can stay there.
The hotel has several grassy areas around the hotel, although I didn’t notice a designated dog walking area.
One afternoon we took Truffles to Essex Dog Park which was about 10 minutes away in Essex Junction. The small dog section wasn’t very big…
…although the large dog section was much more spacious.
Service
Service at the hotel was pretty good as the staff were generally friendly. The weekend breakfast experience when the staff couldn’t be bothered to make more eggs and breakfast meat was disappointing though.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
The check-in time at the Hampton Inn Colchester is 3pm and the check-out time is 11am.
On our final day we wanted to visit the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory and Vermont Cookie Love before checking out, so we asked for a late check-out. We’d been hoping to get a 2pm late check-out so that we wouldn’t have to rush, but were advised 1pm was as late as they could offer.
Wi-Fi
After 2.5 weeks of awful Wi-Fi at the Hyatt Place Lexington in Kentucky, we’d been looking forward to have a decent internet connection again.
We were sorely disappointed.
The Wi-Fi at the Hampton Inn Colchester was also terrible for several reasons. The worst of all was its speed as it was appallingly slow – a download speed of less than 1 Mbps?!
The internet at the hotel had a couple of other irritating features. Not only was it slow, but it would often completely cut out.
You also have to log back in every 24 hours which is a pain. Even worse, it often wasn’t possible to log back in for at least 30 minutes after it automatically logged you out. This was incredibly frustrating given that both Shae and I work online and so we need a good internet connection. Shae in particular needs an uninterrupted connection as she teaches online.
With it being 2019, I’ve no idea how so many hotels still have such terrible Wi-Fi.
Location
The hotel is in an OK location as there’s a Shaw’s grocery store just across the road in one direction and a Costco in the other direction. There are also a few fast food restaurants a couple of minutes away.
It’s not too far from downtown Burlington either, although it takes a little longer to get there than you might expect due to traffic and quite a few sets of traffic lights.
Parking
It’s free to park at the Hampton Inn Colchester and there are plenty of spaces. With the hotel being on a hill, more than one floor could be accessed from outside, so we were able to park closer to our room on the second floor, rather than at the main hotel entrance on the third floor.
Cost
The original cost of our hotel room was due to be $120.90 per night including taxes. That’s more than we normally pay for hotel rooms, but it was the cheapest pet-friendly option in the Burlington area that didn’t look dodgy.
Our “upgrade” cost us an additional $10 per night, but they thankfully didn’t add taxes or fees to that amount. That meant we paid a total of $130.90 per night.
Points-wise, we earned 15,244 points:
- 8,330 base points
- 6,664 bonus points for having Gold status
- 250 bonus points as the MyWay benefit
The stay was paid for using a Hilton Ascend credit card that earns 12x per dollar, so that’ll earn us an additional 10,996 bonus points.
We booked the stay through the Kiindly shopping portal (my referral link), so we’re due to earn $30.52 cashback from them.
If we’d used points, it would’ve cost us 30,000 points per night. Hilton offers the 5th night free on award stays if you have Silver status or higher, so our 7 nights would’ve cost 180,000 Hilton Honors points. Based on our original room price, paying with points would’ve gotten 0.47cpp (cents per point) of value. That’s OK for Hilton, but we can often get better than 1cpp of value, hence why we paid for the stay instead.
Final Thoughts
The Hampton Inn Colchester certainly isn’t a bad hotel. There’s a good breakfast spread, the amenities are pretty good and the staff are friendly enough.
Having said that, I don’t think I’d choose to stay there again. The main reason why is the Wi-Fi, but that’s because that’s a feature that’s important to me. If you don’t have to rely on it during your stay, it’ll be less important for you.
Looking back, the situation with the room “upgrade” has also left a bad taste in my mouth. Paying an extra $70 to get an upgrade to a king suite – only to not get a suite – is disappointing. At the time, I’d assumed that the room we were given was classified by them as a suite and was more spacious than the 2 double bed room we’d originally booked. It’s only since our stay and rechecking their room types that I realized that wasn’t the case. I guess I should’ve trusted my initial instinct when entering our room and being disappointed at its size for a “suite”.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives the Hampton Inn Colchester 3 paws out of 4 – pawsome! She’d normally have given it the full 4 paws seeing as there was no pet fee. However, the layout of the room and the busyness of the hallway outside our room meant she was often disturbed by all the guests and housekeeping going back and forth.
Our Rating
Room = 4.0 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 3.9 / 5
Food = 4.4 / 5
Location = 4.0 / 5
Service = 4.0 / 5
Overall Value = 3.9 / 5
Total = 4.03 / 5
Address
Hampton Inn, 42 Lower Mountain View Dr, Colchester, VT 05446
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