Having left Connecticut on our 50 state road trip, Shae, Truffles and I made our way eastwards to Rhode Island. Rhode Island is the smallest state in the US and you can drive to pretty much anywhere in the state within an hour.
Finding somewhere to stay that fit within our budget was tough though. Our budget for the road trip is $100 per day which has to include accommodation, food, gas, activities, cell phone, etc. When looking at our hotel and Airbnb options, it quickly became apparent that we’d end up having to pay more for accommodation than we normally would.
Thankfully I managed to find a good deal at the Hampton Inn Providence/Warwick Airport. We were staying 10 nights and there was a special rate available for 7-13 night stays which got us a 1 bedroom suite for less than the cost of a regular room.
Overall, it was a nice enough stay, although there were a number of things that meant it wasn’t quite as good as it could’ve been. Here’s a full review of our stay at the Hampton Inn Providence/Warwick Airport in Rhode Island.
Check-In
We arrived at the hotel at about 3:15pm; there was no line at the front desk, so we got checked in straight away which was a fairly quick process.
I think we had to sign a pet form seeing as we travel with our dog, then we were offered the choice of a snack or bottles of water for having Gold status with Hilton.
The front desk agent advised that they’d put us in room 113 on the first floor to make it easier to take out Truffles.
1 Bedroom Suite
As I mentioned earlier, we’d booked a one bedroom suite. When entering the suite, the living room was straight ahead, the kitchen/dining area was to the left and the bedroom and bathroom were through double doors to the left.
While it was nice being on the first floor, room 113 is possibly the worst room in the hotel due to its location. That’s because the courtyard area is immediately outside the room, with guests sometimes partying out there until midnight. It was worst of all on our first night, so we’d planned on asking if we could move rooms. The following night the noise was better, so we didn’t have the motivation to move all our stuff to a different room.
If you’re staying at the Hampton Inn Providence/Warwick Airport at the weekend, I’d definitely try and avoid this room (and possibly room 111), as it seemed to be Friday and Saturday night when it was loudest out in the courtyard.
Living Room
The living room had a sleeper sofa, along with an armchair and a couple of ottomans. The sofa was comfortable for the first day or two, but after that the seat cushions kept sinking down because of it having the sofa bed mechanism beneath. No matter how often we lifted the seat cushions so that they weren’t tucked down inside, they’d get pushed back down within a couple of minutes of us sitting on them.
The lighting in the living room wasn’t great either. The dining/kitchen area was well-lit, but the only light in the living room was the table lamp in the photo below which was a little weird.
On the opposite side of the living room was a storage unit with the TV on top.
The thermostat was mounted to the wall behind the TV. The temperature was hard to control in the room though; 71° made the room icy cold, but 72° left it hot and humid. I tried to set it to 72° but with the fan constantly blowing, but despite trying to choose constant fan, it didn’t blow.
The TV had a good selection of channels available, although most of the Showtime channels were glitchy and so we couldn’t watch anything from channels 74-78.
Kitchen/Dining Area
Back towards the entrance of the room was a dining table with a couple of chairs, as well as a wet bar. Beneath the wet bar was a mini fridge, microwave and coffee maker.
It was great having this space, especially having such a long wet bar. Unfortunately we had a bad fruit fly problem throughout our entire stay. I don’t know where they were coming from, but we ended up having dozens of them flying around. We used Raid spray which helped for a little while, but they’d return the next day to avenge the souls of the flies that had died in the line of duty. Emptying our trash every day didn’t help; this isn’t something we’d ever had issues with at any other hotel, so it seemed to be a hotel issue rather than us leaving skanky food around.
We also had an ant problem on our first night, but thankfully the Raid spray did prevent them from coming back.
The mini fridge was on the smaller side of mini fridges, but was just about large enough to store our perishable food.
The room’s trash can was beneath the wet bar’s sink and was tiny. You could just about fit an empty 2L bottle of soda in it but nothing else. Somehow the bathroom’s trash can was even smaller than that though.
Bedroom
There was a set of double doors separating the living room from the bedroom. In the bedroom, there was a comfortable king bed. The pillows were small but were just the right cross between fluffy and firm, so their size didn’t bother me.
One feature we (and by we, I mean Shae) didn’t appreciate so much was the gap in the double doors. There was a quarter inch gap between them, with the table lamp on the other side of the doors in the living room. We’d been looking forward to having a one bedroom suite as it meant I could work at night after Shae had gone to bed. The light from the lamp though shone through the gap in the door, meaning it wasn’t as dark in the bedroom as it should be. The layout of the living room meant there wasn’t really anywhere else to put the lamp to prevent that.
A feature we did appreciate though was that both bedside tables had power and USB outlets.
On the other side of the bedroom was a cabinet with a TV on top.
This cabinet and the one in the living room were the same, with both having shelving and baskets in them for clothing and other items.
Between the bathroom and the sink was the room’s closet. Inside there was an iron, ironing board and luggage rack. There was also a clear plastic bag which I’m guessing normally contains pillows and a blanket for the sofa bed, but which was empty.
Bathroom
To the left of the closet was the room’s sink and vanity.
The toiletries were Neutrogena which is what you’ll find at all Hampton Inns and are pretty good quality.
The bathroom had a bathtub with a shower, with the shower having good water pressure. I’m not sure how well housekeeping had mopped the floor before we checked in though as the bathroom had a slightly-stronger-than-faint smell of pee.
Breakfast
Breakfast is free for all guests staying at the Hampton Inn Providence/Warwick Airport. One good thing about it is that it’s served from 6am to 10am every day, so we didn’t have to get up too early for breakfast.
The hotel has a coffee and tea station that’s available 24/7, but apparently I didn’t take a photo of it.
As for everything else, there was – in theory – a pretty good breakfast selection. There were a few hot options each day; the day I took the photos there were cheesy omelets (despite it saying ‘egg white frittata’), scrambled eggs, pork sausage patties (that were limp and oily) and French toast sticks.
Other days there were egg white omelets with peppers, breakfast potatoes, andouille sausage and more.
The cereal options tended to be bland. Many days there was a choice of only two or three cereals – Total, Special K and Corn Flakes – although they did have Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops and Apple Jacks on one or two mornings.
There were a couple of waffle makers with two tasty-sounding batters – cinnamon roll and malted vanilla. There was nearly always a line for the waffle makers though, so I never tried either kind.
Here are some of the other breakfast options:
The most disappointing part of breakfast was the fruit situation. One of the things I love about Hampton Inn breakfasts is that they offer freshly cut fruit in the morning. For the first few days of our stay though, the Hampton Inn Providence/Warwick Airport didn’t seem to offer that as that section was always completely empty.
On our third or fourth morning though, there was finally some freshly cut fruit. During our 10 day stay though, that was the only morning they had it when we went for breakfast. A couple of mornings it seemed like there had been fruit at some point, but the bowl was empty.
The whole pieces of fresh fruit weren’t much better as they were either not ripe enough or far too ripe. They’d have green bananas at one end of the extreme and oranges with mold growing on them at the other end. Even their apples tended to be quite dodgy…
…which resulted in Shae transforming into Snow White.
Amenities
The hotel had a decent-sized fitness room with quite a few pieces of equipment and weights.
The temperature couldn’t be adjusted by guests, but it was fairly cool in there and so it wasn’t a huge issue.
The Hampton Inn Providence/Warwick Airport has guest laundry facilities on the first floor. The washing machines cost $1.50 per load, while the dryers were $2 per load.
The detergent dispensers weren’t working, but you could buy it from the front desk. There might not be any need to do that during your stay though, as previous guests had left their laundry detergent, dryer sheets, etc. for future guests.
If you need to do laundry, I’d suggest doing it as soon as there’s a washing machine available. We’d planned to do a couple of loads on our final night, but other guests had the same idea and so there was a long line of laundry baskets.
The hotel has an indoor swimming pool and whirlpool. The swimming pool was an OK temperature, but not particularly warm.
Just outside the swimming pool area (and our room) was a large courtyard with seating all around the edge.
In a small room off the side of the breakfast seating area is a business center with a couple of computers, a printer and a shredder.
There are several restaurants nearby, but if you don’t want to go out then the hotel has a pantry area with meals, snacks and beverages you can purchase.
Seeing as this is an airport hotel, they have a free shuttle to the airport. It’s less than a mile to the airport though, so it’s not a long walk if you didn’t want to have to wait for the shuttle to return. Overhearing a conversation at the front desk, it sounds like it’s first come, first serve and that it doesn’t run on a set schedule.
Pet Policy
The Hampton Inn Providence/Warwick Airport is a pet-friendly hotel. They allow dogs up to 100 lbs and don’t charge a pet fee which is fantastic.
The property has grass all around it, so there’s plenty of space for your pup to do their stuff. There is a dedicated pet walking area on one side of the hotel though. It runs past several first floor bedrooms, so I always felt like a creeper walking along there with Truffles after dark.
If you’d like somewhere to let your dog off leash, City Dog Park was only about 10 minutes away. It had separate sections for small and large dogs, both of which were a good size. The dog park has a water supply to help keep your dog hydrated, along with several benches on both sides.
Service
Service at the hotel was fairly good. The housekeeping staff were friendly, as were the front desk staff for the most part. There was one lady at the front desk who always seemed a little abrupt when talking to guests, although she wasn’t actively rude.
There was a guy working there called Frank who we saw most days. I’m not sure what his role is at the hotel, but he was always very friendly and Truffles adored him. She can get very protective when people come up to our car door, but he came over to say goodbye just as we were about to leave after checking out and Truffles was happy to see him, licking his face as best she could!
One somewhat minor service issue during our stay happened on the one day we got housekeeping service (we declined it the other days). Housekeeping didn’t leave any hand towels, so we called the front desk to ask for some that evening. Several hours passed without any being brought down, so we had to call again to remind them. Like I said, just a minor thing.
Just as a side note though, it’s weird how frequently this sort of thing happens. We live in hotels (and Airbnbs) nowadays as we travel full-time. We hardly ever get housekeeping service as we leave the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on our door most days. On the rare occasions that we do have housekeeping clean our room though, there’s always something incomplete like no towels or no toilet paper. I’m not sure if we’re just unlucky or if that’s a common occurrence.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
Check-in time at the Hampton Inn Providence/Warwick Airport is 3pm, while check-out is at 12pm.
Wi-Fi
The hotel’s Wi-Fi was extremely frustrating. The speed was perfectly fine, so there was no issue there. However, you have to reconnect every 24 hours – there’s no way to specify your length of stay when logging in like some hotels allow.
Logging back in every 24 hours is inconvenient but isn’t a huge issue in theory. The problem is that the only way we could reconnect our laptops was to restart our computers. That meant when the Wi-Fi cut out after 24 hours, a couple of times we lost the stuff we’d been working on online.
Location
The hotel is in a great location in terms of its proximity to the airport. It’s just under a mile away, so you could walk there in about 20 minutes if you wanted. There are also a few fast food outlets and other restaurants within walking distance.
Driving-wise, it’s close to both I-95 and I-295. It takes about 15-20 minutes to get to downtown Providence to the north and about an hour to get to Newport to the south.
Parking
Parking at the hotel is free. There aren’t any spots directly out the front of the hotel, so you have to park down either side or at the back of the property.
Cost
I mentioned at the start of the review that we got a decent rate due to how long we were staying. When looking at the search results on Hilton’s website, it listed a higher room rate than the one we ended up paying. Clicking through to the property listing though showed several different rate options, with the rate for a one bedroom suite being even cheaper than a standard (i.e. smaller / non-suite) room.
That’s because the one bedroom suite had a special 7-13 night rate option which the standard room type didn’t. The rate we paid was $145.77 per night which includes tax. That’s far more than we usually spend on hotels, but it seemed to be good value for Rhode Island.
If we’d booked using points, it would’ve cost 30,000 Hilton Honors points per night. That would’ve only gotten us a standard room though; the one bedroom suite with a living room that we paid for would’ve cost 72,000 points.
I booked our stay through the Kiindly shopping portal (my referral link) which was offering 4% cashback on the pre-tax room rate. That means we should earn $51.60 cashback.
We also earned 36,370 points for the stay. That’s due to 10x points per dollar on the room rate before tax, 8x points per dollar thanks to Shae’s Gold status and 10x points per dollar from Hilton’s double points promotion that was running during our stay. We paid for the stay with my Hilton Surpass credit card which earns 12x points per dollar at Hilton properties, so that’s another 17,492 points we’ll earn. That makes a total of 53,862 points overall which isn’t too shabby.
Final Thoughts
It’s strange – while writing this review, it felt like I had more negative stuff to say about the Hampton Inn Providence/Warwick Airport than I thought I would.
Overall though, we had a good stay. I’ve pointed out the negative points as I think it’s important to give you a complete idea of what to expect when staying here. That said, a lot of the issues were on the minor end of things – no hand towels one day, small trash cans, no freshly cut fruit at breakfast, etc.
I think our biggest issue during our stay were the fruit flies – they were a major pain in the backside. I’ve no clue if we were just unlucky with our room or if it’s a property-wide problem.
If you’re looking for somewhere to stay overnight near PVD airport, I wouldn’t hesitate to stay here if it’s not too expensive. At 30,000 Hilton Honors points per night, it’s also fairly good value when using points.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles had a hard time trying to decide whether to award the hotel three or four paws out of four. Ultimately, she decided to give it all four paws out of four – pawfect!
While she didn’t care for some of the noise coming from the courtyard, she loved the housekeeping lady she saw each day, as well as Frank. There was plenty of grass around the hotel, plus having no pet fee means more money in the budget for treats for her!
Well, she thinks it means more treats, but paying almost $150 per night blew our budget for this month, so no soup treats for her.
Our Rating
Room = 4.2 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.6 / 5
Food = 4.0 / 5
Location = 4.3 / 5
Service = 4.2 / 5
Overall Value = 4.2 / 5
Total = 4.25 / 5
Address
Hampton Inn & Suites, 2100 Post Rd, Warwick, RI 02886
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