After spending a week in New Orleans, Shae and I headed to the southwest side of Louisiana to stay six nights in the city of Lake Charles.
We booked a stay at one of the two Candlewood Suites properties there as I found a low paid rate on Hotels.com and used IHG’s Best Rate Guarantee policy to get them to match it – there’s more about this in the ‘Cost’ section towards the end of this review.
As tends to be the case when we stay at a Candlewood Suites, it was a perfectly fine stay – not amazing, but not bad. Our room was clean and comfortable, while it’s always nice to have a kitchen anywhere we stay seeing as we live in hotels and Airbnbs nowadays.
Here’s a review of our stay at the Candlewood Suites Lake Charles South in Louisiana.
Check-In
We took advantage of a 4pm late check-out from the TownePlace Suites New Orleans Metairie, so it was about 8pm by the time we arrived in Lake Charles.
Just before we arrived, I checked IHG’s website to see if they had any one bedroom suites available in the hope that we might be able to get an upgrade seeing as we were booked into a studio suite. Unfortunately it looked like they were sold out, so I didn’t bother asking about one when it came to actually checking in.
Although we were booked in for six nights, I’d booked it as two separate three night stays as I’d wanted to test out IHG’s Best Rate Guarantee policy before booking all six nights in case they declined the initial claim (they didn’t). When checking in, I asked if it was possible for them to merge the reservations so that we wouldn’t have to check out and check back in halfway through our stay. The person at the front desk advised this wasn’t possible, but that we could check out and back in on the Tuesday and stay in the same room.
This was a little inconvenient, but it turned out to be a good thing as it meant we earned two sets of Welcome Amenity points which was a nice little bonus.
After a couple of minutes we received our room keys and so we headed up to room 416.
A couple of random things to note. The hotel has some of the best luggage carts we’ve ever used. We travel with pretty much everything we own, so that usually means we have a luggage cart loaded to the top. Some carts have punctured wheels, other carts are small, others don’t maneuver very well. None of that was an issue at the Candlewood Suites Lake Charles South – their carts were on the larger side and moved so easily I probably could’ve pushed it along with my little finger.
The elevators were also nice and large which made it easier getting everything in. One weird feature of the hotel though is that they have separate buttons for their two elevators despite them being side by side. It took me a day or two to realize this as I’d initially thought the elevator on the left didn’t work as it was only the one on the right that ever showed up.
Queen Studio Suite
I’d booked a standard room and we were assigned a queen studio suite which is what I figured it would be. When entering the room the kitchen was on the right, the bathroom on the left and the bedroom/living area straight ahead.
Bedroom/Living Area
The queen bed was comfortable (it’s rare that we stay at a hotel where I don’t like their bed) and there were tables on each side of the bed. The bedside lamps had a power outlet on them to make it easier to charge your phone by the bed which was nice.
To the left of the bed was a reclining armchair. I didn’t use it during the stay, but they’ve been comfortable to sit in during past stays at other Candlewood Suites properties.
Opposite the bed was a long desk area with a couple of chairs, a dresser and a wall-mounted TV. Beneath the TV was a DVD player; I think there were DVDs you could borrow from the front desk and/or the Lending Locker at the hotel.
The closet was to the left of the door when entering the suite and contained an iron, ironing board and laundry basket.
The smoke alarm in the bedroom was a little annoying as it flashed all night in the dark like it was warning low-flying planes in the area.
Kitchen
Every suite at the Candlewood Suites Lake Charles South (and any Candlewood Suites for that matter) has a full kitchen. This includes a full-size fridge-freezer, dishwasher, microwave and stove top.
The kitchen contained place settings for two people, although there was only one spoon. One of the things I dislike about Candlewood Suites is that most of their properties only provide places settings for two people, whereas similar brands with other chains like Home2 Suites, Residence Inn and TownePlace Suites tend to provide place settings for four people. That means you don’t have to run the dishwasher (or wash up by hand) as frequently.
On the positive side, the hotel provided three packets of dishwasher powder. Most other hotels with kitchens only provide one or two of these, so it was nice to not have to stop by the front desk so frequently to get more of them.
Bathroom
The bathroom was a decent enough size and had a bathtub with shower. The water pressure of the shower was good, but it took forever to heat up. We had to literally wait several minutes for any hot water to come out of it, so I’m not sure if that’s an issue in every bathroom or just the room that we were in.
Similar to the dishwasher powder, housekeeping had left three rolls of toilet paper in the bathroom. That might not seem like a big deal, but it’s a little thing that we appreciated seeing as the Candlewood Suites brand doesn’t provide housekeeping everyday.
IHG is moving away from single-use toiletry bottles and is now using refillable toiletries. I like this change, but unfortunately housekeeping hadn’t bothered to refill the shower gel for quite some time as ours was empty after our first shower. There was a spare bar of soap though, so we just used that instead.
In addition to the bars of soap, there was a small bottle of lotion by the sink.
Amenities
The Candlewood Suites brand doesn’t offer breakfast at any of its properties, but they do have the Candlewood Cupboard where you can buy breakfast items, snacks, drinks, toiletries, etc.
The Candlewood Suites Lake Charles South has three washing machines and four dryers for guests to use, all of which are complimentary.
The hotel’s fitness room had several pieces of equipment and weights. The temperature of the fitness room can’t be adjusted by guests and it was really warm in there, so I used that as an excuse not to work out during our stay.
If there’s anything you need during your stay, you might be able to borrow it from the Lending Locker. That includes additional kitchen utensils and equipment, board games, office supplies, etc.
The hotel has a business center in the lobby which consists of two computers but no printer. You can get documents printed by emailing them to the front desk, but that’s not ideal. I needed to send off for my British passport renewal during our stay, so I had to email my confirmation email to the front desk to get them to print it off. This contained my reference and tracking numbers which I wasn’t too worried about, but if you have sensitive information you need printed, you’ll probably want to find a FedEx Office store or something like that.
At the back of the hotel were a couple of Tesla charging stations, along with a covered gazebo with outdoor seating and a grill.
Pet Policy
The Candlewood Suites Lake Charles South is a pet-friendly hotel. The pet fee is $75 for stays of 1-6 nights and $175 for stays of 7+ nights which is a little steep. There aren’t any size restrictions listed on their website, but it’d be worth calling if you have a large dog as some hotels only allow pets of a certain size.
The hotel didn’t have much grass around it, although there was a small grassy area at the back of the hotel which seemed to be the dedicated pet “walking” area. The La Quinta hotel next door had much more grass, so I tended to take Truffles over there to walk around a little instead.
There’s a dog park in downtown Lake Charles called Bark du Lac Dog Park, so we took Truffles there one afternoon. There were separate sections for small and large dogs and while it wasn’t a huge dog park, she appreciated being able to run around off-leash.
Service
Service was OK at the hotel, but nothing special. When we’ve stayed at hotels in the past where we’ve booked consecutive stays, they’ve been able to merge our reservations and ensure we’ve not had to check in and out, whereas we weren’t able to do that at this hotel (or maybe the front desk agent didn’t know how).
Another night I stopped by the front desk to get some more toilet paper. They didn’t have any at the front desk, so the person I spoke to said she’d bring some up to our room. She didn’t bring any up though, so I stopped by the front desk again later that evening and was told again that she’d bring some right up, but she never bothered to do that.
On the positive side, there was a guest above us on our first night who stomped around incredibly loudly late at night. We called the front desk to see if there was something they could do because it was causing Truffles to bark and we didn’t want her to wake up other guests. The next morning we had a note passed under our door apologizing for the noise and which advised they were awarding us 1,000 bonus points for the inconvenience which was completely unexpected.
Check-in & Check-Out Times
You can check-in from 3pm, while check-out is at 12pm.
Wi-Fi
The internet speed at the Candlewood Suites Lake Charles South wasn’t too bad, but it did keep randomly cutting out which was frustrating at times when it happened at inopportune times.
Location
The hotel is in a pretty good location in Lake Charles, just off I-210. It’s a few minutes from Prien Lake Mall in one direction and a bunch of other stores and restaurants in the other direction. It takes about 5-10 minutes to drive downtown and a similar amount of time to get to Prien Lake Park which is a really nice park in Lake Charles.
Parking
It’s free to park at the hotel and we never had a problem finding a space as there’s a pretty large parking lot there.
Cost
I mentioned at the start of the review that we took advantage of IHG’s Best Rate Guarantee (BRG). If you find a cheaper rate on a different website to IHG’s, they guarantee to match the price and offer you 5x bonus points on your stay. Without going into too much detail, there are a few things you have to be aware of when making a BRG claim, such as the room type having to be the same, the cancellation policy having to be the same, etc.
I’d tried making a couple of BRG claims with IHG in the past but hadn’t been successful as it generally doesn’t work with refundable rates because unlike other hotel chains, IHG insists that you have to book their very lowest rate which is usually non-refundable.
I was a little apprehensive about this because if they deny your claim for some reason, you’re stuck with the more expensive reservation as it’s non-refundable. As a result, I tested it out by booking our first three nights and doing a BRG claim. This was successful, so I booked our final three nights and made another BRG claim which was also successful.
Our first three nights cost $54.95 per night ($63.30 with tax), while our final three nights were $54.08 ($62.30 with tax). Those are incredibly low rates, so it made more sense than using 15,000 points per night.
I clicked through from TopCashback before making the two reservations, so we should earn 6% cashback on the pre-tax cost. Provided that tracks and pays out correctly, we should get $19.63 cashback.
Points Earned
Most IHG brands earn 10 points per dollar, although Candlewood Suites and Staybridge Suites only earn 5 points per dollar. I have Spire Elite status which offers a 100% bonus on base points, so we earned 3,270 points for the six nights.
That wasn’t all though. For starters, there were the 1,000 bonus points they gave us for the noisy guest above us. We earned two sets of 500 Welcome Amenity points due to them not being able to merge our reservation, so that worked in our favor. We also earned 2,630 bonus points from IHG’s latest promotion and I thought we’d earn 1,635 bonus points from the Best Rate Guarantee claim. We ended up earning 6,540 bonus points from the BRG claim, so either my math was off or theirs was, but I’ll take the extra points regardless!
We paid for the stay using Shae’s relatively new IHG Premier credit card which earns 25 points per dollar when paying for IHG stays in the first year. That should therefore be another 9,420 points.
As a result, our six night stay costing us $376.80 earned us 23,860 points which is an excellent return.
Final Thoughts
Our stay at the Candlewood Suites Lake Charles South was fine. While same aspects of our stay weren’t great, other aspects were better. Considering the price we paid though, it was very good value and I wouldn’t have a problem staying there again if we were able to get a cheap paid rate. Even paying 15,000 points per night wouldn’t be too bad.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles awards this hotel three paws out of four – pawsome! She didn’t like the noisy guest above us and the fact that the hotel didn’t have much grass. She (and by she, I mean Shae and I) did appreciate the fact that they neglected to charge the $75 pet fee though, as well as the fact that it didn’t take long to get to Prien Lake Park to walk her around.
Our Rating
Room = 4.2 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.0 / 5
Food = N/A
Location = 4.2 / 5
Service = 4.0 / 5
Overall Value = 4.7 / 5
Total = 4.22 / 5
Address
Candlewood Suites, 1105 W Prien Lake Rd, Lake Charles, LA 70601
[…] stayed at the Candlewood Suites Lake Charles South and although they had some grass around the hotel, there wasn’t really anywhere to take […]