After spending a few fun days in Dickinson on the western side of North Dakota, we drove all the way to the eastern edge of the state to spend a week in Fargo.
We spent all seven days at the MainStay Suites Fargo – I-94 Medical Center. We picked this hotel as it was a reasonable number of Choice Privileges points and we were able to book straight into a one bedroom suite with a kitchen using points.
While it was nice having the one bedroom suite, the property overall was a little underwhelming and they have a scammy fee that they try charging you for every night of your stay simply for having a safe in your room – even if you don’t use it. They have a dumb rule regarding how your dog can access the hotel and it feels like they cheap out in all kinds of areas.
Here’s a full review of our stay at the MainStay Suites Fargo – I-94 Medical Center, ND.
Check-In
The people checking us in were nice enough, but it took quite a while for them to actually get us checked in and provided with our room keys for room 327.
1 King Bedroom Suite
When entering our suite the kitchen was on the left, the living room straight ahead and the bedroom and bathroom around to the right.
Kitchen
There was – in theory – a full kitchen as there was a stove top, dishwasher, full-sized fridge-freezer, etc.
The cupboards and drawers were sparse though, with barely enough to make meals. A couple of the drinking glasses were dirty too, so they had to be washed before using them.
Living Room
Between the kitchen and living room there was an island/work desk with a couple of office chairs.
The living room had a sleeper sofa, a couple of ottomans and side tables, and a dresser with a TV on top.
The TV was much smaller than your average TV, but there was a fairly good selection of TV channels.
Bedroom
The bedroom had a comfortable king sized bed. The blackout curtains worked pretty well to keep the bedroom dark at night.
Opposite the bed was a small dresser and a small wall-mounted TV.
The closet contained an iron, ironing board, bedding for the sleeper sofa, luggage rack, laundry basket and a safe that you’ll be charged for even if you don’t use it (more about that later).
Bathroom
There was a regular hotel-sized bathroom with a bathtub with shower.
Similar to how the kitchen was sparse, the toiletries were sparse too. Rather than having large wall-mounted bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body wash, there was only shampoo.
There were a couple of small, thin bars of soap though.
In addition to it feeling like the hotel has cheaped out in a number of areas with the suite, the quality of the workmanship was shoddy too. The fixtures weren’t secured very well as the bedroom door handle was wobbly, the bathroom faucet moved from left to right when turning it on and off and the toilet had been installed at an angle.
Breakfast
The MainStay Suites Fargo offers complimentary breakfast from 6am-9am on weekdays and 6am-10am at the weekend. We gave their breakfast a miss after the first morning though as the options were poor.
Once again, the hotel cheaps out with sparse offerings, seemingly only providing hot options at the weekend and not during the week. Even at the weekend, the only hot options were biscuits and gravy which weren’t particularly good.
Other than that, the only options were cereal, waffles, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, bread and bagels.
Amenities
Swimming Pool & Whirlpools
The hotel is connected to a Red Roof Inn and seems to be under the same management. The hotels share an indoor swimming pool and whirlpool.
The MainStay Suites side has an additional indoor whirlpool too.
Fitness Room
If you’d like to work out, there’s a fitness room with a couple of treadmills, a bike, yoga balls, medicine balls and weights.
Guest Laundry Room
The hotel has a guest laundry room with one washing machine and one dryer. These cost $1.50 per load which is reasonable.
Food & Drink
Next to the front desk was a pantry area, along with a cabinet with items you can borrow during your stay.
There were also drink and snack vending machines, along with an ice machine.
Business Center
If you need to use a computer and/or print something off during your stay, there’s a business center with a desktop computer and printer for guests to use.
Safe Fee Scam
While I loaded up our car at the end of our stay, Shae went inside to check us out. When she came back out with a copy of the receipt, I noticed that there was a $2 per night fee for ‘Safe w/ltd Warranty’, with $0.15 being added for state, city and county taxes on that $2 fee.
I went back inside to complain about this because we hadn’t even used the safe, but the front desk agent tried claiming that it was a legal requirement that they charged us this fee even if we didn’t use it. The explanation she gave was even more ridiculous – she said that if someone else used their safe and it was broken into and we hadn’t paid the fee for the safe in our room even if we didn’t use it, we (or maybe the hotel?) would be held liable. I know, it didn’t make any sense to me either – probably because it’s completely untrue.
The front desk agent then claimed that we were advised of this fee when checking in (we weren’t) and that we agreed to the fee when signing their tablet when checking in. To be fair, I hadn’t carefully checked the small print to see that we were agreeing to pay some kind of BS undisclosed fee as I usually trust hotels to not try scamming their guests out of money.
I asked them to take the fee off and her supervisor or manager came out. She again explained that they were legally required to charge us that fee, so I explained that that’s a ridiculous excuse seeing as we’ve been living in hotels for the last seven years and other hotels don’t charge that fee.
She ended up agreeing to refund that fee to our card after I said that I’d end up submitting a chargeback with our bank, but be careful when checking in at this property as they claim that you’re supposed to advise them when checking in that you don’t want to pay this fee rather than when checking out.
Later on I remembered we’d stayed at a Red Roof Inn early on in our road trip where they charged a similar safe fee. Seeing as there was a Red Roof Inn attached to the MainStay Suites and it seemed to be under the same management, I suspect that the management saw that they could scam guests out of another $2.15 per night at the Red Roof Inn and decided to treat MainStay Suites guests to that charge too. It appeared that a large number of MainStay Suites guests were construction workers, so I imagine that their employer pays for their stays and so they probably don’t notice that they’ve been charged this extra fee, so it’s pure profit for the hotel owners.
MainStay Suites Fargo Pet Policy
The MainStay Suites Fargo is a (nominally) pet-friendly hotel. There’s a $75 + tax pet fee per stay and there’s a limit of two dogs per room.
I said that it’s a nominally pet-friendly hotel because although they accept pets, I wouldn’t say that they’re pet-friendly. When checking in we were advised in no uncertain terms that although dogs are allowed to walk through the lobby when first checking in, they’re not allowed to walk through there at any other time during your stay. The reason given was because they’d be walking past the breakfast area, even though they wouldn’t actually be walking through the breakfast area.
Dogs therefore had to enter and exit through a side door on the far side of the hotel. In theory that wasn’t too much of a hardship, but it’s a dumb policy because in order to get to the elevator, you have to walk past the same breakfast area that they don’t want you walking past when entering through the lobby. As a result, guests staying at this hotel with a dog shouldn’t – in theory – be allowed to use the elevator.
On the positive side there’s a sizeable grassy area for your dog to do their business. However, once they’ve done their business be prepared to look for some other trash can to dispose of the poop bag. There was a poop bag can there, but it was overflowing when we arrived and still hadn’t been emptied when we checked out a week later.
Service
Service at the hotel was OK, but nothing special. Staff were nice enough but weren’t at all warm. Neither of the two front desk agents advised us of the BS $2.15 safe fee when checking in, while the person checking us out had – presumably – been instructed to lie to guests questioning such charges by stating that it’s a legal requirement that they charge guests for not using the safe even though that’s completely untrue.
Wi-Fi
Perhaps the biggest frustration with the stay was the hotel’s Wi-Fi. It was awful which was problematic because both Shae and I work online.
For starters, any time we left the hotel we had to reconnect our phones to the internet. Even when walking Truffles around right outside the hotel, we’d lose connection and so had to manually connect our phones again when walking back inside.
The internet itself was very slow, plus it would randomly disconnect our laptops multiple times per day, usually at inopportune moments.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
You can check in to the MainStay Suites Fargo – I-94 Medical Center from 3pm, while check-out is at 3pm.
Location
As the hotel’s full name suggests, the property is just off I-94 and is a short distance from Sanford Medical Center. There are several restaurants within walking distance, along with a gas station next door. Downtown Fargo is a 10-15 minute drive away, as is Fargo’s airport.
Parking
The hotel offers complimentary parking and although it gets quite busy at night, we didn’t have trouble finding a parking space.
Cost
MainStay Suites is one of Choice Hotels’ brands and we booked our stay using Choice Privileges points. It cost an average of 17,143 points per night versus a cash rate of $122.66 per night including tax. That means we got 0.72cpp (cents per point) of value which is reasonable for Choice points.
Final Thoughts
The MainStay Suites in Fargo is a nice enough place to stay and we liked getting to be in a one bedroom suite with a kitchen using points. However, the hotel cheaps out on fixtures and fittings, kitchen equipment, breakfast, etc., charges guests for a safe they’re likely not using without disclosing they’re adding this fee and have a weird policy regarding pets accessing the hotel. I wouldn’t advise against staying there, but if we ever return to Fargo I’d likely look to stay somewhere else.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles awards the hotel three paws out of four – pawsome. The hotel had a dumb pet accessibility policy and they didn’t bother emptying the dog poop trash can. However, the $75 pet fee per stay was reasonable – especially on a week-long stay – and she liked having a large grassy area right outside.
Our Rating
Room = 3.9 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.3 / 5
Food = 2.5 / 5
Location = 4.2 / 5
Service = 3.4 / 5
Overall Value = 4.1 / 5
Total = 3.73 / 5
Address
MainStay Suites, 1901 44th St SW, Fargo, ND 58103
[…] Our stay was fine overall, but the hotel cheaped out in all kinds of areas from fixtures and fittings to the breakfast offering and more. They also charge people an undisclosed $2.15 extra per night simply for having a safe in your room – even if you don’t use it. You can see my full review here. […]