For our three night stay in Augusta, Georgia, we booked ourselves in at the Quality Inn Medical Center Area.
That’s because it looked like our best option when comparing location and price. The hotel seemed to be close to downtown and within walking distance of the canal and riverfront while being incredibly low priced.
To be honest, I was a little nervous about booking this hotel as the price seemed too low compared to other properties in the area. However, it had decent enough reviews so we figured that even if it wasn’t great, we’d only be staying for three nights.
We ended up being pleasantly surprised with our stay, so here’s our review of the Quality Inn Medical Center Area in Augusta, Georgia.
Check-In
The stay was booked in Shae’s name, so she went inside to check in while I stayed with Truffles in the car. The process only took a few minutes, so soon enough she returned with the keys to room 245.
Bedroom
The Quality Inn Medical Center Area is a motel-style property, so access to the room is from the exterior of the property rather than via an internal corridor.
We drove closer to our room, then went up an outside staircase to the second floor. As we entered the room, the beds were to the right, furniture to the left and the bathroom straight ahead and to the right.
We’d booked a one king bedroom but ended up with a room containing two queen beds. I hadn’t realized they gave us the wrong room until getting ready to write this review when I checked our reservation details. The two queen beds were comfortable and clean though. There was only one bedside table which was between the two beds.
Between the right-hand bed and the window was a small table and two chairs. This was unexpected, but it’s a nice feature seeing as a lot of people staying at this property are probably visiting the nearby hospital and so might be likely to spend more time in the hotel room than on average.
Opposite the table and chairs by the door was a full-length mirror.
Next to the mirror was a desk and office chair. It’s nice that the room had this furniture, but it meant there was very little space to walk between the chair and the bed.
To the right of that was a dresser with a coffee maker on top and a TV mounted to the wall above that.
The dresser only consisted of three drawers, as the right side was actually a cupboard that could be used for storage.
To the right of the dresser was a microwave and fridge.
It was a good-sized fridge and had a small freezer compartment at the top. Despite the ice buildup, the freezer section wasn’t very cold. I put a bunch of freezer blocks in there and none of them were frozen 24 hours later.
To the right of the microwave and fridge was a small dividing wall; on the other side of that was a clothing rail holding several hangers and a luggage rack below.
There was an iron mounted to the wall, but there was no ironing board in the room. I’m not sure if you have to request one from the front desk, or if you’re just supposed to use the desk.
Bathroom
Next to the clothing rail was the sink and vanity. To the left of that and beneath was plenty of storage space for suitcases.
The toiletries were adequate and consisted of shampoo, conditioner, lotion and soap.
To the right of the sink and vanity was the bathroom containing a bathtub with shower (which had good water pressure) and the toilet.
Room Issues
Overall, the room was pretty comfortable, but there were a couple of negatives it. Although it was clean for the most part, housekeeping didn’t appear to do a thorough job before our visit.
We found a pair of tennis shoes under one of the beds which a previous guest must’ve left behind. The coffee maker also had the coffee filter in it from a past stay.
The bigger issue though was that the door didn’t close properly. When leaving the room, it took several attempts to pull it closed so that it actually locked.
For some reason though, we couldn’t get it to close properly when we were in the room, no matter how hard we slammed it. The door had a deadbolt which did lock, as well as a latch that flipped across. We therefore felt safe enough that we didn’t ask to change rooms as we hadn’t noticed the issue until we’d unpacked, so didn’t feel like packing everything up and moving.
Breakfast
Breakfast is included as part of your room rate at the Quality Inn Medical Center Area in Augusta. The breakfast wasn’t amazing, although there was a fairly good selection given the cost of the room.
There were several hot options which included the dodgiest-looking scrambled eggs I’ve ever seen. There were also sausage links and grits, as well as a tray of biscuits beneath those.
There was also a crock pot containing what I think was sausage and gravy for your biscuits.
There was a selection of breads, bagels, packaged pastries and muffins.
Four different types of cereal were on offer…
…as well as a waffle maker.
There was a coffee station for your morning fix of caffeine…
…and a juice machine if you prefer something cold to drink with your breakfast. Next to the juice machine was a fridge containing milk and yogurts.
The breakfast area also contained a microwave with packets of instant grits and oatmeal on top.
There wasn’t a huge amount of seating in the breakfast area, but it seemed like plenty as I only saw a couple of other guests there at breakfast.
Amenities
The hotel isn’t a high-end property, although there were a few amenities. There was an outdoor pool which appeared to be open despite the relatively cold temperatures (we visited at the end of February.)
There was a laundry area with both a washer and dryer. The washing machine cost $1.25 while the dryer required $1.50 per use. There was also laundry detergent, bleach and fabric softener for sale if needed.
The room containing the washer and dryer also held the ice machine as well as some snack and beverage vending machines.
If you need to use a computer during your stay, there’s a business center next to the lobby consisting of one computer and a printer. I’m not sure if the computer works though due to the ‘No Signal’ message on the computer monitor.
Location
I’d read some reviews before our stay saying that the hotel’s not in a great location. I don’t know Augusta well enough to say for sure, but I thought it was a good enough location.
It didn’t feel like the property was in a sketchy area. It’s a block away from the canal and only took about five minutes to drive downtown and to the Riverwalk area. If you’re in Augusta for the golf, Augusta National Golf Club is only a ten minute drive away.
Service
There’s not too much to say about service during our stay as we rarely interacted with their staff. I was still recovering from being sick, so we left the “Do Not Disturb” sign on our door for our entire stay.
Pretty much the only interaction we (well, Shae) had was at check-in and check-out, both of which went smoothly.
Pet-Friendliness
The Quality Inn Medical Center Area in Augusta, Georgia is a pet-friendly hotel. There’s meant to be a $25 pet fee per night, but we didn’t end up getting charged for it and, to be honest, we didn’t remind them about it when checking out.
One of the nice things about the hotel is that there’s a good number of grassy areas for you to walk your dog around. These were pretty well lit, so I felt perfectly safe taking Truffles out at night.
Cost
I mentioned at the beginning of the review that one of the reasons we picked this hotel was because of its cost.
That’s because our nightly rate was only $47.57 which included taxes. That’s an incredibly low price, especially given how close the property was to downtown Augusta.
As we stayed for three nights, that meant our total cost was $142.71. It should’ve actually been $217.71, but we weren’t charged the $25 per night pet fee – sweet!
We booked our stay directly with Choice Hotels after clicking through from Top Cashback (that’s a referral link). Top Cashback was offering 7.5% cashback on Choice Hotels bookings at the time; we should therefore earn $8.20 cashback as the 7.5% is calculated based on the room rate before taxes.
Points Earned
We earned 1,363 points for our stay. That’s calculated on 10 base points per dollar, as well as 2.5 bonus points per dollar based on Shae having Platinum status.
We should’ve also earned 200 bonus points as a welcome amenity from having Platinum status, but that’s not been awarded yet. We had the same issue following our stay at the Comfort Inn in Greenville, South Carolina. When following up with Choice Hotels that time, they advised we had to wait 8 weeks after the stay before they’d do anything. We’ll therefore have to wait two months before trying to get our 200 points from this stay.
Final Thoughts
Our stay at the Quality Inn Medical Center Area in Augusta, Georgia was better than expected. We’d been apprehensive going into it due to the suspiciously low cost and the occasional bad online review.
Overall though, we were happy with our stay. The room was comfortable and, other than the couple of issues I mentioned earlier in the review, clean.
Although it didn’t have the most delicious breakfast ever, there was a good selection of breakfast items, especially seeing as it’s included as part of your room rate.
If you’re looking for a low cost place to stay in Augusta, the Quality Inn Medical Center Area would be a good choice.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives this Quality Inn three paws out of four – pawsome! It had some good grassy areas, but it was a little noisy for her liking due to it being a motel-style property.
Even though they neglected to charge us the pet fee, their $25 per night pet fee is pretty high as it adds about 50% to the room rate.
Our Rating
Room = 4.0 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 3.8 / 5
Food = 3.8 / 5
Location = 4.0 / 5
Service = 3.8 / 5
Overall Value = 4.8 / 5
Total = 4.03 / 5
Address
Quality Inn Medical Center Area, 1455 Walton Way, Augusta, GA 30901
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