Having left Enterprise, we made our way down towards Mobile, Alabama for five nights. Rather than staying in Mobile, we booked a room at the Country Inn & Suites Saraland.
Saraland is a city just outside of Mobile, so it was a convenient location for everything in the local area. We’d initially booked a paid stay at the Country Inn & Suites as they had some very reasonable rates. However, Radisson Rewards ran a targeted promotion offering a rebate of points when booking award stays, so we cancelled our original reservation and rebooked using points (more about that later).
Here’s a review of our stay at the Country Inn & Suites Saraland, Alabama.
Check-In
The check-in process was pretty straightforward, so we had the keys for our room on the third floor within about five minutes of arrival.
Bedroom
As we entered the bedroom, the bathroom and an open closet were to the right, while the bedroom and living area were ahead and to the right.
We’d booked a 1 king bed accessible room as that was the only room type available when rebooking our stay.
Walking past the bathroom, there was a living area to the right with a sleeper sofa, armchair, coffee table and side table. I hadn’t been expecting this additional space in the room, so it was a pleasant surprise.
Past the living area was the king bed. The bed was very comfortable; the pillows were soft but small, although there were four of them to make up for the small size.
The bedside tables both had lamps and outlets, so neither of us had a problem charging our phones overnight.
Our room was at the back of the building and so looked out over some trees and a grassy area. Based on where the hotel was located, this is probably the best view you’ll get at the hotel and helps maintain privacy when your curtains aren’t drawn.
Opposite the bed was a dresser which housed a microwave and mini-fridge, with a TV and coffee maker on top.
To the left of the dresser was a desk with an office chair, with a padded bench to the left of those.
Opposite the bench was an open closet containing an iron and ironing board, luggage rack and bedding for the sleeper sofa. As it was an accessible room, the clothing rail was lower than normal.
Bathroom
When entering the bathroom, the sink and toilet were to the right of the room.
The toiletries were White Water Collection from Beekman 1802. There was an additional bar of soap on the bathtub.
As it was an accessible bathroom, the bathtub had several handrails and there was a handheld shower head. Despite not looking like a great shower head, it still provided good water pressure.
Breakfast
Breakfast is included as part of your room rate at the Country Inn & Suites Saraland. Considering how low their room rates are, they had a very good breakfast selection.
There was a selection of four different cereals, while the adjacent fridge contained milk, yogurts, hard boiled eggs, cream cheese and slices of American cheese.
There was a cabinet containing various breads, bagels and muffins. On top of that was a basket of Quaker granola bars and a bowl of fruit, while to the side was a double toaster, some jams and butter.
To the right of that were a couple of waffle makers with both regular and sugar-free syrups.
There was warm Quaker oatmeal with a few topping options, with a crock pot containing grits next to it.
The other hot options varied each day; the day I took the photos there were sausage links, eggs and French toast.
A juice machine was located next to the hot options – I only tried the apple juice and it was OK.
Next to the juice machine were both ceramic and styrofoam plates and bowls, as well as both silverware and plasticware.
If juice isn’t your thing in the morning, there was also a coffee and tea station.
Overall, I was impressed with the selection and quality of food given the price point of this property.
Amenities
The Country Inn & Suites Saraland has several amenities for guests staying there. There’s an outdoor swimming pool and tiny whirlpool, neither of which we used during our stay.
Their fitness center was very sparse, with only a few pieces of equipment.
We had quite a lot of laundry to do during our stay, so we appreciated having guest laundry facilities. Both the washer and dryer cost $1.75 per load.
The Wi-Fi speed at the hotel was good. They also had a business center containing one computer and a printer.
Something interesting about the Country Inn & Suites brand is that each property has a Read It & Return Library. Although there wasn’t an extensive selection of books during our stay, it’s nice that this is available for guests.
This bookcase was in the lobby where there was also coffee and tea available 24/7. The front desk had Otis Spunkmeyer cookies available pretty much 24/7 too which we enjoyed on multiple occasions.
Pet-Friendliness
Seeing as we’re traveling with our small dog Truffles on our 5 year, 50 state road trip, we can only stay at pet-friendly hotels. The Country Inn & Suites Saraland, Alabama is one such hotel and only charged a $50 fee for the entire five night stay.
What was a little unusual was that they charged $57 as state, city and county taxes were added on. Every other hotel we’ve ever stayed at doesn’t charge taxes on the pet fee, but I decided not to bother arguing over $7. Thankfully that didn’t make or break whether we ended up under budget that month or not.
The hotel had some grassy areas out front for your dog to do its business, while there are a couple of other hotels next to this property where you could walk your dog around if needed.
This Country Inn & Suites is also only a 15 minute drive from Chickasabogue Park. Entry is only $1 for adults and $0.50 for children and is worth visiting if you’re staying at this hotel. It has 17 miles of hiking trails, a disc golf course, a museum, swim area, canoeing and more, so there’s plenty to do.
Service
The service at this hotel was OK. We didn’t receive any amazing service, but we didn’t have any bad service either.
Location
This hotel is right off I-65 and it’s only a ten minute drive from downtown Mobile. It’s therefore a good option if you want a low-cost hotel that’s not too far from Mobile.
There’s a Walmart a couple of minutes away and it’s also walking distance to several restaurants including Foosackly’s (which has very tasty chicken fingers) and Wintzell’s Oyster House which seemed to be a popular local chain.
We also visited Dauphin Island during our stay which only took 45 minutes to get to.
Cost
We’d originally booked our stay in my name at an average nightly rate of $65.23 which would’ve been great value. A couple of weeks before our stay though, Shae received a targeted offer from Radisson Rewards that gave 30% of your points back on award stays.
The Country Inn & Suites Saraland is a category 2 property and so only requires 15,000 points per night. With a 30% points rebate, that meant it’d effectively only cost 10,500 points per night which is excellent value.
Thankfully the reservation I’d made was a refundable rate, so I cancelled that and we rebooked under Shae’s name. As we stayed five nights, we redeemed 75,000 Radisson Rewards points, with 22,500 points being rebated after our stay due to the 30% offer. She also earned 825 points as a ‘Gold Room Bonus’ (Shae has Gold status with Radisson Rewards from having one of their credit cards), so our net cost was 51,675 points – an average of 10,335 points per night.
That means we got 0.63cpp (cents per point) of value which is pretty good for Radisson Rewards, especially considering how cheap the paid rate was in the first place.
Final Thoughts
Overall, we had a very good stay at the Country Inn & Suites Saraland, Alabama. Our room was a good size and we enjoyed having the additional living area. The breakfast was decent, it’s in a fairly good location and having cookies available nearly all day every day will always steal our heart.
We didn’t really have any issues during our stay. I think the worst that can be said is that the service wasn’t amazing, but it certainly wasn’t bad either.
Given its low price for both paid and award stays, this hotel is a great option if you’re looking for somewhere to stay in and around Mobile.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives this hotel four paws out of four – pawfect! They had a reasonable pet fee, there were enough grassy areas around the hotel to walk her and it was close to a larger park.
Our Rating
Room = 4.6 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.3 / 5
Food = 4.4 / 5
Location = 4.0 / 5
Service = 3.8 / 5
Overall Value = 4.9 / 5
Total = 4.33 / 5
Address
Country Inn & Suites, 1130 Joaneen Drive, Saraland, AL 36571
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