Hotel Review: Candlewood Suites Lafayette, Louisiana

After spending a week in Baton Rouge, Shae, Truffles and I moved on to Lafayette, Louisiana for six nights.

When researching our accommodation options, it seemed like the Candlewood Suites Lafayette was our best option, but I had a hard time deciding how to book it. There was a cheap paid rate which I was tempted by, especially seeing as we’re earning 25 points per dollar when paying for IHG stays with Shae’s new IHG Premier card, in addition to the regular points we’d earn. In the end though, I booked our room using points seeing as we were already due to spend a fair chunk of our budget on accommodation in February.

It was a fairly standard Candlewood Suites stay seeing as it’s a no frills hotel brand, but here’s a full review of our stay at the Candlewood Suites Lafayette.

Check-In

We took advantage of a 4pm late check-out from our hotel in Baton Rouge which meant we arrived in Lafayette at about 7pm. The check-in process was fast and we were soon on our way down the hall to room 119.

1 King Studio Suite

We’d booked a 1 king studio suite as that was the only option when booking with points at the time. I checked the IHG website just before we checked in and there weren’t any 1 bedroom suites left, so I didn’t bother asking for an upgrade.

When entering our studio suite the bathroom was on the left, the kitchen was on the right and the main bedroom area was straight ahead.

Bedroom

The king bed was very comfortable and the blackout curtains worked pretty well.

Opposite the bed was a reclining armchair and the room’s TV on top of a dresser. As with all Candlewood Suites properties, each room has a DVD player; I think most (or all?) Candlewood Suites locations have DVDs you can borrow from the front desk or Lending Locker.

To the right of the armchair was a desk and office chair, along with a dining chair on the other side of the desk. The flooring was a little weird here as there was a raised edge where the carpet met the kitchen’s laminate flooring. This meant it was hard to move the office chair forward and backwards, especially when sitting on it.

Back by the suite’s entrance was the room’s closet. Inside was an iron, ironing board and laundry basket.

Kitchen

Every room at the Candlewood Suites Lafayette (and every other Candlewood Suites around the country for that matter) has a kitchen. This includes a full-sized fridge-freezer, dishwasher, microwave and stove top.

In the cupboards and drawers were silverware, dishes, cooking utensils and cookware. They only provide place settings for two, although I think you can ask the front desk for more place settings. I wish Candlewood Suites would just make it a policy to have four place settings in every room for the convenience of guests so that they don’t have to wash things up as frequently or run the dishwasher when there are only a couple of things that need cleaning.

Bathroom

The toilet, sink and vanity were straight ahead when entering the bathroom, with the bathtub and shower on the left. The water pressure of the shower was perfectly fine.

The shower had dispensers for J.R. Watkins toiletries which were good, while there was a bar of soap and a couple of bottles of lotion by the sink. There was an additional bar of soap resting on a towel on the bath.

We were happy enough overall with our room. One of the downsides of Candlewood Suites properties is that the ceiling never seems to be very thick between floors. That means we usually hear the person above us stomping around which was no exception at this hotel.

Amenities

At this point in hotel reviews I normally provide details about the hotel’s breakfast. In case you’re not familiar with the Candlewood Suites brand, they don’t provide breakfast of any kind, whether complimentary or paid. I’ve seen people give negative reviews of specific Candlewood Suites properties before because of them not providing breakfast; that’s a little unfair on the hotel seeing as that’s a brand feature (or lack of feature), rather than it being something the specific property should be blamed for.

That doesn’t mean they’ll leave you hungry though as you can buy food, beverages and toiletries from the Candlewood Cupboard. Coffee is provided free of charge though.

To the right of the Candlewood Cupboard was the hotel’s business center. This was in a small room which provides an element of privacy and contained one computer and a printer. It was also helpful for Shae as she was able to teach in there for VIPKid; it was therefore also helpful for me as it meant I didn’t get woken up at 5am when she started teaching!

To the left of the Candlewood Cupboard was the Lending Locker. This is something you’ll find at all Candlewood Suites properties and includes things like small kitchen appliances, board games, books, etc.

One of my favorite features of the Candlewood Suites brand is that they not only have a guest laundry area, but it’s completely free to use the washing machines and dryers.

The guest laundry area and fitness room are usually in the same area when staying at Candlewood Suites. The Candlewood Suites Lafayette had them in separate rooms which is something I appreciated as usually the fitness room is steaming hot due to the dryers.

Despite not being a very large room, they managed to fit quite a few pieces of equipment and weights in the fitness room. Guests could also control the thermostat which is a nice feature.

They could do with replacing their treadmill though as it was awful for a number of reasons. The water bottle holders weren’t very big, so you couldn’t fit anything larger than a small water bottle in there. It constantly shook like it was about to fall apart, so much so that I stopped using it after a minute. It also meant that there was nowhere to rest your phone; there were tiny shelves, but the shaking meant they fell off there and the same happened when trying to place it in the slightly larger one of the water bottle holders.

Out the front of the hotel there was a gazebo with a couple of tables with chairs around them, along with a couple of grills. The hotel has grilling equipment you can borrow from the Lending Locker if you want to take advantage of this amenity.

Pet Policy

The Candlewood Suites Lafayette is a pet-friendly property. At the time of booking, their website said there was a $25 per night pet fee, with a maximum pet fee of $75. When checking in though, they advised that the pet fee had recently been reduced to $60 which was a nice surprise. I’m not sure though it that means it’s $20 per night with a limit of $60, or if it’s just a straight $60 fee regardless of your length of stay.

You’re allowed up to two dogs per room. There’s no weight limit listed on their website and it’s not something we asked about seeing as Truffles is only 11 lbs. If you have a larger breed though, it’d be worth calling them just in case they have any unadvertised weight restrictions.

The hotel had a few grassy areas around the hotel, but not a huge amount. There’s a sidewalk running along outside the hotel, so you can take your dog for a longer walk if needed.

Lafayette has at least two dog parks. The one closest to the Candlewood Suites Lafayette was Beaullieu Park Dog Park. This doesn’t have separate areas for large and small dogs, so the first time we tried visiting we didn’t go in as it was pretty busy and Truffles doesn’t like a lot of attention from other dogs. We tried visiting a couple more times later that week, but a lot of rain meant it was pretty boggy in there and so we gave it a miss.

Truffles still got to have a good run around though. On the other side of the creek by the dog park was a large field with a path running round it. I attached a long rope to Truffles’s harness and she got to run around the field chasing after her ball. This gave her the feeling of running off-leash with the ability for me to haul her in if necessary.

Service

The service at the hotel was fine. Other than checking in and checking out, we didn’t have much need to interact with the staff.

Shae did have a bit of a weird situation with the manager though. She was teaching online in the business center one morning and he kept walking back and forth trying to see what was going on. It was a video lesson, so it meant the student Shae was teaching kept seeing him behind her staring as he walked past.

Check-In & Check-Out Times

You can check-in to the Candlewood Suites Lafayette at 3pm, while check-out is at 12pm.

Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi is free for all guests staying at the hotel. The connection was good and I don’t remember having any issues with its speed.

Location

The hotel is about 10 minutes from downtown Lafayette and Lafayette Regional Airport. There are lots of restaurants, stores and grocery stores within about five minutes.

Parking

Parking is free at the hotel and there were plenty of spaces available.

Cost

As I mentioned at the beginning of the review, I was tempted to pay for our stay using cash. That’s because the paid rate was only $75.57 per night including tax which is very reasonable. Like I said earlier though, we were paying cash for quite a few stays in February, so to help our budget I booked us in using points.

That was good value too as IHG only charges 10,000 points per night to stay at the Candlewood Suites Lafayette. In theory that means our six night stay should’ve cost 60,000 points, but it actually cost us less than that thanks to the two different types of IHG credit cards I have.

The IHG Premier card offers every fourth night free on award stays, so that reduced our cost to 50,000 points. I normally like to book IHG award stays in four night increments, but staying four nights would’ve been too short and eight nights would’ve been too long due to something I had booked the following weekend in New Orleans.

In addition to the IHG Premier credit card, I have the IHG Select credit card which is no longer available for new applications. One of its benefits is a 10% rebate when redeeming points, so having redeemed 50,000 points for our stay, we’ll get 5,000 back in a few weeks. That means our net cost was 45,000 points, or 7,500 points per night. That means we got 1.01 cpp of value by redeeming points which is about double what you can normally expect to get from IHG Rewards Club points.

Seeing as I have Spire Elite status with IHG, I also received 500 bonus points as a Welcome Amenity.

Final Thoughts

We had a decent enough stay at the Candlewood Suites Lafayette. Due to the nature of the brand, we usually have a fairly unremarkable stay when staying at Candlewood Suites properties. That isn’t meant as a criticism – it just means that I know what to expect (free laundry) and what not to expect (free breakfast).

Given how good value the hotel is for both paid and award stays, I’d have no problem staying here again if we ever return to Lafayette.

Truffles Approval Rating

Truffles gives this hotel three paws out of four – pawsome! It was great that the pet fee was only $60, but the noise from the room above us and the fact that there wasn’t much space to walk around the hotel meant they didn’t get four paws.

Our Rating

Room = 4.3 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.1 / 5
Food = N/A
Location = 4.1 / 5
Service = 3.9 / 5
Overall Value = 4.9 / 5

Total = 4.26 / 5

Address

Candlewood Suites, 2105 Kaliste Saloom Rd, Lafayette, LA 70508