Hotel Review: Embassy Suites Hampton Convention Center, VA

After spending a few weeks in northern Virginia, we headed south a few hours to Hampton, VA.

Before setting off on our 50 state road trip, Shae and I lived in nearby Portsmouth, VA, so we were heading back that way to visit friends and family, as well as to visit a couple of places nearby for Shae’s virtual field trip classes on Outschool.

We managed to get a good rate at the Embassy Suites Hampton Convention Center (more about that in the ‘Cost’ section below), so we booked a two week stay there. It was our first ever stay at an Embassy Suites and we’d be more than happy to stay at that Hilton brand again based on our great stay.

Here’s a full review of our stay at the Embassy Suites Hampton Convention Center.

Check-In

We’d gotten a late checkout from the Hyatt House Sterling/Dulles Airport North, so after a 3-4 hour drive to Hampton we arrived at the Embassy Suites at about 7:45pm. There was no line at the desk, so we got checked in quickly.

The guy checking us in was very friendly and offered a couple of bottles of water and our choice of snack as a welcome amenity for having Diamond status.

The hotel has 10 floors and we were assigned a room on the 3rd floor – room 311.

Suite

One of the unique features of the Embassy Suites brand is that every suite has two separate rooms – a bedroom and living room. When entering the suite, we entered into the living room.

On the right hand side of the room was a sleeper sofa. While the design of the couch wasn’t what we’d pick for ourselves if we had our own home, it was comfortable to sit on. There was also a decent-sized coffee table in front of the couch and a table to one side.

Next to the couch was an armchair which our small dog Truffles claimed for her own.

Behind the armchair was a window which looked out on the hotel atrium.

On the other side of the living room was a desk/dining table with three chairs, along with the TV on top of a storage cabinet.

The cabinet had a couple of cupboards which contained bedding for the sleeper sofa.

When heading towards the bedroom, there was a wet bar which had a mini fridge and microwave. The mini fridge had a small freezer box at the top of it which was large enough to keep our freezer blocks in which was nice.

On top of the wet bar was a small coffee maker and a three-tiered container which had coffee and tea in it.

There was a cupboard under the sink which contained a safe.

Bedroom

While the separate bedroom wasn’t huge, it was still large enough for our needs. It had a comfortable king bed and blackout curtains that worked very well once we clipped them together.

On the other side of the room was an additional desk you can work from, along with a dresser and TV.

To the right of the desk was a closet containing an iron and ironing board.

The fact that the bedroom was set back from the suite’s entrance meant it was always very quiet at night which we appreciated. We also liked the fact that the bedroom door didn’t creak when opening it like the doors at our previous hotel.

Bathroom

The bathroom was between the living room and bedroom which is something else we appreciated because it meant I didn’t disturb Shae at night time after she’d gone to bed.

The shower had pretty good water pressure. It wasn’t amazing, but it was certainly better than some other hotel showers we’ve had over the last few years on the road trip.

One slight improvement that could’ve been made to the bathroom would be for them to install an extractor fan.

Breakfast

Since COVID hit, the breakfast offerings at the hotels we’ve been living in have been significantly reduced compared to normal. In most cases, they’ve been offering a to-go breakfast containing items like a granola bar, yogurt, string cheese and juice.

Seeing as buffet breakfasts didn’t seem like an option due to safety, that seemed like a reasonable change. However, our stay at the Embassy Suites Hampton Convention Center showed that it was still possible to offer something close to a normal buffet breakfast.

Breakfast was offered from 6am-9am on weekdays and 7am-10:30am at the weekend. There was a semi-buffet style setup, with individually packaged breads, bagels, cereals, fruit, parfaits, etc.

If you wanted to toast the bread or bagels, there was a toaster with preserves, cream cheese, etc.

That wasn’t all though. The hotel also offered several hot options each morning which rotated depending on the day. There was a sign by the elevators showing what was going to be offered for breakfast the following day.

Rather than having these hot items available for guests to serve themselves, there was a hotel employee who served the food for you. The food was served in plastic containers and the hotel had large paper bags with handles so that you could easily carry everything back to your room or to the main dining area which was open for anyone wanting to eat there.

They also provided plasticware and small tubs of ketchup if you wanted it. It was so nice getting to have a hot hotel breakfast for our two weeks at the Embassy Suites Hampton Convention Center. Truffles also liked that she got to have some bacon or sausage every morning like she used to have pre-COVID.

Evening Reception

From 5:30pm-7:30pm, the hotel offers an evening reception. When checking in, we were given a couple of small yellow slips of paper which you take down to the reception. There were two separate rows on the card; one was for breakfast and one was for the evening reception, although we never needed to show it at breakfast.

Each person can get two free drinks from the bar, although you’re only allowed to get one drink at a time. The bartender then makes a note on your card each time you’ve been served so they can keep track of how many free drinks you’ve had.

There was a small selection of adult beverages you could choose from.

We only went to the evening reception once or twice during our stay; Shae got a glass of red wine and I got a whiskey sour.

The hotel also offered complimentary snacks at the evening reception, although those were limited to chips and Rice Krispie treats. I’d assumed they would offer something more substantial, so we ended up ordering food from Grubhub that night.

Although we ordered from Grubhub, we could’ve ordered food from the hotel instead.

Amenities

Due to COVID, the fitness area and pool were closed during our stay.

The Embassy Suites Hampton Convention Center had a guest laundry area which was nice to have seeing as we were staying there a couple of weeks. It cost $2.25 per load for the washing machine and $2 per load for the dryer.

In addition to taking quarters, the washers and dryers accepted credit cards as well as Apple Pay which made paying for our laundry much more convenient.

Seeing as we travel full-time, we have our own laundry detergent. If you don’t have any with you, you can buy detergent at the hotel.

The Embassy Suites had a business center on the first floor with a couple of computers and printers, including a photocopier which isn’t something you usually find in hotel business centers.

There was a coffee shop/gift shop called Caffeina’s, although this only seemed to be open at certain times.

The hotel has a bar called Cyprus Grille Lounge which is where the evening reception is held.

They also have a restaurant called Cyprus Grille Restaurant, although it was closed during our stay which was presumably due to COVID.

The Embassy Suites Hampton Convention Center has a large atrium with a dining area in the center. The tables were all spaced a good distance from each other to help with social distancing, although there were rarely more than two or three tables ever being used at the same time.

There’s a fountain next to that dining area where the elevators are.

There’s a fair bit of outdoor seating available too. On one side of the hotel there were several tables and chairs, as well as what looked like a fire pit, although it didn’t ever seem to be in use.

On the other side of the hotel was another outdoor seating area which would normally be accessed via the indoor swimming pool area.

Pet Policy

The Embassy Suites Hampton Convention Center is a pet-friendly hotel. They accept up to two dogs per room with a limit of 50 lbs (I don’t know if that’s a per-dog weight limit or a combined weight limit for two dogs).

They have a $75 pet fee which is charged per stay regardless of length of stay. That’s therefore very high if you’re only staying one night, but we stayed two weeks and so that worked out to be just over $5 per night which was far more reasonable. Having said that, when checking out they didn’t charge us a pet fee which was great.

The hotel has fairly spacious grounds and there’s a decent amount of grass all around it. There are also sidewalks if you and your pup want to go for a longer walk. The property is next to the Hampton Convention Center and Hampton Coliseum event venue, so you can wander around their grounds too.

COVID-19

Overall, we were pleased with how the hotel dealt with COVID, although it wasn’t perfect.

On the positive side, when arriving there’s a seal on your room to show that no one has been inside since housekeeping cleaned the room.

In the suite, the TV remotes had stickers wrapped around them confirming that they’d been sanitized.

There were several hand sanitizing stations on the first floor as well as one in each of the three elevators. Speaking of elevators, there were signs asking that there only be two people per elevator unless you’re traveling as a family/group.

In the dining/bar area in the atrium, the tables had laminated signs labeling the table as sanitized and ready to use.

When you sat down there, you turned over the sign so that hotel employees knew which tables to clean and sanitize.

Seeing as the hotel closed the fitness room and indoor swimming pool, they certainly can’t be faulted for not putting precautions in place there. They were very good about sanitizing other common areas though – we saw them sanitizing the elevators and other surfaces several times during our stay.

The only negative thing COVID-wise about our stay is that not all the staff were great about wearing masks. One of the front desk employees never wore a mask, while a few housekeeping staff members had them pulled down while they worked. While I can understand that wearing a mask while cleaning rooms wouldn’t be fun, masks are supposed to be worn for a reason, so having housekeeping staff not wearing masks properly and then having guests enter the room later means there’d be an increased likelihood of droplets in the air from the housekeeping staff if they had COVID.

Service

We declined housekeeping for our entire stay; not because of the mask thing, but just because we don’t need our room cleaned each day. We didn’t really have any need for service from the front desk during our stay either, but they were always very friendly when walking by and several of them enjoyed saying hi to Truffles each day.

Check-In & Check-Out

The check-in time at the Embassy Suites Hampton Convention Center is 4pm and check-out is at 11am.

Wi-Fi

The hotel had a very good Wi-Fi connection in terms of speed, but there was one huge drawback. You have to log back in every rolling 24 hours which was a huge pain in the backside. Shae teaches online and she had several classes that she was kicked out of for a few minutes during our stay because of having to log back in.

I lost a few blog posts on another of my sites because I hadn’t known I’d lost my connection when hitting publish. These were short posts and so didn’t take long to republish, but it was frustrating nonetheless.

We used our Fire TV Stick on their TV to watch other shows and movies during our stay. Seeing as that was connected to their internet, we had to log our Fire TV Stick back in every 24 hours. That was even more frustrating at times because it would often happen at the end of a TV show, meaning we’d miss the last couple of minutes.

Location

If – during normal times – you’re attending an event at the Hampton Convention Center, the hotel is ideally placed as it’s right next door (as the name of the hotel suggests).

If there’s bad weather, you can get from the hotel to the Convention Center without getting wet thanks to a covered walkway between the two buildings.

The hotel is also opposite Hampton Coliseum which is where concerts and other events are usually held. It’s only a one minute walk over, so the Embassy Suites Hampton Convention Center is perfectly located for a quick overnight stay if you don’t want to have to drive home after an event. Side note: I saw Pearl Jam there in 2017 and they were fantastic!

The hotel is only a few miles from the Virginia Air & Space Center in Hampton which is well worth a visit if you’re in the area. It’s also only about 15 minutes from Fort Monroe which has a lot of interesting history and a nice beach which is pet-friendly in off-season.

The Embassy Suites is just off I-64 and so is a convenient place to stay if driving through the area and needing to stop for the night. Hampton is ~45 minutes from Virginia Beach in one direction and ~30 minutes from Williamsburg in the other direction, so those can make good day trips if you’re in the area for longer. Despite it getting a hard time from people in the local area, we also love nearby Portsmouth which is where we lived for several years.

Parking

The website for the Embassy Suites Hampton Convention Center says that parking is $10 per day. When checking in though, they advised that it was only $5 per day. I’m guessing that’s because the Convention Center isn’t being used at the moment due to the pandemic and so there’s far less demand for parking at the hotel.

Somewhat similarly to the pet fee, we weren’t charged properly for parking which worked out in our favor. We’d booked our stay as two separate one week stays. The hotel charged us for parking for the first week, but didn’t add it to our second week which I only just noticed when checking the receipts for our stays for this review. When booking our stay, I’d assumed parking would cost us $140 (14 nights x $10), but we ended up only being charged $35 which was awesome.

The hotel had plenty of parking all around the hotel, so we never had a problem finding a space. When there’s an event on at the Convention Center though, I imagine it’s a little harder to find a spot.

Cost

We booked our stay at the Embassy Suites because I noticed that we could take advantage of Hilton’s Price Match Guarantee. The way that works is that if you book a stay directly with Hilton and find a cheaper rate on another website within 24 hours with the exact same terms (i.e. same room type, same cancellation period, etc.), Hilton will match that price and give you an additional 25% discount.

I wrote a longer post over on Frequent Miler about how that process worked, so check out Hilton Price Match Guarantee: How I Saved $550+ Making 2 Best Rate Guarantee Claims for more about that.

As the title of that other blog posts says, we saved more than $550 by submitting Price Match Guarantee claims. The reason I made two claims is because I’d booked our two week stay as two separate one week stays. The reason for that is that for some reason that resulted in a lower price per night than when booking a consecutive 14 night stay.

After the Price Match Guarantee was taken into account, we paid $86.10 per night for the first week and $86.75 per night for the second week (both those figures include tax). That was great value as the original cost was just over $130 per night including tax.

We actually managed to save even more than that though. Shae and I both had an Amex Offer for Embassy Suites which gave $60 back when spending $250 or more.

Seeing as we each had that offer, we paid $250 of our stay on one card, $250 on another and the balance on my Hilton Aspire credit card. That meant we got $120 back in statement credits from the two Amex Offers, plus we earned 14x bonus points per dollar on the balance.

If we’d redeemed Hilton Honors points for our stay, it would’ve cost us an average of 25,643 points per night (that takes into account Hilton’s 5th night free benefit on award stays). Based on the original price of ~$130 per night, that would’ve been fairly good value for the points, but the fact that we managed to get a much cheaper rate – and could take advantage of the Amex Offers – meant paying cash for our stay was far better value.

Points Earned

Another benefit of paying cash for the stay is that it meant we also earned points. The stay itself earned us 32,094 points; 10x base points per dollar for the pre-tax room rate, 10x bonus points per dollar for having Diamond status and 10x bonus points per dollar from a double points promotion Hilton was running at the time.

$744.95 of our stay was paid for on my Hilton Aspire credit card which earns 14 points per dollar when paying for Hilton stays, so that’s another 10,429 points we earned.

$500 of the stay was paid for on two cards earning American Express Membership Rewards. Points aren’t earned on the $120 we got back in statement credits, so we also earned 380 Membership Rewards.

On top of that, I booked our stays after clicking through to Hilton’s website from the Rakuten (formerly Ebates) shopping portal. That was offering 1% cashback, or 1x Membership Rewards point if your Rakuten account is set up that way. Mine is, so we have 1,529 additional Membership Rewards coming our way.

Final Thoughts

As mentioned at the start of our review, our stay at the Embassy Suites Hampton Convention Center was the first time we’d stayed at the Embassy Suites brand. Based on our experience, I’d be more than happy to stay at one again.

The fact that every suite at this brand always has two separate rooms is a bonus. I’m always up later than Shae at night, so being able to work in the living room while she sleeps in the bedroom is much better than a studio suite where I have to work in the dark. In normal times I was happy heading down to the hotel lobby and working there, but due to the pandemic I’m not keen on doing that right now.

Although the suites don’t have a kitchen, they do have a decent-sized mini fridge and microwave. I was particularly impressed during our stay that they had such an extensive breakfast offering, as the past few months at other hotels had far more meagre offerings in comparison.

The staff were friendly, the fact that they offer complimentary drinks and snacks on weekday evenings is great (even if the snacks aren’t anything special) and it was nice to have so much space to be able to walk Truffles around outside.

The only negative thing is that there were a few members of staff who didn’t wear masks or didn’t wear them properly, although that seems to be the case wherever we go sadly.

Overall though, we really enjoyed our two weeks at this hotel and would be more than happy staying at the Embassy Suites Hampton Convention Center if we need to stay in Hampton, VA again in the future.

Truffles Approval Rating

Truffles gives this hotel four paws out of four – pawfect! Having a separate bedroom set away from the hotel’s hallway meant that she didn’t get disturbed by other guests at night and thus didn’t bark.

The hotel neglected to charge us a pet fee but even if they had, $75 was reasonable considering we stayed two weeks. There was lots of space to walk around the hotel and she got attention from several members of the front desk staff which she loved.

Our Rating

Room = 4.6 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.2 / 5
Food = 4.8 / 5
Location = 4.5 / 5
Service = 4.4 / 5
Dealing With COVID-19 (A new – hopefully temporary – category for our hotel reviews) = 4.6 / 5
Overall Value = 4.6 / 5

Total = 4.53/5

Address

Embassy Suites, 1700 Coliseum Dr, Hampton, VA 23666