After staying 10 days in Traverse City for the National Cherry Festival, we had another 10 night stay a couple of hours south of there – Grand Rapids.
When I was originally booking accommodation for Michigan this summer, I’d been going under the assumption that it would be just me and our dog Truffles as Shae was going to be away on other trips throughout the summer, although those trips didn’t end up happening.
My plan for Grand Rapids was to visit a bunch of downtown breweries. I therefore wanted to stay downtown within walking distance of the breweries because at the time I wasn’t going to have someone who could act as a designated driver and didn’t want to spend a fortune on Uber/Lyft rides. Staying downtown was expensive both cash-wise and points-wise, so I was limited in my options. In the end I decided to book a stay at the Homewood Suites Grand Rapids Downtown as that was the best option based on a variety of factors.
Overall, we enjoyed our stay at the Homewood Suites. The hotel is in a converted building, so the suites have a loft apartment feel to them. The breakfast selection was pretty good and it was in a great location downtown. Our rooftop bar experience there wasn’t great and there were a couple of communication issues with the front desk, but I’d be more than happy to stay there again if we happened to head back to Grand Rapids.
Here’s a review of our stay at the Homewood Suites Grand Rapids Downtown in Michigan.
Check-In
Seeing as it was a relatively short drive from Traverse City, we arrived at the hotel at about 3pm. We initially had a hard time finding luggage carts as the lobby is on the second floor rather than the first floor where you enter. It turned out there were luggage carts in a couple of locations; there were one or two near the elevators on the first floor (I think these were airport-style ones), although those seemed to be for the entire building rather than just the hotel (the building the Homewood Suites is in has other businesses and apartments).
Then to the left of the hotel’s front desk on the second floor there was a small room with another regular-sized luggage cart and smaller airport-style carts. Considering Homewood Suites is an extended stay brand, it was surprising to see only one regular-sized luggage cart as I imagine they’re more likely to have guests bringing a larger-than-average number of bags than other downtown hotels might.
When checking in we asked if we could be in a room on the top floor which is something they were able to accommodate. We greatly appreciated that because our dog isn’t a big fan of hearing people thumping around above us in hotels. The Homewood Suites Grand Rapids Downtown is in an old building with incredibly creaky floorboards in the hallways and public areas (and possibly rooms too), so being on the sixth floor meant we avoided those issues. n.b. The hotel has a seventh floor, but that’s where the rooftop bar is; there aren’t any bedrooms above the sixth floor.
When getting to the 6th floor (we were in room 617), we headed round towards our room when we encountered some stairs.
That wasn’t ideal as we had everything loaded on a luggage cart, so we unloaded it bag by bag and carried the bags up the stairs to our room. As we later discovered, each floor is a square. We could’ve gotten to our room by heading round the floor in the opposite direction as there’s a ramp on the opposite side, so that’s what we did when checking out.
1 King Bed Studio Suite
We’d booked a 1 King Bed Studio Suite for our stay. I’d hoped we might get upgraded with my Diamond status, but when checking the website before checking in I could see that they were sold out of one and two bedroom suites.
When entering our suite the kitchen was on the right, the living room straight ahead and the bedroom and bathroom off to the left.
Kitchen
Homewood Suites is an extended stay brand and as a result all the rooms at their properties are suites with a full kitchen. The kitchen includes a fridge-freezer, stove top, microwave and dishwasher.
The cupboards and drawers included place settings for four people, along with cookware, cooking utensils, etc. I was originally a little confused because the silverware drawer only contained two forks, one knife, two teaspoons and a large serving spoon. However, I later found the rest of the silverware, a couple of plates, a couple of glasses, etc. in the dishwasher having been cleaned.
Living Room
The kitchen led through to the spacious living room area. There was a two-seater sleeper sofa, a long ottoman and coffee table, a side table and luggage rack. Along an exposed brick wall was a dresser with the room’s TV on top; that could be rotated so you can watch TV from the couch or in bed.
Back by the kitchen was a desk and office chair.
At the room entrance there was another good-sized space with trash and recycling cans.
Bedroom
The bedroom area had a king bed that was nice and comfortable to sleep on. There were two sets of blinds that could be lowered; one shade and one blackout. The blackout blind did its job well and kept the bedroom dark at night.
There were bedside tables on both sides, as well as power outlets on both sides.
Towards the bathroom there was a closet containing an iron and ironing board, as well as bedding for the sleeper sofa.
Bathroom
Opposite the closet but outside of the bathroom itself was the bathroom sink. I’m not a big fan of hotels that do this because it means using the sink in the dark if someone else is asleep at night, but you could still end up waking them up when brushing your teeth if they’re light sleepers.
The bathroom had a walk-in shower which had pretty good water pressure.
A frustrating feature of the bathroom was that it had a motion sensor that couldn’t be turned off. As a result, as soon as you walked in the bathroom the light turned on. The reason that’s frustrating is because the light would turn when entering the bathroom at night while the other person was sleeping – it wasn’t possible to get in the bathroom and close the door before the light went on automatically. In the end we had to tape toilet paper over the sensor to prevent the sensor from working.
There were wall-mounted toiletries, but apparently housekeeping hadn’t bothered to check them when cleaning the room beforehand. That’s because the shower gel bottle had fallen off the wall, plus it was completely empty and so we had to stop by the front desk to ask for another bottle.
As expected, our room was nice and quiet. There was no noise from above as that was the rooftop bar and presumably had much thicker flooring, while the hallway was nice and quiet as there were only a few rooms along our section. It was on the opposite side of the floor to the elevators, so the only people on our section of the floor were people in the few rooms in that section.
Breakfast
Breakfast is complimentary for all guests at the Homewood Suites Grand Rapids Downtown. It’s served from 6am-9am Monday-Friday and 7am-10am at the weekend.
There were a few hot options each day – some kind of eggs, some kind of breakfast meat and some kind of breakfast potatoes. There was also oatmeal, bagels, bread, muffins, fruit, yogurt and more. On the first few days of our stay they had cereal too, but for some reason that wasn’t provided during the second half of our stay.
Evening Social
On Wednesday evenings the hotel has an evening social where they provide drinks and snacks. We stopped by on the first Wednesday of our stay to check it out, but the spread wasn’t very extensive. There was Italian wedding soup, salad, cheese, grapes, sliced baguette and cookies, so we just made our own dinner.
Amenities
Fitness Room
The hotel has a fitness room on the second floor that’s open 24/7. Due to it being an older building, the treadmills were on a raised platform attached firmly to the wall so that the floor wouldn’t shake while people jogged on them. There was other cardio equipment (including a Peloton bike) as well as weights.
Swimming Pool
If you’d rather go swimming, there’s an indoor swimming pool.
Guest Laundry Room
With this being an extended stay brand, the hotel has guest self-laundry facilities. The washing machine and dryer cost $2.25 and $1.75 per load respectively. A useful feature of them is that you can pay by card rather than having to have enough quarters.
Pantry
Next to the front desk there’s a pantry area where you can buy snacks and drinks. There’s also a convenience store at street level in the building which has a wider selection of items.
Business Center
If you need to use a computer and/or print something off during your stay, there’s a business center with a couple of computers and a printer you can use.
Rooftop Bar
A fun feature of the hotel is that the Homewood Suites Grand Rapids Downtown has a rooftop bar.
We went for a drink up there on our final night, but it was a really poor experience. There was no bartender when we arrived and other people at the bar said he’d disappeared about 15 minutes prior to our arrival. After waiting 10-15 minutes ourselves, we called the front desk to ask if anyone would be coming up to serve at the bar; they seemed surprised there was no one there and said they’d look into it. A few minutes later the bartender finally returned. He said he’d been getting some food but only came back with a small microwaveable pizza, so I’m not sure how it took 30+ minutes to heat that.
He was also a crappy bartender – we had to repeat our order of one beer and one wine several times, his choice in music was obnoxious and he had awkward interactions not just with us but other guests too.
Something strange about the rooftop bar is that there aren’t any restrooms up there. Instead, you have to go down a floor to the 6th floor where there are restrooms.
Pet Policy
The Homewood Suites Grand Rapids Downtown is a pet-friendly hotel. There’s a $75 pet fee for stays of 1-4 nights and a $125 pet fee for stays of 5+ nights. There’s a limit of two pets per room which can be cats or dogs.
There are various grassy areas around the city. We tended to walk a couple of blocks over to Rosa Parks Circle as there was a good amount of grass there.
Service
Service at the hotel was mixed. I already mentioned that the bartender at the rooftop bar wasn’t great, so there was that.
When we arrived and noticed that the shower gel in the bathroom had broken off the wall and was empty, I stopped by the front desk to let them know and to ask for a full bottle. Despite saying that the shower gel bottle was empty, the front desk agent gave me a couple of shampoo bottles. I said again that we needed shower gel rather than shampoo, but she just tried to give me more shampoo and conditioner before finally saying she’d send someone up with some shower gel.
We also had issues when getting mail delivered. We had a Priority Mail package sent to us which was supposed to be signed for. The tracking on the USPS website confirmed it was delivered, but the front desk couldn’t find the package for a couple of days. It wasn’t until the building owner (rather than the hotel staff) mentioned that the hotel has a mailbox in addition to having mail delivered to the front desk did they find the package – they apparently didn’t think to check the mailbox.
Other than those issues, the front desk staff were friendly enough and the people in charge of breakfast in the morning kept hot items well-stocked, although for some reason they didn’t put the cereal out for the last few days of our stay.
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi at the hotel is complimentary for all guests. The speed and connectivity were both good.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
You can check in from 3pm, while check-out is at 12pm.
Location
The hotel is in a great, central location downtown. It’s within walking distance of the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Gerald R Ford Presidential Museum, DeVos Performance Hall, Founders Brewery and more.
Parking
Parking at the hotel is an expensive $35 per night. A block or two away is the Pearl Ionia Ramp parking lot which we used instead. I think that was something like $25 per night, but if you lose your ticket it costs $28. Seeing as we didn’t need to use our car for several days at a time, we were incredibly careless and lost our parking ticket a few times which meant we only had to pay $28 rather than $50 or $75 for the two or three nights we’d parked there before needing our car again 😉
Cost
Homewood Suites is one of Hilton’s brands and we booked our stay using Hilton Honors points. It cost 50,000 points per night, but every 5th night is free on award stays if you have status with Hilton. With us staying 10 nights, we got both the 5th and 10th nights free, so our total cost was 400,000 points or an average of 40,000 points per night.
Final Thoughts
Although service during our stay wasn’t always great, we enjoyed our stay at the Homewood Suites Grand Rapids Downtown. Our room was a good size for being a studio suite, being on the 6th floor meant it was quiet, we liked the room design as it felt like we were in a loft apartment and it was centrally located downtown.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives the hotel four paws out of four – pawfect! It was nice that the hotel was quiet, had a fairly reasonable pet fee considering our length of stay and its location meant we got to walk around downtown with her.
Our Rating
Room = 4.4 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.3 / 5
Food = 4.2 / 5
Location = 4.6 / 5
Service = 3.1 / 5
Overall Value = 4.0 / 5
Total = 4.1 / 5
Address
Homewood Suites, 161 Ottawa Ave NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49503
[…] Although that brewery plan didn’t work out, it was nice staying downtown as it meant other places were within walking distance and, overall, it was a nice hotel to stay in. You can read my full review here. […]