Shae and I were sad to leave Louisville after spending a week there (here’s why we loved it so much), but it was time to move on to the next stop on our 50 state road trip – Paducah.
Paducah is in the southwest corner of Kentucky, separated from Illinois by the Ohio River. When looking into accommodation options, I noticed that the Residence Inn Paducah was a category 2 property with Marriott Bonvoy. Marriott continues devaluing its loyalty scheme year after year, so I’ve resigned myself to the fact that we’ll have to redeem our points at an increasing number of category 2 properties as it’s getting ever harder finding pet-friendly category 1 properties in the US.
To maximize our points, we booked a five night stay there as the fifth night is free for award stays. Here’s a review of our five nights at the Residence Inn Paducah.
Check-In
I have the Marriott app on my phone and it gives a push notification on the day of check-in. I decided to check-in through the app rather than waiting until we arrived at the hotel as there wasn’t a room type that we wanted to upgrade to.
While checking in online, it gave the option to select their ‘Make A Green Choice’ program. This offers 250 points per day for declining housekeeping, with a limit of three days. We tend to decline housekeeping most days as it is, so we took advantage of this option to earn some bonus points for doing what we’d be doing anyway.
Knowing that we often like taking advantage of a late checkout, I requested this while checking in. It ended up being unnecessary though as we actually ended up checking out at the regular time.
Doing this online meant that the check-in process was quick once we arrived at the hotel. We’re traveling with our dog, so they confirmed the pet fee and we were soon on our way to room 101.
Room
The Residence Inn Paducah has both studio suites, one bedroom suites and two bedroom suites. Despite the one bedroom suites costing a little more than studio suites when paying cash, both room types are bookable for the same number of points. Needless to say, I chose the one bedroom suite option when booking which is apparently 750 sq ft.
When entering the room, the living area was straight ahead, the kitchen was on the right, while the bedroom and bathroom were through a door on the right side of the living room by the TV.
Living Room
The living room had a comfortable corner sofa bed, along with a coffee table.
To the left of the sofa was a desk and office chair.
On the opposite side of the room there was a dining table and a couple of chairs, although we ended up using this as a second desk.
The living room had a wall-mounted Smart TV with a storage unit beneath it. The remote could be used to bring up a TV guide on screen – a feature I always appreciate so that we don’t have to scroll through tons of channels to see what’s on.
Kitchen
One of the things I like about staying at Residence Inns is that each room contains a kitchen. That includes a full-sized fridge-freezer, dishwasher, microwave and cooker. The Residence Inn Paducah was even better equipped than other ones we’ve stayed at because it was a full stove with an oven, rather than just an electric stove top.
The kitchen had everything we needed for our stay including four place settings, cookware, cooking utensils, silverware, etc.
We especially loved that they had giant drinking glasses – most hotel rooms containing a kitchen provide much smaller glasses.
Bathroom
The door off the living room led to a small square room containing the sink and vanity.
As with all Residence Inns, the toiletries were Paul Mitchell and were good quality.
The bathroom itself was off to the right of the vanity in a separate room. It contained the toilet and a bathtub with a shower.
It took forever for the water to heat up in the shower. I usually had to leave the bath tap running at full blast for two minutes before there was any semblance of heat, at which point it was safe to switch it to the shower. On the positive side, the water pressure from the shower was fantastic.
It didn’t matter how long the taps at the bathroom and kitchen sinks were left running though as no hot water ever came out of either. The hotel (or maybe just our room) therefore seemed to have some kind of hot water issue.
Bedroom
On the opposite side of the room of the bathroom sink was the bedroom. This contained a king bed which was extremely comfortable, so we slept well each night.
There were lamps above each side of the bed which included a power outlet to charge our phones overnight.
Opposite the bed was a good-sized dresser with a TV on top.
The bedroom also had a small closet. This contained an iron, ironing board, luggage rack, hairdryer and extra bedding in case someone was staying on the sofa bed.
Breakfast
Breakfast is included for free when staying at any Residence Inn. It included a few hot options each day, including scrambled eggs and two types of sausage on the day I took the photos, although these hot options varied each day.
The other breakfast options were pretty much the same each day, although they sometimes had chocolate croissants instead of regular croissants and a couple of days there was honeydew melon in addition to pineapple.
As for drinks, there was a juice machine…
…along with coffee, tea and iced water in the lobby which was available 24/7.
The breakfast seating area wasn’t particularly large, but we never had a problem finding a table at breakfast. QuiltWeek was starting in Paducah on the day we checked out, so I suspect the breakfast area would probably have been busier had we stayed longer.
The Mix Evening Social
In addition to the fact that all the rooms have a kitchen, another reason I like staying at Residence Inns is for their evening social called ‘The Mix’. This is usually held from Monday-Wednesday and the hotel provides complimentary food, soda, beer and wine. The food provided is usually filling enough to serve as a main meal, while I never say no to free booze.
The Residence Inn Paducah did their evening socials a little differently. For starters, they seemed to offer them from Monday-Friday rather than Monday-Wednesday.
While it’s great that they offer the evening social five nights a week instead of three, they seem to afford this by skimping on the food and drink that was provided. Rather than offering free beer and wine, they didn’t offer either for free – they didn’t even provide cans of soda. They did have a few beers available in the lobby, but they charged for those.
We only ate at the evening social one night and the food was sparse compared to all the other Residence Inns we’ve ever stayed at. It was billed as something like ‘grilled chicken Mediterranean salad, flatbread and dips’. Strictly speaking that description was accurate, but there was very little to it.
The chicken salad was served in tiny glasses and each one contained a couple of small chicken cubes, with the rest of it consisting of chick peas, cucumber and tomato.
The only other stuff served with it was flatbread, olives and a few dips. No salad, no fruit, no dessert. While it’s nice that food is offered, it did feel like they cheaped out with what they provided.
Amenities
The Residence Inn brand is aimed at people looking for a long term stay, so their amenities cater to that need. There’s a guest laundry area with a couple of washing machines and dryers that only cost $1 per load.
The hotel contains several avenues for getting some exercise, including a fitness room with a few pieces of equipment and some weights. The thermostat can’t be adjusted by guests and it was pretty humid in there, so I only used the treadmill once during our stay.
Outside there’s a sports court which can be used for tennis or basketball.
The hotel also has an indoor swimming pool and whirlpool. I wasn’t tempted by the swimming pool as it wasn’t very warm.
The swimming pool area is a great family zone though as it also included a table tennis table.
The swimming pool area isn’t the only place that’s good to hang out. There’s a courtyard with several tables and chairs, along with a grill if you want to cook out.
Back inside, there’s a seating area just off the lobby…
while the lobby itself has some additional seating around a fireplace that’s probably a nice and cozy place to hang out in the winter.
If you get peckish during your stay and can’t be bothered to head out to the grocery store or a restaurant, the hotel has a pantry area with snacks, microwaveable meals, etc.
Pet Policy
The Residence Inn Paducah is a pet-friendly property and accepts up to three dogs per room which is more generous than many hotels. Pets have to weigh less than 75 lbs and there’s a $50 fee per stay which is very reasonable – that’s about half the amount that most pet-friendly Marriott properties charge.
There’s a good amount of grass around the property for your dog(s) to do their business. Paducah also has a dog park, but we didn’t make it there during our stay.
Service
Service at the hotel was fairly good overall, although we didn’t have too many interactions with staff members.
The housekeeping service didn’t seem too comprehensive though. Seeing as we declined housekeeping to get the bonus points for ‘Make A Green Choice’, we left our trash out on a couple of days during our stay. It was emptied, but no plastic liner was provided and so we had to use grocery bags instead.
Another day, our bath mat got soaked and so we left it outside our door to be switched out. Two rooms down our end of the hallway also left their trash outside their doors, but all of those items were still there in the evening. That’s despite the fact that housekeeping had come down our hall that day after all these items had been left outside our rooms (we’d walked past the housekeeping cart in the hallway on our way out).
Check-In & Check-Out Times
Check-in is at 3pm and check-out is at 11am.
Wi-Fi
The hotel’s Wi-Fi was free for all guests and seemed to be a decent speed.
Location
The Residence Inn Paducah is located just off I-24. It’s grouped together with a bunch of other hotels and is a short drive to Kentucky Oaks Mall, along with tons of restaurants.
It only takes 10-15 minutes to get downtown which is where The National Quilt Museum is based. The hotel is also about 30 minutes away from Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area; we visited there twice and so would recommend checking it out if you’re in the area.
Seeing as Paducah is so close to the southern Illinois, I’d also recommend heading across the state border to visit Garden Of The Gods as it’s only an hour away.
Parking
It’s free to park at the hotel and there were plenty of spaces in the parking lot.
Cost
I mentioned at the beginning of the review that we paid for our stay using points. At the time of our stay it was a category 2 property and so cost 12,500 points per night. The fifth night is free on award stays, so we only paid 50,000 points for our five nights, along with a $50 pet fee.
If we’d paid cash, the room rate would’ve been $134.97 per night including tax. That means we got 1.35cpp (cents per point) of value by using points which is pretty good for Marriott.
I earned 500 bonus points due to having Platinum status. I should also have earned 750 points for declining housekeeping but that wasn’t awarded, so I have to follow up with Marriott about that.
Final Thoughts
We had a very good stay at the Residence Inn Paducah. Being able to book a one bedroom suite for a standard number of points was great, while the suite was clean, comfortable and had a good kitchen.
The spread at the evening social was a little disappointing, as was the very limited housekeeping that we did require. Overall though, I wouldn’t hesitate to stay at this property again so long as it still provided good value.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives the Residence Inn Paducah three paws out of four – pawsome! There was a good amount of grass for her and the $50 pet fee per stay was very reasonable. She didn’t appreciate that we were on the first floor though as the Sasquatch in the room above us stomped around early in the morning and late at night, causing her to bark.
Our Rating
Room = 4.9 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.7 / 5
Food = 4.4 / 5
Location = 4.2 / 5
Service = 4.0 / 5
Overall Value = 4.6 / 5
Total = 4.47 / 5
Address
Residence Inn, 3900 Coleman Crossing Cir, Paducah, KY 42001
Damn!
Even your closest friends don’t won’t to read all that crap.