After spending 10 days in Wichita, we continued heading east. The southeast corner of Kansas is home to a few things we thought were worth visiting, so we booked a four night stay at the Rodeway Inn & Suites Parsons.
We’d never stayed at a Rodeway Inn before and, although my impression of the brand wasn’t great, it had good reviews and so we decided to give it a try.
It ended up being a decent stay with a better-than-expected breakfast and some good amenities. Here’s a full review of our stay at the Rodeway Inn & Suites Parsons, Kansas.
Check-In
We arrived at the hotel at about 4pm and were the only ones checking in, so the process was fairly quick. We weren’t asked to complete a pet form and so we were soon on our way to room 113.
Bedroom
The rooms with a king bed were a little more expensive than the rooms with two queen beds, so we’d booked the cheaper option.
Although the bedding looked a little dated, the beds were comfortable and the blackout curtains worked pretty well.
In the corner of the room was an armchair. I worked from there on a couple of days of our stay and it was nice and comfortable.
On the opposite side of the room was a mini-fridge, microwave and coffee maker.
To the right of those was a desk and office chair, along with the room’s TV on top of a dresser. There was a good selection of cable TV channels, with a guide on the TV showing what shows were on and upcoming.
To the right of the dresser was a luggage rack, while there was a second one in the closet. The closet also contained an iron and ironing board.
Bathroom
When entering the room, the bathroom was to the left. There was a long countertop which we always appreciate as it provides more space to leave our dishes to dry after washing up when using our portable kitchen.
The Rodeway Inn & Suites Parsons provides shampoo, conditioner, lotion, soap and makeup remover.
The bathroom had a bathtub with shower; the shower’s water pressure was good.
Overall, I liked our room. While not overly spacious, the beds were comfortable, I appreciated having a fridge and microwave in the room, the shower was good and, most importantly, the room was very clean.
The only downside was that we could sometimes hear the people in the room above us stomping around, especially their kid who liked to run around. That’s not a huge issue in and of itself, but it sometimes set off Truffles who felt like she needed to bark in order to protect us from whoever was trying to break into our room from above.
Breakfast
Breakfast is included for free when you stay at the Rodeway Inn & Suites Parsons. There was a better selection than I expected, with several different hot options each morning. The morning I took the photos there were sausage patties, cheesy omelets, hash browns and biscuits with sausage gravy. Other mornings there was bacon, scrambled eggs, sausage links and more.
The other options were the same each morning:
The breakfast area had several tables and chairs. It’s not a particularly large hotel – there are only two floors – so it’s sufficient most of the time, although one morning we took breakfast back to our room as all the tables were taken.
Amenities
The Rodeway Inn & Suites Parsons has an indoor swimming pool and whirlpool. The swimming pool was a great temperature – much warmer than I’d been expecting.
The hotel has a fitness room with a few pieces of equipment. A nice feature of the fitness room is that the temperature can be controlled by guests.
There’s a guest laundry room if you need to wash any clothes during your stay. The washing machine costs $1.25 per load, while the dryer is $1 per load.
If you’re thirsty or peckish during your stay there are vending machines…
…along with a tea and coffee station in the lobby that’s available 24/7. They also provided cookies every evening which is always welcome.
The lobby also has a computer and printer you can use during your stay.
If you’re a smoker, there’s a shelter on the left side of the hotel.
Pet-Friendliness
The Rodeway Inn & Suites Parsons is a pet-friendly hotel. Their website says that they charge a $25 pet fee per stay which is very reasonable and is one of the reasons we chose this hotel as we’re traveling with our dog Truffles.
I didn’t check our final bill very carefully when checking out, so I missed that they’d charged us a $60 pet fee plus tax. When calling the hotel, they advised that they recently started charging $15 per night rather than $25 per stay. This wasn’t disclosed when checking in and their website still says the pet fee is $25 per stay, so we’re disputing the fee.
If you’re staying with a dog, there’s plenty of grass around the hotel.
Parsons also has a good dog park that’s less than 10 minutes away from the hotel, with separate sections for small and large dogs.
The small dog section isn’t very big, so we took Truffles over to the large dog section one day when there were no other dogs there.
Service
Shae and I had different impressions of the service. I thought it was fairly average – I didn’t find the front desk staff particularly personable and they never said goodbye when we left or greeted us when we returned. That’s something a lot of hotels do, whereas staff at the Rodeway Inn & Suites Parsons just seemed to blank guests as they walked past.
Shae thought they were more personable though, as she stopped by the front desk a couple of times with questions and got chatting to them.
Wi-Fi
The hotel’s Wi-Fi was free and had a good connection.
Location
Parsons is a fairly small city of ~10,500 people, with the hotel being based on the north side of the city. It’s only a couple of minutes away from a Walmart and is within a 10 minute drive of pretty much anywhere in the city.
A little further afield, the Little House On The Prairie Museum is about 45 minutes southwest in Independence. We’d planned to visit, but it’s closed on Mondays and that was the only day we had time to visit.
25 minutes to the east is Big Brutus in West Mineral. Big Brutus is the World’s Largest Electric Shovel and is actually far more interesting than it sounds. We visited it and would recommend checking it out – read our review to find out way.
Parking
Parking is free at the hotel and there’s plenty of it considering it’s not a particularly large hotel.
Cost
We paid $76.92 per night including tax which was a good rate considering it’s a nice enough hotel and included a good free breakfast. I booked our stay through Top Cashback (my referral link), so we should earn $13.39 cashback from the stay.
In addition to the cashback, we earned 2,937 Choice Privileges points, along with a $5 Starbucks gift card as our ‘Your Extras‘ selection for having a stay which included a Sunday-Thursday night.
If we’d paid for the stay with points, it would’ve cost us 10,000 Choice Privileges points per night. That means we would’ve got 0.77cpp (cents per point) of value from our points which is slightly below their average value. Paying cash therefore made more sense, especially when taking into account the points we earned, the cashback and the $5 Starbucks gift card.
Final Thoughts
We had a good stay at the Rodeway Inn & Suites Parsons. With a fairly low paid rate, it was a good value stay, especially considering they have clean, comfortable rooms with fridges and microwaves, several amenities and a good buffet breakfast in the morning for free.
Although I didn’t think the service was amazing, I’d still recommend this hotel if you need somewhere to stay in southeast Kansas.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives this hotel three paws out of four – pawsome! There was a lot of grass around the hotel and she liked that there was a good dog park nearby. She didn’t care for the noise coming from the room above us and didn’t get much attention from the front desk staff which she appreciates getting at most other hotels we stay at.
Our Rating
Room = 4.2 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.4 / 5
Food = 4.5 / 5
Location = 3.8 / 5
Service = 3.4 / 5
Overall Value = 4.5 / 5
Total = 4.13 / 5
Address
Rodeway Inn & Suites, 1807 Harding Dr, Parsons, KS 67357
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