Hotel Review: TownePlace Suites Bridgeport Clarksburg, West Virginia

After staying for a week in Rainelle to attend Bridge Day 2019, Shae and I headed up to Bridgeport to explore more of West Virginia.

We picked Bridgeport as it was in a good location based on several places we wanted to visit in the area, plus there was a category 1 Marriott property there – the TownePlace Suites Bridgeport Clarksburg.

We stayed there for 10 nights to maximize Marriott’s benefit where they offer every 5th night free. That meant both our 5th and 10th nights were free, making our stay even cheaper.

Here’s a review of our stay at the TownePlace Suites Bridgeport Clarksburg.

Check-In

I’d contacted the hotel through the Marriott app the day before to see if it was possible to get an upgrade from a studio king to a 1 bedroom suite seeing as I have Platinum status. They advised that they weren’t able to allocate upgrades until the day of arrival.

After stopping off in Charleston the following day, we arrived in Bridgeport at about 4:45pm. I asked again about a room upgrade, but unfortunately they were sold out of 1 bedroom suites by that point. I’d checked their website just as we arrived and didn’t see that room type available, so it’s not like they were just trying to avoid giving us an upgrade, but I’d been hoping they might see room availability on their system that didn’t happen to show on the website.

Beckie (or Becky?) was the person checking us in and she was lovely. She tried her hardest to find us a 1 bedroom suite, even asking the duty manager for assistance. Despite not being able to get us a 1 bedroom suite, it seems like she did get us an upgrade of sorts by putting us in a larger room – more on that shortly.

After receiving our keys to room 223, we pushed our luggage carts to the elevator and headed upstairs.

Accessible Studio King Room

I mentioned above that it seemed like we sort of got an upgrade. That’s because even though we’d booked a standard studio king room type, we were given an accessible studio king room. I’m not 100% sure how large their standard rooms are, but this room felt larger than expected due to it being designed to be accessible.

When entering the room, the kitchen was on the left and the bathroom on the right, with the bedroom and living area straight ahead.

Kitchen

Seeing as we live in hotels and Airbnbs nowadays, we like staying in suite hotels like TownePlace Suites as every room comes with a fully equipped kitchen. This contained a fridge-freezer, stove top, microwave, dishwasher, toaster and coffee maker.

Due to it being an accessible room, there were two large spaces beneath the counter on either side. That was extremely helpful for storage as it meant one side could store our food box and the other our portable kitchen.

In the kitchen cupboard and drawers were plates, dishes, glasses, mugs, cookware, silverware, etc. We appreciated having four place settings as Candlewood Suites properties (one of IHG’s brands) often only provide two.

Living Area

The living area of the room was set out in a strange way as the sofa bed was against the same wall where the TV was mounted. As a result, we turned the sofa bed 90 degrees so that it was perpendicular to the wall so that we could sit there and watch TV.

In addition to the sofa and ottoman, there was a desk with an additional desk on rollers beneath it, along with a tall, narrow cabinet for additional storage.

To the right of the couch was the room’s closet, set up so as to be accessible. This contained an iron, ironing board and additional bedding for the sofa bed.

Bedroom

On the opposite side of the room was the king bed. This was very comfortable and so we slept well throughout our stay.

Both sides of the bed had dressers, while there was an additional, larger dresser on one side. Both sides of the bed also had lamps with power outlets beneath them, helpful for charging our phones overnight.

Bathroom

The bathroom was larger than normal as it was designed to be accessible. There was a bathtub with shower on one side, along with the sink. The shower had two showerheads – one fixed and one handheld.

The toiletries were Paul Mitchell and were good quality.

The toilet was on the other side of the bathroom.

Breakfast

Breakfast is included with your stay at the TownePlace Suites Bridgeport Clarksburg and is – in theory – served until 9:30am each day.

It includes a couple of hot options each day which is usually sausage patties and fried eggs with cracked black pepper, but they sometimes had cheesy omelets and one or two other options. The other non-hot options tended to be the same every day.

Somewhat strangely, there was no water available to drink at breakfast. Instead, there was only a juice machine and a coffee and tea station.

I mentioned earlier that breakfast was supposed to be served until 9:30am. On our final morning, the person in charge of breakfast was hustling to get everything cleared away, starting at about 9:15am. That meant when other guests came down for breakfast at 9:20am, everything was packed away and the room where the food is served already had its lights turned out.

Other mornings they seemed to clear the food away pretty quickly, but clearing everything away by 9:20am was a little ridiculous.

Amenities

The TownePlace Suites Bridgeport Clarksburg has a number of amenities tailored towards guests who might be having an extended stay there. For example, there’s a guest laundry area with several washers and dryers, all of which are complimentary.

Next to the laundry area was a fitness room with several pieces of equipment and weights.

Unfortunately the temperature of the fitness room can’t be controlled by guests. That meant it was much warmer than I’d like when working out; the laundry area next door was much cooler, so I was tempted to prop the door open between the two rooms to try and let in a little cool air. I’d asked at the front desk if they could turn down the temperature one day, but it sounded like only the manager had a key to open the box that allowed access to the room’s thermostat and he/she wasn’t in at the time.

The hotel had an indoor swimming pool. Its temperature seems to depend on the day; the water was extremely warm the first day when I dipped my hand in, but was much colder on our final night when I actually planned to go for a swim.

If you want somewhere to hang out, there’s a nice outdoor seating area with a grill that guests can use.

There’s also plenty of seating inside which is used as the breakfast area in the morning. Next to that is a bar area which is opened in the evenings, something I’ve not noticed at other TownePlace Suites we’ve stayed at in the past.

The bar area offers beer, wine and snacks for sale Monday-Saturday from 5pm to 10pm. Seeing as the writing on the menu is so small in the photo below, here’s what it says:

• Chicken tenders with choice of dipping sauce (BBQ, honey mustard, ranch or blue cheese)
  • 6 pieces – $7
  • 12 pieces – $12.50
• Buffalo wings with choice of dipping sauce
  • 6 pieces – $8
  • 12 pieces – $13.50
• Mozzarella sticks with marinara sauce – $6.50
• Spinach artichoke dip with tortilla chips – $4.25
• Nacho cheese with tortilla chips – $4.25
• Salsa with tortilla chips – $4.25
• Extra chips or nacho cheese – $2.50
• Extra salsa or extra dipping sauce – $1.00

If you need any other kind of snacks or drinks, there’s a pantry in the lobby that’s open 24/7.

There’s also a 24/7 coffee and tea station in addition to the separate one that’s there at breakfast.

Also off the lobby is a business center with one computer and a printer, along with a few other seating options in case you want to have a (not very private) meeting.

Pet Policy

The TownePlace Suites Bridgeport Clarksburg is a pet-friendly hotel. You’re allowed one pet per room and they have to weigh a maximum of 20 lbs.

The pet fee is ludicrously high though – $150 per stay. That’s a high fee even if you stay for 10 nights like we did, but it’s extortionate if you only need to stay one night. We got lucky though as they didn’t end up charging the fee when checking out, so I certainly didn’t prompt them to charge us the $150!

The hotel has signs on the grassy areas at the front of the hotel asking you to not let your dog go to the bathroom there. Instead, there’s a decent-sized grassy area for pets at the back of the hotel.

One of the nice things about the hotel’s location is that it’s only a 5 minute drive from Bridgeport Bark Park. This is a fairly sizable dog park, although it doesn’t have separate areas for large and small dogs.

If you’d prefer to go for a walk, there’s a nice path alongside a lake that’s right next to the dog park.

Service

Other than breakfast being cleared away so early one morning, service at the hotel was excellent. In particular, Sheila and Beckie were always very friendly, with both of them giving Truffles lots of attention and treats.

Check-In & Check-Out Times

Check-in is at 4pm and check-out is at 11am. In theory we were entitled to a guaranteed 4pm check-out with my Platinum status, but we didn’t need to take advantage of this.

Wi-Fi

The internet connection at our Airbnb in Rainelle before this stay hadn’t been great, so the Wi-Fi at the TownePlace Suites Bridgeport Clarksburg was excellent by comparison. The speed was good and I don’t remember it dropping the connection during our stay.

Location

The hotel is in a pretty good location as it’s just off I-79. It’s very close to restaurants and stores including Kroger, Sam’s Club, Staples, Lowe’s and more.

It’s only about 45 minutes to Morgantown and Coopers Rock State Forest, the latter of which we’d highly recommend for a beautiful hike in the fall.

Parking

Parking is free at the hotel, with plenty of spaces out front and down one side of the hotel.

Cost

I mentioned at the start of this review that we paid for our stay using points. That’s because the TownePlace Suites Bridgeport Clarksburg is a category 1 property and so its standard cost is 7,500 points per night. You get every 5th night free when redeeming points, so I booked a 10 night stay so that we’d get both the 5th and 10th nights free.

That meant our stay cost a total of 60,000 points, or an average of 6,000 points per night which is fantastic value. If we’d paid cash, it would’ve cost $99.44 per night including tax which is also very reasonable considering every room has a kitchen and breakfast is included. Still, using points meant we got 1.66cpp (cents per point) by redeeming some of our Marriott Bonvoy points which is much better value than you can usually expect to get from them.

Final Thoughts

We had a great stay at the TownePlace Suites Bridgeport Clarksburg. Although we weren’t able to get an upgrade, our suite was still spacious, had a kitchen and was very comfortable. The hallway on our floor was always pretty quiet which was nice.

Service was very good and it was good value whether using points or paying cash, so I’d recommend staying here if you’re looking for somewhere to stay in the north of West Virginia.

Truffles Approval Rating

Truffles went back and forth as to whether to award three or four paws out of four, but went with four – pawfect! The $150 pet fee is far too high and would’ve prevented us from staying there if we’d only wanted to stay a couple of days, but it was a moot point in the end as we weren’t charged the fee.

The reason she gave four paws is because she got so much attention from the front desk staff. Anytime we walked through the lobby, she wanted to run behind the desk to see her new best friends, especially because they’d give her Beggin’ Strips. Truffles also liked that there was a dog park so close to the hotel where she got to run free several times.

Our Rating

Room = 4.4 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.7 / 5
Food = 4.2 / 5
Location = 4.4 / 5
Service = 4.8 / 5
Overall Value = 4.8 / 5

Total = 4.55 / 5

Address

TownePlace Suites, 101 Platinum Dr, Bridgeport, WV 26330