A year ago we decided that we wanted to go to the Cherry Festival in Traverse City, MI in the first week of July 2023. The Cherry Festival is a popular event, so we knew it’d be hard to get a hotel if we didn’t book quickly.
When researching our hotel options, the cash prices were already incredibly high – many were $250+ per night. Seeing as our budget on our 50 state road trip is $125 per day and that has to include everything (not just accommodation), splashing out as least twice that amount per night wouldn’t work.
Using points proved to be hard too. Most hotel chains now use dynamic pricing for award nights which means that the number of points needed can be much higher during events such as the Cherry Festival. Thankfully there was an outlier – the Tru by Hilton Traverse City.
Despite the fact that the Hilton Honors program uses dynamic pricing, there are occasional properties that don’t seem to have this set up for one reason or another. The Tru is one such example and was a bargain at only 30,000 points per night (which ended up being even less thanks to Hilton’s 5th night free benefit).
Although it was a bargain, it wasn’t a Tru-ly amazing stay. My main quibble (well, quibbles) is that we didn’t like the room design. There were all kinds of design features that we didn’t like which probably wouldn’t be an issue if only staying a couple of nights, but are far more noticeable on a 10 night stay like we booked. That said, the hotel had other good features as well as very hardworking staff.
Here’s a full review of our stay at the Tru by Hilton Traverse City in Michigan.
Check-In
It was a fairly long drive from Houghton, MI and we stopped a couple of times along the way, so we didn’t arrive in Traverse City until about 7pm. There was no line to check in and this was processed pretty quickly and we were soon on our way up to room 309.
Bedroom
Despite living in hotels and Airbnbs for the last six years, this was our very first time we’d stayed at a Tru. We’d been in one before as Shae’s dad stayed at the one in Ocean City, MD when coming to visit us (we were at the Hyatt Place Ocean City Oceanfront). We’d therefore seen what their rooms looked like, but hadn’t paid any attention to their intricacies (or lack thereof).
Everything appeared fine at first glance when entering the room. The bedroom was straight ahead, while the bathroom was on the right.
We’d booked a room with a king bed and this was very comfortable. It’s a new hotel and they have blackout blinds that can be lowered. Those worked very well, so there was no problem with the bedroom not being dark at night.
Something that was missing (a recurring theme as you’ll come to see) is that there was no power outlet on the right side of the bed. This hotel was brand new, so the fact that in 2023 they couldn’t be bothered to install at least one power outlet on each side of the bed was annoying.
What you might notice is that there was no sofa. There wasn’t even an armchair. The one lone seat in the entire room was at the small desk opposite the bed.
To the left of the desk was a wall-mounted TV and a small luggage rack. This is when we noticed something else missing – there were no dresser drawers in the room – only a small storage space beneath the luggage rack.
The TV was frustrating too. It was fixed to the wall and didn’t extend out, so it was impossible to get to any of the HDMI slots behind to use our Fire TV Stick.
To the hotel’s credit though, they had a very good channel selection and, for the first time that I’ve ever noticed at any hotel anywhere in the US, they had the Willow TV channel available. Willow broadcasts cricket matches 24/7 and, being British, made me very happy that I could finally watch some cricket after 14 years of living in the US. Even better, the Ashes (a five match series between England and Australia which is a huge rivalry) was going on this summer, so I was able to catch some of that.
Something else you might notice in the photo above is the teeny-tiny trash can. Not only was it tiny, but it had a barrier splitting it in half – one side for regular trash and one side for recycling. That barrier meant you could fit very little of anything in either side. They also don’t provide trash bags, so if you put any leftover food in there, it’s going to get gross pretty quickly.
The curious (AKA dumb) design choices continued elsewhere in the room. There was a mini fridge (emphasis on the mini – it was about as small of a mini fridge as you can get) with a shelf above it, then a “closet” above that. “Closet” deserves to be in quotation marks as it can’t even be regarded as an open closet like some hotels have. Instead, there was a small curved railing and five hangers. This “closet” was useless though.
For starters, the limited number of hangers meant you could hang up – at best – five pieces of clothing. The short space between the railing and the shelf beneath meant that only t-shirts, shirts, blouses, etc. could fit on there; pants, dresses, etc. would just end up being draped all over. It also meant the shelf above the mini fridge was useless as you couldn’t really place anything there if you had any clothes hanging up.
Something missing from that area was a microwave. The hotel has one in the lobby, but it was a shame they don’t provide one. They don’t even provide a coffee maker for your room. Similar to the microwave situation, there’s coffee and tea available in the lobby 24/7 (which they do seem to keep refreshed), but that was yet another thing missing from the room that the brand designers of Tru appear to have made the active decision to not include.
On the other side of the wall there were a few hooks which were handy for things like hanging up Truffles’ leash and harness, drying towels, etc.
Bathroom
The bathroom was a decent enough size and had the toilet and sink on the right…
…and a walk-in shower on the left.
There were large bottles of refillable toiletries in the shower. I get that Tru is meant to be targeted at Millennials (which, as Gen X-ers, we’re close to being), but do any Millennials actually think shampoo that says “Shampooing with sharks (for that competitive edge in work and/or play)” makes any sense, or that their body wash really is “joy inducing”?!
As you can tell, I wasn’t the biggest fan of our room. It was clean and the bed was good, but the room design was simply awful if you’re staying more than a couple of nights.
The general construction of the hotel didn’t seem great in terms of quality of materials. The walls were fairly thin as we could hear people’s conversations, TVs, etc. I was even able to hear someone on the floor above or below us raising or lowering their blind which I don’t think is something I’ve ever heard in any hotel.
Side note: I don’t think this is the Tru in Traverse City cheaping out on things or designing their rooms badly themselves. The room designs will be something that’s done by Hilton corporate for franchisees to use.
Breakfast
The Tru offers free breakfast for all guests. It’s served from 6am-9am Monday-Friday and 7am-10am Saturday-Sunday.
There were only two hot options each day – some kind of eggs and some kind of breakfast meat. The overall selection of food wasn’t extensive, but it was sufficient for us.
In the lobby next to the front desk there was a 24/7 coffee and tea station. I frequently noticed staff members taking the dispensers away and coming back with free coffee and hot water, so it seemed like they did a good job with that. Neither Shae nor I are coffee drinkers; I drink tea, but have a small electric kettle we travel with to make my own tea, so I can’t attest to how good their coffee is.
Amenities
The Tru by Traverse City has a fitness room that’s open 24/7. It’s not the most well-equipped fitness room ever, but it had several pieces of cardio equipment (including a Peloton bike) and weights.
The fitness room has windows along one side where the door is. That looks out on the elevators, so it feels like you’re in a fishbowl while working out on the cardio equipment due to all the people going in and out of the elevators.
Right next to the fitness room is an ice machine and water dispenser for water bottles. That latter feature is one that I appreciated as I drink a lot of water each day, plus it was nice having it right next to an ice machine. If you’ve ever used a water dispenser like this, you’ll know that it tells you how many plastic water bottles it’s saved from the landfill so far. To give you an idea as to how new the hotel was, it started out at about 7,000 bottles when we arrived and was at close to 10,000 by the time we left, so in 10 days it added almost 50% of its previous usage. Now, part of that will be due to how busy the hotel was due to the Cherry Festival, but I suspect it had only opened in the spring.
There were ice buckets and cups next to the ice machine and water dispenser too.
Also by the elevator was an information board with some hotel details and info about local attractions, restaurants, etc.
One of the hotel’s best features was its public space (or spaces). The lobby in particular had a huge amount of seating of all kinds. There were smaller seating areas for one or two people, cozy hanging chairs, areas that would be good for working in, larger tables and seating arrangements for larger groups, etc. For as little thought as the Tru brand designers seemed to put into the comfort of people in their rooms, they sure did put a lot of thought into creating a decent public space for people to hang out.
I stay up later at night working while Shae’s asleep, so I always went down into the lobby to work. Many of these areas had plentiful power outlets which, again, would’ve been nice to have in our room too!
In addition to all the seating arrangements, there were a couple of foosball tables and board games for guests to play with. One of the walls also had a large mural which added even more color to the already colorful area.
The front desk is sort of like a pod in the middle of the lobby. Surrounding the desk there’s a pantry area with all kinds of drinks and snacks. This is also where the microwave is; it’s somewhat hidden behind the front desk (it’s on the left hand side in the photo below just past the chiller with soft drinks).
If you’d rather hang out outside rather than indoors, there’s some seating out there too. This area could do with some covering to help protect from the sun in the summer and rain on days with worse weather.
Back in the lobby area, there’s a business center with a couple of computers and a printer for guests to use.
There are two amenities that the hotel doesn’t have that might be important for you – guest self-laundry and a swimming pool.
Pet Policy
The Tru by Hilton Traverse City is a pet-friendly hotel. They allow up to two dogs or cats with a max weight of 75 lbs and there’s a $60 pet fee per stay (rather than per night). That’s not ideal if you’re only staying one night, but it’s also not outrageous seeing as some hotels charge $150 or more per stay. If you’re staying 10 nights like we did, that works out to be $6 per night which is great value for having Truffles with us.
When checking in, they gave us a paw-patterned doggy bag with treats and a roll of poop bags in it which was great.
The hotel has some grassy and mulchy areas surrounding the property. There’s also a sidewalk running along the main road opposite the hotel, so Truffles and I went for some walks along there too.
Service
Overall, service was very good. The front desk staff members were always friendly. The night staff members in particular were incredibly hard working. I’d often be working until 3am or 4am and they’d always be working at something, whether that was sweeping the floor, wiping tables, working on laundry, refreshing the coffee and hot water for tea, etc. That’s very unusual because night staff at other hotels usually just sit on their phones playing loud TikTok videos all night.
They almost worked too hard to a fault though. Sometimes whatever they were working on would take them away from the front desk for an extended period of time. There were a few occasions where guests came down late at night to get some snacks, but had to wait quite some time in order for the front desk employee to return in order to pay for the items. An area for improvement would therefore be for them to check back at the front desk a little more frequently to ensure no one needs assistance, but it’s hard to begrudge them for working hard at night on other stuff.
We only asked for housekeeping once during our stay which we received. The only small miss with that is that they didn’t refill the body wash. That didn’t seem to have been fully refilled before we arrived, so it ran out a couple of days before we checked out. I’ve no problem with hotels offering refillable bottles like this – in fact, I prefer it – but wish they were more diligent about ensuring they’re replenished consistently.
Wi-Fi
The hotel offers free Wi-Fi for all guests. The speed was good, as was the connectivity.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
Check-in at the Tru Traverse City is from 3pm, while check-out is at 12pm.
Location
The hotel is 2-3 miles from downtown Traverse City. Even though downtown was busy when we were there due to the Cherry Festival, traffic wasn’t too bad and so it didn’t take much more than 10 minutes to get downtown.
There are a few fast food places within walking distance and there’s a large Meijer grocery store about half a mile away which is also walkable. Traverse City offers the free Bayline bus service around town and you can catch it from the nearby Meijer store. That’s a great option if you’re concerned about finding parking downtown or want to be able to have a few drinks downtown without having to worry about catching an Uber or Lyft later on.
Traverse City is also a great place to stay in if you’re interested in visiting Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
Parking
The Tru offers free parking for all guests. There are parking spots all around the hotel, so there was never a problem finding a spot even when the hotel seemed like it was fully booked.
Cost
Tru is one of Hilton’s brands and we booked our stay using Hilton Honors points. They were charging 30,000 points per night, so our 10 night stay should’ve cost 300,000 points. However, Hilton offers every 5th night free on award stays to all members who have any level of status Silver or higher (you can get Silver status with Hilton’s credit card that has no annual fee). With us staying 10 nights, that meant we got both the 5th and 10th nights free and so we only had to redeem 240,000 points or an average of 24,000 points per night.
The cash rate during our stay was $385.84 per night including tax. That’s incredibly high and is due to how busy Traverse City gets during the Cherry Festival in July. That means we got 1.61cpp (cents per point) of value by using points which is 3-4x as much value that you can usually expect to get from Hilton points, so it was exceptional value. That said, there’s no way we’d ever pay anything close to ~$400 per night, but it did mean we got to experience the Cherry Festival which wouldn’t have been possible without points.
Final Thoughts
My thoughts on our room at the Tru were pretty scathing as there were so many poor design elements. Those were particularly noticeable on our long stay, but we did like the rest of the hotel and it was impressive seeing how hard the front desk staff always seemed to work.
Despite disliking the layout and setup of our room, I would be open to staying there again if other hotels were too expensive. It was good value, it was in a decent location for getting downtown and was conveniently near a large grocery store.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives the Tru Traverse City four paws out of four – pawfect! The $60 pet fee was very reasonable, particularly considering how long we stayed there. They had a bag with treats and poop bags when checking in, there’s a good amount of grass around the hotel for dogs to do their business and there’s a sidewalk along the main road running along outside and so we were able to safely go for longer walks.
Our Rating
Room = 3.0 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.2 / 5
Food = 3.8 / 5
Location = 4.3 / 5
Service = 4.4 / 5
Overall Value = 4.5 / 5
Total = 4.03 / 5
Address
Tru, 3572 US-31, Traverse City, MI 49684
I think you are being a bit harsh on the room design. I agree staying there for 10 days would not be easy but it’s up to you to do your research and know what to expect from different brands like Tru & Marriott’s Moxy.
I knew that Tru is a little like brands like Moxy and Aloft in terms of their target demographic. It just seems strange that they seem to have actively tried to make design choices that don’t enhance a guest’s stay; instead, it does exactly the opposite.