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With the exponential growth of hotel brands, there are always going to be ones you’ve yet to visit. Some might be aspirational, like your first time staying at a Park Hyatt or St. Regis (unless you’re like my wife Sharon, and don’t want to stay at a St. Regis.)

Other brands you haven’t visited because it’s never fit into your travel plans and the brand isn’t anything different than what’s out there. This is how we felt about Home2 Suites by Hilton. The extended-stay brand was launched by Hilton in 2009 to compete with Marriott’s TownPlace Suites and IHG’s Candlewood Suites.

Since Hilton is our final preference after Hyatt, Marriott and IHG, we’re usually able to find a room with one of the other chains. However, we were looking for a room at Cape Canaveral during Spring Break and the same day NASA was moving the new SLS-Orion rocket from the Vehicle Assembly Building to a launchpad.

Needless to say, hotel rooms were at a premium at Cape Canaveral and both cash and award prices were through the roof. The best value was the Home2 Suites where the AAA & Member rate was $282 and an award night cost 40,000 Hilton Honors points.

I have enough Hilton points where I didn’t feel bad redeeming them for 0.7 CPP. It helped that we were looking for a room with a refrigerator and this room had a kitchen with full-size appliances.

The check-in area was very open with modern styling.

Upon check-in, the hotel recognized our Hilton Gold status and provided us with our welcome gift. At an extended-stay property, we didn’t expect much and that is what we got.

We had a room towards the end of the hallway.

Open entering the room, the striking thing is that the room is really long and not very wide.

As with most rooms with a kitchen, that’s the first thing when you enter. There’s a microwave but no stovetop like you’ll find in other extended-stay rooms.

The bathroom is off the kitchen, which always seems a bit strange. It also means you have to walk on the tile to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

The bathroom was sufficient and had a shower instead of a tub/shower combo. We like this setup but it could be troublesome if traveling with children.

The “living” area of the room has a desk with an office chair, couch and TV. There is a curtain to give some separation between this space and the beds but I can’t see it doing that much.

The beds were suitable for a one-night stay, with sufficient pillows. There were nightstands on each side (a pet peeve of mine is when hotels only put one nightstand between two beds), and a small table between the two beds.

There’s a large area for the breakfast included with the room, which is another thing that sets Home2 Suites apart from other extended-stay offerings.

The breakfast offerings are pretty standard, with plenty of carbs. They also did have a self-serve waffle maker.

Besides the dining area, there were additional areas to sit around the lobby.

There’s also a large workout room with several treadmills, stationary bikes and a large selection of weights. This is also the laundry area with two washers and dryers.

Final Thoughts

So what did we think of our first stay at Home2 Suites by Hilton? It’s a perfectly fine place to stay. If you’re only staying for a few nights, there’s a little more space than you’ll find in a typical hotel room. While this might be good for families, the lack of a tub in the bathroom could be a dealbreaker.

We’d definitely stay at a Home2 Suites again if the situation presented itself. However, the brand wasn’t that different from similar concepts from the competitors. The major differences are at the margins and that’s not enough to persuade me to stay at one place over another for a “generic” booking. For an actual stay, I’d be looking at prices and reviews to decide if we’re staying with Hilton, Marriott, IHG or Hyatt.

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