Hotel Review: InTown Suites in Northeast Charlotte, North Carolina

Every year my best friend and myself head south to Charlotte, North Carolina for the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Last year we decided to stay for a week and ended up at the InTown Suites University location. It wasn't a thrilling experience for either of us, which is why we decided to try a different location this year.

In the end we ended up at the InTown Suites located at 7706 North Tryon Street in Charlotte, North Carolina. They bill their hotels as more like apartments and less like hotels. This particular hotel was also closer to the track than their other location and also looked much nicer than the one we stayed at the year before.

Two weeks before we left on our trip, I made a reservation online using their server. We planned to leave on a Monday morning and on Saturday before the trip I received an email from the hotel website. The email stated that the Charlotte InTown Suites had yet to receive my reservation or alert the system of my reservation so there was no guarantee that they'd have a room for us.

We decided to call the hotel on the way, only to get their answering machine each time we called. At one pm we left a message and received a callback at 4 pm. The man who called said that there was no problem with the reservation and that they had a room waiting. It was a little odd to get the original email and then learn that there wasn't a problem.

After checking in, we walked up to our room and were pleasantly surprised. In addition to a double bed, we also had a large couch that was big enough for my friend to sleep on. There was also a small table, a full kitchen with a stove and refrigerator and a bathroom with a full shower and bathtub. The room was extremely clean and we had housekeeping come in on Friday to restock the room with towels and take out the trash.

However there were a few problems with the InTown Suites in Charlotte, also known as the Charlotte Northeast location. When we checked in, we discovered that they didn't have wireless internet, but rather used an Ethernet cable. The internet in each room was so slow that it was akin to using dial up. The television was also fairly old and had to run for at least 3 minutes before the picture turned on. Additionally they placed us on the third floor, without letting us know that they didn't have an elevator.

Despite that, the Northeast Charlotte InTown Suites was a nice place to stay during our week long trip. It does have a lot of local people who live there, which led to a few problems. There were always lines at the front desk, people asked us for things in the parking lot and it felt more like an apartment complex than a hotel.

Guests should also know that the office is only open from 11 am to 7 pm and check in/check out only occurs during those hours. It made things a little rough when we needed to be somewhere by noon and couldn't check out until eleven. The Northeast Charlotte InTown Suites has its problems, but it's the best hotel we've stayed at in the area so far.