TL:DR - Below average IHG property with dated facilities, no enforcement of access controls for…read morenon-guests, and subpar amenities.
Pre-pandemic I would travel 5-7 times a year, which meant traveling on a Monday, work Tues-Thurs, and then fly back home on Friday. Fairly standard work engagement. People in my office called me "lucky" since I got to go on "exciting" and "fun" business trips. Well, as people who often travel for work will tell you, business trips are seldom "exciting" and/or "fun."
Typically work trips mean arriving at the client site at 7am and staying till 5pm, often eating room service or in the hotel restaurant, working until 8 or 9pm responding to emails, and then getting up early the next day to repeat the process until you return back home. And it's not as if I'm staying at the Ritz-Carlton; I'm often staying at lower tier hotels which have to fall under government per diem rates.
Now that I'm traveling for work again, I found myself in the small-ish town of Cranbury, NJ recently for another software deployment. Cranbury was formerly a "middle of nowhere" town off of I-95, but in recent years it has become somewhat of a boom town with major distribution hubs for Amazon, Wayfair.com, and VW/BMW/Audi.
As I've mentioned before, I'm strictly a Marriott Bonvoy member, but for whatever reason, Marriott doesn't have a contract with GSA in this area, so I decided to book at the Staybridge Suite Cranbury-South Brunswick mainly because it was close to the job site. Big mistake. In retrospect, it would've been better to drive the extra 15-20 min to nearby Princeton University where there are better lodging options.
Here are my observations from my recent stay:
Facilities: From the exterior, the place looks nice but once inside it is giving of a 80's vibe, with really dated public areas such as in the dining area where several of the seats were visibly stained. I also try and work out when traveling, but the fitness center was a joke.
There were three cardio machines, two weight benches, and a few dumb bells, but the area was so cramped, that any more than 3 people and the place felt very cramped. Also note, the attached TV monitors on the machines didn't work. The other thing about the fitness center, is that the laundry was also located in the same area, so the whole work out experience felt like I was in somebody's basement with the constant sound of washing machines and dryers competing with the podcasts from my headphones.
Rooms: Basic, but fairly clean. The biggest problem with my room was with noise. The first source of noise emanates from the A/C unit. This Staybridge is an older property, and as such it has one of those A/C units which is connected to the windows, instead of a more modern central air model. Sooo, this meant in order to keep the room at a modest 71 degrees, it was constantly operating making sleep challenging; I don't think I slept more than 5 hours any night since I'd fall asleep and then wake up when the A/C kicked on.
The other issue is, if you have a room facing the pool, you will often hear people talking loudly. One night, I heard people outside until way past midnight.
It was nice to have a large fridge and microwave, which I used to reheat leftovers. Included breakfast is on par with what you'd find at lower tier hotels with items such as rubbery sausage links, powdered eggs, cereal, and passable coffee.
Access Control: I agree with some of the other reviewers who express some concern about safety. There are signs posted on all of the doors indicating please do not prop doors open. However, the next morning when I was walking to my car, I'd often find rocks, or other items which had been used to prop doors open for what I assume to be non-guests. In fact, the room into the fitness center (adjacent to the pool) didn't even close properly, so when I'd get my morning work out in, it was routinely ajar. There were a few nights when I'd come back from dinner, and there people milling about which I didn't sense were actual hotel guests...but I could be wrong.
In a previous life, I've stayed at many places like the Staybridge Suites in Cranbury NJ. It's not the worst place, but there are MANY and I do mean MANY other better lodging choices if you're in the area. This is especially true if you're a business traveler and need to get any semblance of rest, I'd highly suggest staying booking someplace else.