Need Hotel Help

[imbordisux]

Well, we're planning our honeymoon for June... pretty amazing, a few years ago, I never would have pictured myself getting married this soon, let alone to a woman so amazingly awesome that her dream honeymoon would be a roller-coaster road-trip!

 

Anyway, we're curious about a lot of the little independent places; we know what to expect from the commercial chains, but we have no idea if, say, the "Shamrock Motel" in Wisconsin is comparable to a "Best Western".

 

If anyone can offer any help, it'd be much appreciated; our only criteria is that the places are cheap, and prefebly offer a free breakfast (and if anybody knows of a place that serves dinner as well, that'd be awesome).

 

Below are the parks we are visiting; each link takes you to a Mapquest page listing all the nearby hotels.

 

Lakemont Park - 1 Night

Cedar Point - 2 Nights

Six Flags Great America - 1 Night

Mt. Olympus or Timber Falls - 2 Nights (at one or the other, not both)

Indiana Beach - 2 Nights

Kennywood - 2 Nights

Busch Gardens Europe - 1 Night

Paramount's Kings Dominion - 2 Nights

 

Remember: Cheap + Breakfast = Perfect

 

Thanks in advance, everyone.

- Stu and Monica

[USRoadTripper]

I stayed at the Maples Motel near Cedar Point, and for the love of God, do NOT stay there! I saw it online and thought "Quaint old motor lodge, free breakfast, two miles from Cedar Point, fits perfectly in the budget"...no way. This place had train tracks almost directly in front of it, which meant we got woken up about every 20 minutes or so for the entire night. Plus, being old, we blew a fuse so we spent the night without power. It was the single worst night I have ever spent in a hotel!

Sorry I can't be of more help on where *to* stay, but at least I can give a bit of advice on where *not* to stay.

 

-Julie

[Scaparri]

I've stayed at the Baymont Inn in Gurnee, IL, right next to SFGAm. It was a very nice hotel, but I believe it was about $90 or 100 for the night.

 

It's a little out of the way, but about 30 minutes southeast of Indiana Beach on I-65 is Lafayette, home of Purdue University. Since it's a college town, there are a lot of lodging options. I stayed at the Motel 6, and though I don't remember if there was breakfast, the room wasn't too bad and it was only $40 a night.

[BarryH]

If you're going to do CP, I would stay at one of the onsite hotels. The cheapest is Breakers Express. A friend vouched for the Howard Johson's about a mile from CP, but the non-CP hotels in Sandusky are kind of ghetto.

 

The Breakers Express has no onsite restaurant, but a cart in the lobby sold some pastries. You can probably find a restaurant near CP for breakfast.

[the_rock401]

Depending on your order of parks, and how far off-site you want to stay, I stayed at a Microtel in Racine, Wisconsin (which is about 30 miles noth of SFGAm on I-94) for $55/night when I went down to SFGAm last summer. They had a continetal breakfast, but I ate at an IHOP across the way. If you're going towards the Dells after SFGAm, Racine is in the right direction.

 

Also, do you want to swing up to Valleyfair and Renegade? It's about 3.5 hours from the Dells to Valleyfair.

 

Paul

[imbordisux]

We're hitting the parks in the order listed above; we live on Long Island, so we're taking the "northern" route out to Wisconsin, and the "southern" route back to Virginia and then home. I think ideally we're looking for about 15 minutes away or so.

 

We would have liked to have gotten out to "Valleyfair" (and several other parks, including "Waldameer", "SFAm", "GL", and a revisit to super-mega-amazing "HW"), but we didn't have enough time; we could have squeezed in a few more parks, but we're not credit-whores, we have no interest in hitting a park for an hour, riding everything once, and then leaving that same day for the next park just to get more credits. We like taking our time, we're pretty much driving every other day, and spending full days at most of them.

 

Thanks to everyone for their help so far, and we look forward to all the help I'm sure others on this board will offer, too.

[royeraf3]

I saw your post and had to reply. Living in Ohio and knowing a few places around CP I want to strongly suggest you stay at one of the CP resorts. We stay at Breakers Express often and its perfect for us, we've stayed at the Hotel Breakers and I was angry with the money I spent, nice but not THAT nice. If those don't fit the bill try the Hampton Inn on Milan Rd. they were very nice to us and the hotel was very clean. If you want a peacefull place to stay and are willing to drive a little, try Maumee Bay State park, they have a nice hotel and its a beautiful park (my wife and I spent part of our Honeymoon there before going to Put In Bay and we loved it)

 

Since you'll be in Ohio you may also want to check out King's Island its only about 4 hours away and thats if you go slow. Best of luck and Congratulations.

 

 

[Cedar Point ... America's Roller Coast, Kings Island.....NOT an ISLAND Infact NOWHERE near Water]

[Coaster Palooza]

Hi Stu, Congratulations on the upcoming marriage!

 

I thought I would give you the information I have on hotels and possible park times if you would like it. I went to most of these parks last year.

 

My first thought is that you might not need a full day at some of the parks. Yes, I agree that being able to go through the whole park is fun, but some of the parks go pretty quick. One of our trips that I remember is going to Michigan's Adventure. We planned to stay there overnight and be there for 2 days. We were done with that park in 2 hours (including re-riding Shivering Timbers and other coasters), but we already had our hotels booked so we had to stay there. If I had known we didn't need 2 days there, we would have had more time at other parks, or we would have gone to another one.

 

My thoughts on the parks and times are below.

 

Lakemont - You can probably do this park in under 4 hours if you want to take your time. If you want to get through it quick, you can do it in 2 or less.

 

DelGrosso's - I would add this park on the same day as Lakemont because it is so close to Lakemont. It is really neat and small. You could get through it in around 2-4 hours too.

 

Idlewild - It is pretty close to Lakemont and it can be done the same day as the other 2. You might want 6 hours here, but you could do it in less time.

 

Cedar Point - 2 nights and 3 days at the park should be fine. I would definitely stay at a resort hotel there. Hotel Breakers worked out for us. You also get early entry into the park.

 

Mt Olympus and Timber Falls - Do both parks. Timber Falls only has the one coaster. It is a miniature golf course with Avalanche and a log ride. This can be done after you get through with Mt. Olympus. When we went, Mt Olympus wasn't that crowded. I think I rode all of their go-cart tracks along with riding all the coasters and getting re-rides. We made this a day trip from Gurnee. We stayed at the Hampton Inn across the street from Six Flags Great America. The cost for the 2 nights was $187.81. They had a free breakfast, both hot and cold. They also had a bag breakfast you could take with you.

 

Six Flags Great America - Possible 2 days here. We didn't get it all done in the few hours that I planned and I am a little mad about that.

 

Indiana Beach - This place is great! We really liked it here, but we wouldn't spend 2 nights here. We stayed at the Best Western on 6th street, which is right down the street from Indiana Beach. It cost us $80.99 for the night. They also had a continental breakfast.

 

Kennywood - I don't know if you need 2 days here, but I wish I had a full day there. We didn't get on everything, but I was only there for 4 or 5 hours. I don't know where to stay around there either. It gets complicated too when you're driving there, so you need really good directions.

 

Busch Gardens - A full day here is a must. We don't stay there because my wife's parents live in Fredericksburg.

 

Paramount's Kings Dominion - A full day here is good too. I don't know if you would need 2 days here. We never stayed around here either for the same reason above.

 

I would add on Dorney Park too. It isn't usually busy and you can get through it in about 4 hours if you want to take your time. Hershey Park wouldn't be a bad add on also depending on how much budget/time you have. I think you would need a full day here. We spent 2 days at Hershey and it was a little too long. We actually left early on the second day and headed to Dorney. Once we got there, we were done with that park that night. We went back the next morning, but left after an hour because we rode everything the night before and that morning (with re-rides).

 

Sorry for this being very long. I am sure other people might have some more places to go to and hotels to stay at.

 

Good Luck and Congratulations again!

 

Rick

[mcjaco]

^ I was going to say the same thing about SFGAm and the Dells. I'd do one day at SFGAm, then drive up to the Dells (about 2 hours) hit both parks stay the night, and head back down to SFGAm for another day.

 

Nevermind the Racine idea. It's 15 minutes north of Gurnee, which still leaves you a good two hour drive to get to the Dells. Madison, WI is about halfway between the two.

[the_rock401]

Regarding SFGAm, depending on the time of the year you're going, it can be done in one day. Keep in mind that I went wire-to-wire (open to close) out there on a boiling hot Friday of 4th of July weekend before going back to Racine, but it can be done in a day.

 

As for staying somewhere, it depends on how long you are at SFGAm. Driving to Madison (appx. 120 miles, about 2 hours) after going wire-to-wire at SFGAm on a hot day may not be the best idea.

[imbordisux]

Wow, thanks so much for all the help.

 

I should specify that when I say we're spending "two nights" at a park, what I mean is that we're driving to the park during the day and checking in that night, actually doing the park the next day, then returning to the hotel and checking-out the next morning to get an early start on the driving.

 

So when I say we're staying two nights at CP, what I mean is:

Day 1) Drive to CP's hotel and check-in

Day 2) Do CP, spend second night at hotel

Day 3) Wake-up, check-out, drive to next destination.

 

 

Here's the breakdown:

 

Sun - Wedding

Mon - Drive from LI to Lakemont

Tues - Do Lakemont, drive to CP

Wed - Do CP, stay

Thurs - Drive to SFGAm

Fri - Do SFGAm, drive to Mt.O/TF

Sat - Do Mt.O/TF, stay

Sun - Drive to IB

Mon - Do IB, stay

Tues - Drive to Kenny

Wed - Do Kenny, stay

Thurs - Drive to BGE

Fri - Do BGE, drive to PKD

Sat - Do PKD, stay

Sun - Drive home (possibly hit Clementon on the way)

 

The only place on that list we've been to was "Kennywood", so we're trying to do a full day at each of the big parks. The only one we're not really doing that with is "SFGAm", as we live right near "SFGAdv", which has several similar rides.

 

"Hershey" and "Dorney" are great parks, would have liked to have hit them again, but we decided to go with new places, instead.

 

Thanks again.

[Carnage]

So when I say we're staying two nights at CP, what I mean is:

Day 1) Drive to CP's hotel and check-in

Day 2) Do CP, spend second night at hotel

Day 3) Wake-up, check-out, drive to next destination.

 

FYI your early entry ticket is actually valid for the day you check out as well.

 

So after check out you could always head into the park for early entry rides and then leave.

[cfc]

When you come to Williamsburg, you might want to consider staying in one of the hotels on the tourist strip on Richmond Road. (Note that a big construction project, High Street, is going on on richmond Road--it's practically in the backyard of the Holiday Inn Express). The Princess Anne is a motor court with some funky "cottages"--it used to have a decent breakfast (but I can't vouch for it now because it's changed hands.) The ones near BGE are in the "Kingsmill" section and might be a bit pricey. But there are plenty of lodging alternatives in the 'Burg.

 

If you stay at the Days Inn near Water Country, maybe you can get a room with a view of Presidents Park! (It's right next to the joint.)

 

If you want to get on your way after PKD, you can probably find reasonably priced lodgings in Fredericksburg (about an hour or so north of the park).