My parents and I stayed here on the way back home from Cocoa Beach, FL. We needed a reputable Atlanta-area hotel with an indoor pool and an available 2-bedroom 2-bathroom suite; this seemed like our only option, and judging from previous reviews, we thought it would be a good one, so we booked it.

Finding the hotel was a bit of an issue, but that’s not really the hotel’s fault. From I-85, we exited onto Buford Highway and turned right at the Piedmont Road exit like we were supposed to. But after following Piedmont for a while, we couldn’t find Pharr Road anywhere. Eventually, we pulled into a nearby Hampton Inn and asked where it was, and come to find out, it was the one major road we’d passed that didn’t have a street sign above the intersection for those coming from the Buford Highway direction. Going back toward Buford Highway, however, there was a street sign, so we turned there (there’s a BP gas station there among other things). From there the hotel was easy to find; the parking garage / guest registration entrance was a couple blocks up on the right. My dad parked the car and got us checked in; we then brought our luggage up to our room, 606. (There are two elevators, both of which are a bit warm and very slow, but at least they have plenty of room for three people and a luggage cart.)

Room 606 must have been some kind of bad joke. Yes, it was the type we reserved – one bedroom had two doubles and the other had one queen. That was about the only positive. The negatives? A horrible old, moldy smell; dirty carpet everywhere (including cigarette burn marks, odd greasy-looking stains everywhere, and what appeared to be a chocolate bar smudged into it); water damage on the ceiling of the room with the two doubles (it was raining at the time, too); and a toilet in the one-queen bedroom’s bathroom that kicked on every 60 seconds or so to refill (apparently it lost water all the time or something). The queen bed appeared to have been fitted with a double-size mattress pad, which was obviously too small for it – not to mention that the bed felt way too firm and squeaked when you just pushed on it. We were not about to pay $160 for that dump of a room, so my dad went down to the front desk to complain and ask for a different room. We were given room 209, which was better, but still not great (we settled for it, though, and in the hotel’s defense, the front desk rep took $20 off our bill). This one still had burn marks and odd stains throughout the carpet, but at least the beds felt comfortable (and didn’t make noise when you pushed on them) and there was no water damage. It smelled much cleaner than 606, too. The downsides were that (1) we had a beautiful view of the second floor of the parking garage out our windows, and (2) my bed, advertised as a queen, was definitely a double (at least the double-size mattress pad fit this one), but that wasn’t a huge issue since I was the only one sleeping in it.

After moving all our stuff to 209, my dad and I decided to go for a dip in the indoor pool while my mom used the computer up in the room. (We couldn’t get the wireless to work at first, but she was content connecting via a hard-wired ethernet connection at the desk. I eventually got the wireless working, but more on that later.) The pool was large and warm (I’m guessing it was almost 90, which I consider perfect for a swim), and we had it to ourselves. The hot tub, on the other hand, was way too hot. The sign said the maximum temperature for the hot tub was supposed to be 104, but my dad and I both said it must have been closer to 110 – not only uncomfortable, but dangerous.

After swimming, we returned to the room. It was pretty late (after 11 for sure – and yes, technically the pool closes at 10, but the front desk rep accurately said that no one actually cares or enforces the pool’s closing time so we were welcome to swim after 10), so my parents decided to go to bed. I hadn’t gotten on the computer yet, so I decided to get online in my room. Then I realized that there was only an ethernet connection where there was a desk: the living room and the room with two doubles. My room had no desk, so it had no ethernet connection. And the living room ethernet connection was right by the entrance to the bedroom with two doubles; it was too far to stretch the ethernet cord to my room. So I sat down with the computer to try to figure out the wireless. On the room key holder they gave us, it told us the network’s passphrase. (Most hotels don’t even use encryption for their wireless networks, but I guess this is the Staybridge’s way of making sure no non-guests access the internet and steal bandwidth from their guests.) The problem is, on an old Windows 2000 machine, there’s no place to enter a passphrase – just a network key, which is 10 or 24 hex digits depending on the type of encryption. After some googling for answers, I downloaded the Boingo Wireless Software application. It’s freeware, and it isn’t bundled with any spyware, adware, malware, viruses, or anything of that sort. Just google Boingo Wireless Software and you should get to the official download page. After you install it, it lets you easily view all wireless networks in range and connect to them; you can enter a passphrase OR a network key, destroying that barrier from connection. I unplugged the ethernet cable and was able to take the computer into my room without losing my internet connection.

Aside from the dirty carpet, the room was actually pretty nice. The bathroom and kitchen tile looked old but clean, and the toilets, bathtubs, and bathroom counters/sinks were a shiny clean white. The sheets were also very clean, and the bed was pretty comfortable. In my parents’ closet there was a bunch of extra bedding; oddly enough, my extra bedding was located on the floor behind the TV stand (pretty sure that was a mistake).

On weekends, breakfast doesn’t close until 10:30, which is good for us relatively late risers. After we loaded all our luggage into the car (around 9:30), we popped in for some breakfast, which was delicious. They had a wide variety of items, from donuts to English muffins to make-your-own waffles to hard-boiled eggs to sausage patties… I could go on for a while, but suffice it to say they had a ton of choices, all of which were delicious. After breakfast, we asked the front desk rep about the quickest way to get to I-75 to head north, and he seemed very knowledgeable; we followed his simple directions and were on I-75 in no time.

Overall, the Staybridge Suites in Buckhead is an okay hotel, but don’t expect luxury or even completely-clean conditions if you stay there. If they were to renovate the rooms, replace all their old in-room carpet (the common areas were perfect, though), teach the cleaning staff better methods of eliminating stains and vacuuming up dust on the carpet, fix the leakage issues on the sixth floor, and lower the hot tub temperature to around 103 or 104, I feel like the Staybridge could be one of the nicest hotels in Atlanta; after all, the common areas look pristine, and they don’t have much competition in the way of two-bedroom suites in Atlanta. For now, though, if I had to stay in the area again, I’d probably look elsewhere unless I absolutely needed a 2-bedroom 2-bathroom suite; I’d just make sure to get a room not on the sixth floor.