We recently took a spur-of-the-moment trip to South Bend, Indiana, to visit the University of Notre Dame and found ourselves staying at a brand-new Fairfield Inn & Suites just across the street from campus.
While we often like to stay at bed-and-breakfast places, country inns, cabins, or some other sort of unique accommodations, staying at a chain is sometimes our best option when we make travel plans at the last moment.
This Fairfield Inn & Suites was open barely a week when we arrived for a two-night stay, something we didn't know before we booked the room. Workers scurried around doing last-minute work in the lobby while we were there, but our stay was glitch-free in spite of the newness of the property.
The room decor was decidedly sleek, modern, and colorful compared to the generic beige furnishings you often encounter at chains. Photos and artwork in the room featuring the Notre Dame campus further helped give this motel a little sense of local identity.
The king-sized bed took up much of the space in the bedroom portion of our "executive suite", but the sitting area was like a comfortable little living room. I appreciated the fact we didn't have to compete for the one couch or chair standard in many motel rooms.
Our room was on the first floor and facing a main street, but we found it surprisingly quiet. Traffic noise wasn't a problem, and we didn't even hear much of the heavy rain and thunderstorms that blew through one of the nights we stayed there.
Breakfast was your pretty standard hotel, pre-packaged buffet. The best bet? The pre-packaged sausage sandwiches were a decent choice for a quick, warm breakfast.
As always, we appreciated the free wireless access so we could log on to check email or search for information about our destinations.
(As an aside, motels and hotels charging for wireless access seems to be a major peeve among frequent travelers. Charging for access is a deal-breaker with us if we have any other choice, so I still have no idea why so many places still insist on charging extra for what should be a basic amenity these days.)
The pool was small, but I appreciated the fact that I didn't have to sneak through the lobby in my bathing suit in order to take a dip.
This Fairfield Inn & Suites is part of a larger mixed-use development also featuring residential and retail. We found only a few stores and restaurants open at Eddy Commons during our as construction continued on the development, but being able to walk a just a couple of blocks to eat at a pub, grab some quick carry-out food to bring back to your room, or shop the Notre Dame satellite bookstore for college souvenirs was especially handy.
I'd guess this place should become popular with folks coming in for events at Notre Dame, especially for football fans coming in for a game. Parking is free at the Fairfield, and you can easily walk to campus (you can see the football stadium from the motel).
Check out my stories from last week about our visit to Notre Dame's campus, Back to school at Indiana's University of Notre Dame and Photo Friday: O'Shag Hall at Indiana's University of Notre Dame. I also reviewed this property on Yelp.
Want to learn a little more about South Bend and its history? Check out South Bend Indiana (Images of America) by Kay Mernon Danielson, which I picked up in the satellite bookstore next to the motel, or South Bend in Vintage Postcards by John Palmer.
© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved
This reminds me of a stay at a newly-opened Americinn in Lakeville, Minnesota. We asked for a nonsmoking room and were told there were none available. Then the clerk continued, "But this is the first night we're open, so no one has smoked in the smoking rooms yet." We took the smoking room. :-)
Posted by: Linda | October 01, 2010 at 02:14 PM
Linda-It was fun to stay in a brand-spanking new property. I suspect it will become pretty popular with out-of-town ND football fans as it becomes better known, but for the weekend we were there it was quiet and reasonably priced.
Smoking vs. non-smoking rooms should become less of an issue as more states enact some sort of smoking ban (Michigan's just went into effect in May). The most miserable experience I had staying in a room was one we were forced to take in a small town in Ontario that just reeked of stale cigar smoke smell!
Posted by: Dominique King | October 02, 2010 at 09:54 AM