Poor Kevin; our last two weekends consisted of hotel-hopping and mattress-running because his crazy, points-obsessed fiance (aka yours truly) needed to collect her precious points. Last weekend we spent our Friday night at the Radisson in Piscataway, and then we spent Father’s Day road-tripping for hours to no-wheres-ville, NJ for yet another another mattress run at the Country Inn & Suites in Millville, NJ (related post).
This weekend was kind of the same story – we spent a whole 8 hours at the Radisson Newark-Carteret (in by 11 pm, out by 7 am kind of ordeal). At the time, little did Kevin know that this would be his last sight of any trace of this season’s Club Carlson promotions. Yes, I know there’s the Park Inn Plus One promotion that would get us another 44,000 points each, but after heavily considering it, I don’t think I have it in me to get myself to drive 3 hours one way to the nearest Park Inn in Harrisburg, PA. With that decision, I learned that yes, I do apparently have limits to this addiction hobby.
It’s definitely a wrap for me, and in the end, I’m 100% content that between the two of us, we racked up ~200,000 bonus points with an out-of-pocket expense of about $270. Those 200,000 points can get us between 4 and 22 free nights at any Club Carlson hotel worldwide, depending on the category. We’re pretty psyched about that because I’m sure that will inspire some impulsive weekend getaways (those are 3 of my favorite words together)!
And now on to a mini-review of our stay at the Radisson Newark-Carteret…
The hotel is located directly off of the NJ turnpike, which is great for a commuter, but definitely not the most scenic because it’s located in the heart of industrial-nothingness. I suppose the guests of use this hotel merely as a sleeping point for an overnight connection at EWR because there’s virtually nothing to do in the vicinity.
When we arrived at the hotel on a Friday night at around 10:30 pm, all we wanted to do was hurry up and get into the room to sleep because we were both exhausted from a long work week, and I had a 17 hour work day ahead of me starting at 9 am the next day. I became frustrated when I walked into the hotel and saw a massive amount of people crowding around the front desk. It ended up being that because of some bad weather earlier on, many flights experienced inevitable cancellations, and the hotel was booked to capacity with frustrated travelers. The worst part was that there was only one person simultaneously checking guests in/managing the front desk/taking calls/paging the shuttle driver, etc.; it was chaotic.
When it was my turn to check in… 25 minutes later… I was very cranky to say the least. In the past, I have never waited more than 10 minutes to check in, and having to wait for so long at such a late hour was not something I wanted to deal with. It was quite obvious that the hotel was understaffed that evening, and the woman who was checking guests in was not the most pleasant to begin with. In my opinion, that’s a poor way to set the tone of the stay.
We were relieved once we got up to the room – there weren’t any problems from there on, thank goodness. In fact, our room was quite comfortable, and we both got a great night’s sleep despite our short stay there. In addition, the hotel does offer complimentary breakfast and free airport transfers to EWR. Like I said earlier, I can’t imagine anyone choosing this hotel for anything other than an airport hotel, but it certainly was adequate for what it was.
Inside the lobby of the Radisson Newark-Carteret hotel
The beds were SO comfortable - they were not Radisson's typical Sleep Number beds, which I'm not particularly a fan of.
A shot of the workspace and TV. The TV was definitely a bit outdated, but we didn't turn it on anyway.
I love when there's complimentary bottled water!
A shot of the bathroom sink vanity area
The shower/tub
Angelina- great review of Radisson in Carteret! I did my MR there last night w 3 crazy 12 y/o girls and another mom. I had the same situation w check-in and my room seemed to be the same as yours. But was truly grosses out by the sheets and duvet which had a burn hole and several questionable spots on them!
@Kadence: Eeek thank goodness we didn’t notice anything gross about the sheets! I guess the hotel just lacks in service since you had the same check in experience – oh well, in the end its all for the points! LOL
PS- I couldn’t help to notice your ramapo email address. I graduated from there in ’09! Small world, I bet we had some of the same professors!
You’re missing out on some great mini-golf;)
We used that hotel for a MR as well. We just checked in and out and left though. How is the comp breakfast?
We were eyeing the Country Inn in Newark
But it’s about $150/night. I’m going to check the rates at the one in Millville.
Harrisburg would totally be worth it if you swing by Hersey Park!
Too bad was hoping for a Harrisburgh Mini DO.
@Ron I’ve been finding $99 and $107 rates at Newark for Friday nights using AAA!
I also did Millville. Quite sketchy. Did lord Baltimore and got my dad to sign up for just the radisson piece. He met us here from west va(we live in broonklyn, NY) and we spent a very hot 7/4 there. He can now get 5 nights in Orlando which he loved.
Going to Park Inn in mechanicsburg, but just having a swim and leaving. Hoping that telling them about the early check out will be ok. Looking forward to nice Radisson Blu non us properties.
Nice job on the promotion! I was able to stay at Park Inn, Radisson & Country Inn in Texas for about $230 out of pocket. 150,000 easy points that I can’t wait to use in Europe!
I was Guest of the day at the mechanicsburg Park Inn which entitled me to a welcome mat (wasn’t there), a free drink or app, and 500 points. Loved the points but decided to make it a mattress run, take a dip in the pool and come home. Will tally points later and post. Did all 3, DH signed up as well and booked thru top cash back.
Glad to hear its a decent hotel. We’re staying over at the Radisson Newark tonight. Catching the new Spiderman movie at Jersey Gardens and spending the night.
We were at the Piscataway hotel last year and that was kind of dumpy. For our Country Inns stay we were at Absecon which is right by Atlantic City. Won 300 bucks playing craps at the new Revel casino so it was a good and free weekend.
How is the gym? We haven’t been impressed by the gym equipment at most of the Radissons and Country Inns.