Spark by Hilton Catoosa

Getting on and off I-44 was easy, and the location worked well. But breakfast was barely there: bagels, a few muffins, hard-boiled eggs, cold cereal, or instant oatmeal. For what we paid, I expected a hot breakfast. This was our first stay at a Spark hotel, and it'll be our last. The bed was harder than we like, though it was okay for one night.

Ricki, Danette, and the rest of the staff made check-in and checkout easy and gave us outstanding service. The hotel and rooms were clean, the price was very reasonable, and breakfast was delicious and included. It's also centrally located for lots of fun activities, events, and attractions. We'd highly recommend this hotel and location to family, coworkers, and friends.

It was a cheaper option than the other hotels we considered and felt safer, though it put us farther from our destination. We were on the third floor and could hear some traffic from the busy road. The rooms were fairly clean and in pretty good shape, and I appreciated that housekeeping came each day. There's no pool or hot tub. The free breakfast was basic and cold, mostly bagels, muffins, cereal, coffee, juice, and tea.

We booked through hotels.com for a room that was supposed to sleep 6. It looked like it had two queen beds and a sofa bed, but the sofa didn't pull out, so I don't know how it was meant to fit six people. The hotel had no rollaway beds, so we had to book another room altogether. That room smelled so strongly of animals or feces that we had to keep our clothes in bags until we reached our destination two days later. The hotel blamed hotels.com, though they did give us 50% credit toward a future stay. If the first room had slept six as we booked, we'd probably rate the hotel itself much higher. The area around it is rough.