COURTYARD TAMPA DOWNTOWN, 102 E. Cass St., Tampa, FL 813-229-1100, .
Rates: Start at $89 per night for a room with king bed and $119 for a whirlpool tub; both have a sofa bed; $139 for a suite with separate living room, wet bar and balcony. Valet parking only, $12.
Stay here if you’re: A business traveler or a tourist checking out the downtown sights, visiting the University of Tampa.
It’s close to: The university, Tampa General Hospital, the Tampa Convention Center, St. Pete Times Forum and Riverfront Park are each about a 2-minute drive away.
The rooms are: Tidy and spacious, with flat-screen TVs, sofa beds and coffee tables. Fans of soaking in the tub should spring for the “spa” rooms to get the whirlpool, which also makes for a bigger bathroom.
They put all of the money into: Redoing the rooms with good bedding and decent furniture, which looks new and clean. Also, whatever they’re doing to reward the staff to keep them happy and friendly is working, because this is one above-and-beyond group of folks. The pool area is small but well maintained.
The bottom line: Just a block off North Ashley Drive, which connects with the highway, this is an easy-to-access hotel that does all the right things, and Internet is free to boot. My favorite thing, though, was that no matter where I wanted to go — a restaurant, the beach in Clearwater, a museum — all I had to do was stop by the front desk and ask, and the clerk had preprinted directions, with how to get there on one side and return on the other, that he simply pulled out of a small filing cabinet, ready to hand over with a smile. It made driving around the area a breeze, because the directions were spot-on every time.
– Kyle Wagner
