Not only am I going to share where I visited on my cross-country road trip to Wrestlemania 39, but I’m also going to share where I stayed and what I thought of the place. In this article, I’ll discuss the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Hilton Garden Inn in Canton, Ohio.
The first thing I did before booking any rooms was signing up for every single hotel franchise there is. Deciding where to stay started weeks before I was on the road. I did my research, compared hotels and motels, including their amenities and prices, and read reviews on sites like Priceline and even the venue’s own website. I had a huge spreadsheet and kept track of everything there.
Now, if I booked through a third-party site, I didn’t get points for my rewards — and I did earn enough points for a few nights free on another trip — but sometimes, the third-party sites were more expensive than going through the actual website. So I weighed the points versus the cost and for this trip the cost won. I compared each and every way of booking a hotel room to find the cheapest rate. In some cases, the third-party site was the cheapest; in other cases, it was the hotel website, and at other times it was through my credit card that I found the best deal, which included cash back. Do your research!
The good news is that I didn’t have one bad stay at any hotel or motel and was surprised. Of course, I liked some better than others, but I would stay at any one of these places again.
On the first day of my three-week cross-country road trip from New York to California, I drove seven hours from New York to Canton, Ohio. I had booked a room at the Hilton Garden Inn Akron-Canton Airport, located right off I-77, a mile from Akron-Canton Airport, and only a few minutes from The Pro Football Hall of Fame, where we were visiting the next day. Very convenient.
Every place I stayed at had free Wi-Fi, although some had better service than others. Tip: I brought my own hot spot from home, which gave me a stronger connection. What I didn’t know is that even though I had an unlimited data plan, that did not mean it was for the hot spot. After I used up the hot spot’s data, the connection slowed down, so that was a bummer. I really don’t like using the hotel Wi-Fi because once, while I was on vacation in Chicago, I did use the hotel Wi-Fi and the next day my bank account had been hacked for $900. They believe it happened somehow while I was on Facebook.
The Hilton Garden Inn Akron-Canton Airport was very clean — which is really the most important part of staying at o me. The staff was very nice. There was no complimentary breakfast, and really, I don’t understand how every hotel can’t do that for their travelers nowadays. Prices have gone up so much as it is. Why not offer muffins or juice, even if you can’t do a hot breakfast, as an incentive?
It was vacation, and I needed my slot machines! Trying to find a hotel in the Tulsa area that fit my budget was harder than I thought it would be (and one of the hardest spots to do this on my entire trip), and since the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Tulsa was decently priced and I could play my slots, it was a win-win. We had a blast! Some casinos take your money, but I was lucky to play for quite a while and came out ahead at the end. Yay! It was a wonderful night.
I also want to give props because the room was immaculate, the bed was comfy, and any staff we needed was extremely cordial. Oh, and I’m not paid to say this. Thanks for the warm cookies when we checked in and the chocolate-shaped guitar on my pillow! FYI, there is a pool, but it was too chilly to use. They also have entertainment and a gym and, of course, restaurants (but we didn’t eat there). I would definitely recommend staying here.
