Editor Pick
Not Plush, but Decent and Cheap
- June 4, 2009
- Rated 2 of 5 by
Wasatch from heber ctity, Utah
The Hurricane Super 8 is a basic motel. It meets the needs, but only adequately. Still, for $35 (Christmas, 2008), breakfast included, can you go wrong?
Rooms are nice sized, with a table and two chairs, TV, a coffee maker two beds, and separate bathroom and sink areas. The AC/Heat unit is on the quiet side. Lighting is good. The curtains are good. The included breakfast is minimal but OK, great if you like waffles, offering waffles, cereal, juice, toast, tea, and coffee. The strongest points of the Super 8 Hurricane are it's location and price. The location is a couple miles off I-15 in southern Utah in the center of the town of Hurricane, on a side street one block off Main St.(UT RT 9) only 22 scenic miles from Zion National Park. I'd call it 22 very scenic miles except that to Rt 9 through Zion raises the concept of scenic road to new heights. Bottom line: you will enjoy the commute between Hurricane and Zion a lot. The views are remarkable.
The easy to find side street location-- turn at the sign on Rt 9, Main St.-- is very quiet. This is one of the quietest hotels/motels we have ever stayed in, surpassed only by some of the game lodges in Kenya's national parks where the loudest sounds at night are zebras grazing in the back yard.
The room showed definite signs of wear, but wasn't shabby (nor was it anywhere close to luxurious). Cleanliness looked fine at first, but there was a ring of black mold around the bathtub where two rows of tiles of different thickness met. Not good.
The front desk staff was friendly and efficient after you ring the bell to summon them from the room behind the desk. There was a computer in the lobby.
JB's restaurant(see review) is across the parking lot on the Main St (Rt 9) side of the motel. We usually stay in Springdale when visiting Zion National Park in large part to eat dinner at the Spotted Dog, which is only open on the weekends in winter. All other restaurants in Springdale are grossly overpriced for the food quality, so, with the Spotted Dog unavailable, we opted to cut our room bill from $62 in Springdale to $35 by staying in Hurricane to eat at JBs. JBs is a restaurant chain reminiscent of Denny’s but with better food–a fine value for what you get.
We have also stayed at the Comfort Inn and Days Inn in Hurricane. The Comfort Inn is more luxurious than the the Super 8, more expensive, and has a more extensive breakfast, but it is noisier. Days Inn is much like the Super 8, but noisier.
Some may find the Super 8's cancellation policy attractive. Over the last few years, many motels around Zion have adopted a 48 hour cancellation policy, including the Hurricane Comfort Inn and both Quality Inns in Springdale. Super 8 held the room until 4:00pm the day of arrival with no deposit (we arrived at 3:30 pm). If your plans are definite enough that you are sure where you will be two days in the future, the 48 rule is no problem, but if you wander across the countryside at your own pace, it can cause trouble, which makes a hold till 4:00 with no deposit room attractive.
From journal Free visits to the National Parks