Fairfield Inn & Suites Gainesville

Clean, fairly well maintained hotel. Somewhat creaky in spots, but overall pretty quiet. Nice facilities and central location.

Great stay overall. I’m very impressed with how the property reflects on the Fairfield brand. I guess I’ve been stuck in the past because the last time I stayed in a Fairfield (2006), it was a motel, not a hotel like this properly, and while it was fine, it wasn’t anywhere near up to the standards of this property.
Staff was very friendly, helpful, and accommodating. Top marks for the staff!
The lobby was very well-​appointed and welcoming. Top marks.
We looked at the pool but opted to skip it as it’s nothing special (they do as well as they can with what they have; they couldn’t now go and make the tiny pool they have special). I don’t know that an indoor pool is something even to be expected at all at a Fairfield Inn so we wouldn’t call this a complaint. Now, if there were a hot tub, that we likely would have used!
My wife enjoyed the coffee at the breakfast. There’s a Denny’s a couple of hundred yards down the road and I just couldn’t resist the lure of that so I didn’t eat any of the breakfast at the property. Incidentally, the 10% off that they have negotiated with the Longhorn and the O’Charley’s immediately in front of the property is a great value-​add; I would love to see that extended to the Red Lobster, Applebee’s, and especially the Denny’s that are just down the road.
The room was great overall. We loved the high bed, full mini-​refrigerator, and surprisingly quiet microwave. The layout of the room made it feel very spacious. We specifically asked for and received a room on the top floor facing the back because I had read that the walls of the property are thin and that the best way to avoid noise issues was to get the top floor facing the back and consequently, we had no issues with noise. Our 2 minor issues with the room (408) were with the sink and the thermostat. The sink was very slow to drain; not the end of the world but it would be nice to resolve that if possible. And the thermostat was just weird: it seemed to want to go to 70 degrees as a high pretty much no matter what (bearing in mind in this case we were trying to get it to go higher; I can’t speak to it from an AC perspective, just a heat perspective). In light of the fact that the thermostat is a long way from the window, 70 degrees at the thermostat did not necessarily mean 70 degrees at the bed by the window and so the bed area tended to be a little bit cold.
The amenities in the room were nice; the Pantene shampoo and conditioner were particularly appreciated. We could have used more washcloths and hand towels (I think there were only 2 of each but even if there were 3, 4 of each would have been ideal).
We were very impressed and would definitely stay again. It’s not a luxury property and it would be unfair to compare it to one but the value for the money (or in our case, points) was excellent.

We checked in at this hotel pretty late at night. It is part of the Marriott hotel chain, so the lobby and all the furnishings are beautiful. After we got in, although the room also has beautiful furnishings, we soon found out the toilet has poop in it and there’s hair on many spots in the bathroom. I took pictures and went down to talk to the young guy at the front desk — but he was not there — he was outside having a smoke. He told me I’ll need to talk to the manager in the morning about it.
So I did went and talk to the manager in the morning. The manager who is an older gentleman, was very apologetic, saying that’s not how they normally do things and the housekeeping staff was new. He’s offered us a free night of stay but we booked the hotel on a 3^rd party site, so he says to call him upon on our next visit and he’ll get us a free night. Well that was nice although we were just passing through. His kind gesture and his customer service made it up for our bad experience, that’s for sure. Therefore, 3 stars!