We stayed one night here in early July 2007. The room was clean and nicely decorated, but small. It was just your basic motel room. I thought it was overpriced, but then we were near Cooperstown. The room had a safe and they actually tried to charge us $1.50 extra for the safe. I refused!!! We had not asked for it nor did we use it. They removed it from the bill.

They have breakfast in the morning - just the cereal, toast, juice and coffee thing. Nothing special at all. We weren't there long enough to use the pool or other facilities.

I'd say if you need a clean, comfortable place to stay then this fills the bill

I booked a stay 1 year in advance for the upcoming HOF Induction Weekend at the Howard Johnson. I reserved 2 rooms for this event. I was told a few days ago, after calling to check on another reservation, that this reservation was cancelled directly by the hotel. After going through Howard Johnson customer service, I was told to contact the hotel directly. I have been doing this for the past few days, and have been given different stories each time by the manager. This hotel has terrible customer service and even worse front desk skills. I would suggest staying away. The hotel has now told me that they do not have an idea of how they are going to resolve this situation. This has been a terrible situation for us, as we have a friend's son who always looks forward to going to this event and has saved up his money for a year in anticipation of the HOF induction, and now we must tell him that we cannot attend the event. If anyone else has a reservation for the weekend of 7/27/2007-7/29/2007, I would suggest checking to see if your reservation is still good.

My son and I stayed here last week. It is about 5 miles south of Cooperstown and right beside Dreams Park. It is brand new and we enjoyed the large pool area, exercize room, business center and of course the room. There were some baseball teams there and it seemed like the place to be for them.

We just returned from our Memorial Day weekend trip to Cooperstown and was pleasantly surprised by our stay at the new Howard Johnson Inn and Suites.

We made our reservations last minute, and the hotel was about booked. We'd hoped for a 2-night stay, but when we first called, only one night was available. I asked Steve at reception to call me if a room for the second night became available -- never expecting to hear from him again. He surprised me by not only calling back once there was a cancellation, but offering me this more expensive room for both nights at the lower price of the original. He surprised me again when I arrived to check in: having remembered that I'd requested a rollaway bed, he'd switched me once again to a room with three beds in it when that had become available in the intervening hours.

The hotel was exceptionally clean and contemporary, and there's always something nice about staying somewhere before the grime sets in. There were some nice touches -- like granite counters in the bathroom, and we had a DVD player and microwave oven in our room. There were some "misses," however, such as the extremely low thread count sheets and pillowcases (my face feels raw!), and the fact that housekeeping left us 3 bath towels for 4 people. Also, while the free continental breakfast was adequate, there were some serious shortcomings: no cream for the coffee both mornings (someone should have at least picked a container up at the supermarket after the first morning), the lack of decaf coffee, a shortage of toasters, the provision of itty-bitty paper plates -- too small to contain the bagels which were being served!

Still, for the price and distance from Cooperstown (5 miles), it couldn't be beat!

One more note: since I had trouble finding much in the way of restaurant reviews prior to my trip, I'll comment here on three places we ate during our stay:

Doubleday Cafe -- just down the street from the Hall of Fame, and on the same side of the street. Tasty food for an excellent price. The kids had 3-egg omelets for only $2.25 (didn't include anything else, but who cares!). I had a delicious slice of ham and avocado quiche with a gorgeous fresh-fruit salad for about $6.50.

The Penguin -- Ice cream shop just down Rte 28 from the HoJos. Very unusual "custom" ice cream, in which real flavors (no syrups) are crunched into some very fresh tasting ice cream. Yum.

Redneck Bar-B-Que -- I'm no barbeque expert, but I thought the food here was just adequate. The kids liked the grilled peanut butter, banana and honey sandwiches, though.