Thought I would share my thoughts after my first time stay at this property.

As a Gold, I was given a room on the 16th floor (1613) on the HH Floor. The hotel has 17 floors. The room faced away from the Arch with a view of the Edward Jones Dome and the river (probably north facing). It was a good sized room with two queen sized beds (as we requested) but I wouldn't consider it an upgrade.

My Hampton amenity was a bottle of water in the mini fridge and a bag of trail mix. I was also given a laminated coupon for $1.50 credit at the Sweet Shop in the lobby. I didn't check out the lobby store, so I can't comment on what they had going on.

The hotel is 2.5 blocks from the Convention Center MetoLink station. The MetroLink from Lambert took us 30 minutes and cost us $3.00 for adults and $1.50 for kids. The return took about 40 minutes and cost half as much as the airport trip. The conceirge (or manager on duty) recommended Landry's at Union Station for seafood. We liked the place but had a somewhat sour server.

The Metro worked well as we didn't need to haul our luggage up stairs. When we arrived streetside at 6th and Washington from the transit station, we were greeted by a uniformed "helper" from the St. Louis Centre Shopping Center Mall who asked where we were going. When we told him we were going to the Hampton Inn, he gave us good directions and sent us on our way. If we didn't have his help, we would have spent a few minutes trying to figure out where we needed to go.

Since the the hotel is new, our room was very good. We didn't have much traffic noise and the room seemed to be well insulated. We did hear a family carrying on around 2am - lots of young kids yelling and running around - basically a bunch of idiots. The price point kind of invites the Rams/Cards fans and the party crowd.

The free breakfast was okay. No hot eggs or breakfast meats but they had frozen waffles and french toast for the toaster. The breakfast area was more spacious than your usual HI and they did have more selections of continental breakfast items.

I thought the neighborhood was okay. They charge $10 for parking, which seems reasonable. I went to a mini mart about a block away and they had beer and wine plus a lot of other supermarket items. You might get asked for money from street people both coming and going to the store.

Overall, I liked the property and would prefer staying there rather than a night at the airport. Hanging around the Arch is a great experience. I think that St. Louis is a very underrated city. There is a lot of very cool things to do.