Continuing my tour of Hampton Inns that noone here on FT has visited/written up, I stayed at the Hampton Inn Merced last week. It is just off Highway 99 near most of the other hotels in town, about 3 miles from downtown. It's definitely a new property, with no visible wear yet. They two guys in front of me both took 5+ minutes to check in, the young lady at the front desk said they were having computer problems (although she was able to register me in 30 seconds). I checked out the pool which looked OK, the exercise room had two stationary bikes, two treadmills, and one of those ski things.

I got a room on the second floor, overlooking the vacant lot where they are beginnign construction. Good size flat screen TV, nice bathroom, fairly spacious. The wireless was easy to log into and stayed at full strength the entire time I was online. I ate across the street (Childs) at a place called Mi Casa Cafe; the food was pretty good and they had about 10 beer choices.

At night the room was quiet, and my wakeup call came on time. Fairly standard breakfast selection - I wish more of the places would have make your own waffle!

Overall, this hotel delivers exactly what you expect from Hampton Inn - clean, reliable, and free breakfast.