We chose to stay at the Comfort Inn The Point for a couple nights over a weekend that included catching a show at the Seneca Casino, and a lot of shopping. As a ‘basic’ hotel, the CITP was perfectly adequate in every way, and, by the same token, utterly unexceptional as well. How does on judge a hotel when both aspirations and expectations are modest? The room appeared to be clean, with only a bit of tatter showing here and there. Everything worked, although the bathroom fan sure was noisy. The bed comes with those little “euro’ pillows, which both my wife and I hate, we actually picked up a couple of low end regular pillows when we were out in a discount department store. The television is indeed a flat screen (42 inch, I think); however, many of the channels were fairly fuzzy analog. I couldn’t find an –on-screen channel guide anywhere, so the only option was to ‘video-walk’ through the 30 or o channels. We had no issues with the wifi internet connection.

The public areas were, being polite, functional, if not inspiring. The lobby was utilitarian in the extreme, with no furniture whatsoever; it might have been just as well, as the sofas adjacent to the elevator “lobbies” looked pretty tired, albeit sound. The gift shop appended to the lobby was sparsely stocked; on the other hand, its mere existence was a pleasant surprise. A security guard was stationed near the front door in the evenings. The included breakfast was in the basement, presumably in a converted meeting room…one felt like they were approaching, if not in, the bowels of the hotel getting to it. Once there, an adequate breakfast of scrambled eggs and round sausage was offered, along with the typical selection of a couple of cereals, a waffle iron, yogurt, pastries, and fruit.

In terms of location, it’s probably a lot better in July or August, when the falls themselves have more appeal, as the hotel is very close to the American falls. However, in the context of a mid-November shopping and gambling trip, there’s less appeal. I may also be bitter, because we were given a “city-view” room, where city view means parking lot, an abandoned 70s-style building, a horror house plastered with for sale signs, and the Seneca Casino, 500 yards further. Said casino, and the Bear’s Den was, for us, about an 8 minute walk. There is no shopping particularly close to CITP; the outlet mall is about 12 minutes away by car.

We got what we expected: an adequate hotel at a mid-range price within that market space between the more interesting Seneca Hotel and Giacomo on one hand, and the highway-side Super 8’s and EconoLodges on the other.