Howard Johnson Express Inn

This is a budget motel that is 10 miles from Mohegan and Foxwoods. You get a clean room, no frills motel that is a comfortable place to lay your head. I can justify a short drive for $ 100 a night, rather than the $ 400 that Mohegan wanted for a Saturday night. This was my second stay here, and pleased both times. The building is outdated, and it isn’t a great hotel, but it is a good value for the budget traveler. As you go for the nicer places that are closer to the casino, the prices per night doubles. It works for me, I am only in the room to sleep a few hours, and get back to gamble!

Mixed reviews. Relatively clean but the building needed some work; there were water stains on the ceiling and other stains on the carpeting. The room was okay and everything worked.
Our King sized bed was very comfortable and I slept extremely well.
On the second day, our coffee maker wasn’t refreshed – there was still coffee left over from the day before with no new coffee packet.
The breakfast is just cheap American fare of donut holes, juice, white bread, and frosted flakes.
It’s a drive to everything. You get what you pay for.

I just returned from a weekend trip with my boyfriend to Mystic. This was our second stay at this hotel; we last stayed in early August of this year.
The reason we returned was the price (it was $ 70-​something for the night) and the fact that this hotel is, considering the price, «good enough.» We were able to go on our weekend jaunt without breaking the bank. Accommodations nicer than this HoJo begin rapidly increasing in price.
We opted again for a non-​smoking room with a king bed. King rooms come with microwaves and refrigerators already in the room, which is quite handy considering how many hoops we’ve had to jump through at other hotels in order to get a refrigerator.
The room is quite spacious, which I like. Plenty of outlets for all our electronic gadgets that we never travel without. The bed was extremely comfortable for my back, which is really saying something. Everything was clean. The heat worked well and kept our room at a good temp all night.
My complaints include the following:
–A kind of weird smell in the interior of the building. Fortunately, this smell did not make it into our room.
–The bathroom, while clean, is just plain dreary.
–Both times there has been a large creaky spot on the floor by the foot of the bed. We imagine anyone staying on the first floor below us would go nuts at this. We tried to tread lightly.
–Spacey swipe machines for your room card: the back door, and the door to our room, were both very fussy and required multiple swipes before admittance.
–Our door never felt like it shut all that tight. A lot of light leaked in around it at night after we went to bed. The bolt thing with a swinging arm that you can use to supplement the deadbolt (not sure what it’s called) didn’t like to stay in position.
–The toilet makes a noise as though the very bowels of the earth are shaking after it is finished refilling post-​flush.
–The sound insulation between rooms is pretty bad. Obnoxious people next to us had their TV on (which is on the other side of the wall from where our heads are) until past midnight and then on again before 8AM. The fan from the heater as well as the sound machine we always have with us were not sufficient to drown out the noise. We returned the favor by setting my laptop up on its side against the wall and running through my playlist of industrial music at top volume. Jerks.
So that’s a pretty long list of complaints, but none of them ruined the experience (although the inconsiderate twits next door came close). This hotel, being in Groton instead of Mystic, is probably overlooked a lot by tourists heading to the Aquarium and Seaport. However, it’s close enough by that staying here is not a massive inconvenience in terms of driving. In addition, it is significantly less expensive than staying in one of the places with a more prime location.
We will probably be staying here again when we next are in the area.