Need a Darien CT Hotel

Have to take our daughter to see a specialist in Darien CT. We have an early Tues AM appointment and can't justify getting the family up at 5am for a drive through megalopolis hell to make it.

Need a hotel for Monday night, all we need is cheap and clean. Recommendations appreciated.

Don't know any there, but typically when I go to a new area I use priceline or hotwire and pick the cheapest one in the area that is guest recommended over 80%.  Anytime I've went less or had no recs I've been a bit disappointed.  YMMV.

If you don't get a recommendation, we've used the Hotwire and Priceline features where you book a deeply discounted room without knowing the hotel and have found that we've gotten very good rates that way.

yeah... to clarify I do the same thing billy does except I go off the custy recs.  Even if you bid blind for a good rate it will still give you the number of stars, customer rating and amenities (if you are clever you can figure out which hotel it is...)

There is a Hilton Garden inn and a Doubletree in Norwalk which will be lower cost than staying in Stamford.  Used to be. 4 point Sheraton but it closed.

I'm a Hilton and Starwood guy for work.  Don't know about other chains.

Why don't you see if you can use some of your points if you have some since a weeknight in that area are not going to be a cheap stay.

Never did this before.

So you don't get to know the hotel until you book it?

Harv - yep, that's how it works. You book it and are locked in - pretty much no way out.

We've done it through both Hotwire and Priceline. We did it for ski trips to Colorado and Utah in the past two years and were happy with the outcome both times. We did it on a trip to Boston and Portland with the kids this past summer and were happy there as well.

The only time it didn't work out so great was on the Colorado trip when we booked one night near the Denver airport. My wife went with some place that was rated like two or two and a half stars on the site's ranking system. It was a typical budget chain - forget which one - which woudl have been fine but this particular one was pretty run down.

As someone else mentioned, some of the sites provide reviews. Stick with 3 star or better (the sites all have their own star system) and they give you examples of what hotels fall into their rankings.

So that one above looks like a decent gamble I guess? I'll see if it is still there.