La Quinta Inn Pensacola

Acceptable, Somewhat Old La Quinta

This La Quinta in the northern part of Pensacola is of the old style of La Quintas that I became acquainted with in my youth. There was always a restaurant in the parking lot, usually a Kettle (which I don't think exists anymore), but this one is now a Denny's, who I believe bought much of the chain in the 90's. They also featured a somewhat tacky Spanish architecture to further reinforce their vague latin connection. They also featured exterior corridors, which is not en vogue with current American hotel preferences, and makes this place a little outdated.
There is a slight hill in the property and it makes for a strange breezeway setup right in the middle where the two buildings separate. It's also really strange in that the parking lot on the north side of the property is actually in an alley and across from some poor guy's house.
Back in the day, you didn't get a free breakfast at La Quinta, as you were expected to go to the parking lot to the always bad and overpriced Kettle restaurant. This is also no longer en vogue with American travelers who want their terrible breakfast to be served for free, by the hotel. The result is a horribly cramped breakfast area here that is pushed to the back of what was always (and still is) a hallway in the lobby area. I came down, but got frustrated with the crowd and just coffee.
The especially strange thing here is that there are actually 3-4 rooms on the upper floors, just above the lobby, that have doors on the inside. I imagine that this was once some kind of conference room and I don't know if these rooms differ in any way from all of the others (it's a large hotel), but requesting these specifically may be of interest to some people.
Overall, it's not a bad place. The rooms have been refurbished relatively recently and feature nice beds, a big, flat screen TV, a mini-fridge and a microwave. It was generally pretty quiet that night and I slept comfortably. With all refurbished hotels, there comes the bathroom problem, in that you can only really do so much in there without it being prohibitively expensive. So the bathroom still looks old but it was clean.
The area is not bad but it's very much car-oriented and, in that car, it's actually somewhat difficult to get in and out of the hotel. Davis Highway is a busy thoroughfare here and, with I-10 basically next door, the traffic really builds up. I've seen reviews of this location talk about homeless people walking around the area but, hey, it's a busy intersection in Florida: you have to expect some amount of this. I didn't see any problem with it. There don't appear to be many restaurants that are walkable except, of course, for that Denny's in the parking lot.
I got this through Travelocity's "Top Secret Hotels," so I'm not entirely sure what the rack rate is. I believe I paid about $35 for the night though.

Unique Quality: Interesting layout