Philadelphia Hotel: Alexander Inn

We just returned from spending 2 days/1 night in nearby (we live on Long Island, NY) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We were originally planning of staying at the Embassy Suites, since the suite setup is great for families, but after checking out www.tripadvisor.com my wife and I decided to try out the Alexander Inn located in the Antique Row area of Philadelphia (this also happens to be a "Gay Area?" (unsure how to write that in a politically correct manner- Think the Village in NYC??). It's a small hotel and we were nervous about the "cramped" setup. Our nervousness was assuaged the moment we walked in and were greeted by 2 of the friendliest front desk attendants! We got in VERY early (9 AM?) and seeing we had 2 children, they quickly got us our room. We went up to our nicely decorated room, left our bags, picked up some fruit for the road (they provide fruit and danish through out the day), parked our car in their indoor lot 3 blocks away, and were off for the day. The hotel is in a pretty good location, as there are attractions in all directions.

We returned that night and were greeted again. They asked our children about the day and seemed genuinely interested! The next morning we woke up, had our continental breakfast (included)- fruit, danish, bagels, waffles, cereal, milk, coffee, juice, tea, hot chocolate... and were out the door for more site seeing.

Over all I was very happy. The only negative (according to my son) was they had no pool (they do have a small gym and computers/wifi) but we were in Philly to explore a little, not sit in a hotel pool!