Now I can only speak from my own experience on this subject just having come back from a two weeks stay in a most comfortable hotel! Mind you my experience is a little limited coming from England and only ever stayed in the one hotel in the USA! All my other experience has been gathered from our fourteen visits to Florida where we mostly have stayed in private Villas! The Clarion Hotel is a very high class establishment and during our stay we were so very lucky to try out three of their 'rooms'!
On our arrival our party when we booked was two couples and so we had ordered 'The De-luxe Family Unit'. Sadly two of our party could not be with us and the unit was much to big for the two of us. We would later have to change to a smaller and cheaper room to avoid having to pay out for our absent friends. And so after three days we were switched to a very nice room on the fifth floor with a balcony overlooking the front of the hotel.
The occasion was for our 50th wedding anniversary and somehow the management found out from a source I'm not sure of and our special event was up on the hotel sign in neon lights complete with our names for the whole two weeks stay! On return one evening to our room we found a complementry bottle of champagne and a card signed by the management and staff!
On the day prior to us leaving for home, the room phone rang and it was the front desk! " Ian" (first names) we have all enjoyed you company so much that we would like to offer you for your last night one of the 'Penthouse Suites'!! (Our third room!) Not being a fool we fell out of bed and as we had to start packing our bags anyway, by halfway through the morning we were on top of the world! It was an experience we will not forget and it is for that reason I would recomend to anybody "The Clarion Hotel"

Hi Deb & CG. Thanks for your reply's! Oh Deb I don't think The Clarion would like you to call it a 'Motel!!' That is a place where all rooms are exactly the same and only one or two storey. Day's Inn and the like! But no disrespect to Day's Inn! We have stayed in many Motels in Florida and had some great vacations. But when we go to Florida now we always rent a Villa with it's own heated pool. We find that when we go with friends, we can all live in there together and the costs are shared making it much more affordable. That we found a big drawback with Branson! We searched for months and there are no Villas with pools. Just out of town Condo's with shared pools. That is why we picked the Clarion Hotel and the De-luxe Family Unit and smack in the middle of town near the shows! Problem was that when our friends couldn't come we had to move to the cheaper room, but we still had the use of an indoor or outdoor pool. So now we have that straight! Motels are where you 'Do it Yourself'!! Hotels they do it for you - but charge you big time!! But if anyone think's I'm wrong, feel free to put me right! After all I'm only a Englishman!!

I guess that is true about the Clarion being a Hotel. I'm just an ol' southern country girl. I have stayed in a condo before when my whole family went to Branson, that made it really nice to do that. We all had a great time. I hope to do that again some time.

Sure Deb it was a great trip for us and we would love to do it again! Thing is that you are just that 'Young southern girl' and I am an ageing old English country gent! I swear that pond get's wider everytime we cross it and we do have to save our pennies a long time for trips like that!