Hamden,Ct & North Haven,Ct weekend traffic?

Depends where you're coming from. Usually, on weekends, I-84 and the Merritt are flowing free and clear. Usually best to avoid I-95 until I-95 exit 38 / Merritt exit 54, the Milford Parkway, which is the most convenient connector between the two, but by then you're pretty close to New-North Haven, anyway.

The only problem with both I-84 and the Merritt is that both are 4-lane highways, 2 lanes each way so if someone acts stupidly and gets themselves into an accident, traffic stops utterly, completely and totally dead, can be 3-5 hours if the accident is bad. So best to look at traffic reports before traveling anywhere in the NY-NJ-CT tri-state region until you get, say 35 miles outside NYC center.

Merritt is the prettiest road, followed by I-84 (but has trucks, of course); I-95 is convenient in terms of speed when it is actually flowing (let's say average speeds on the Merritt is about 60-70 MPH on weekends (cops!), on I-84 65-75MPH (some cops but paying attention to truck speeds will usually help locate them) and I-95 70-80MPH+) as well as hitting the major population centers, but it's otherwise forgettably bland and dull.

Can't recommend a hotel but the only thing I can say is never stay in a college town, they act like they have you by the b@lls and the surrounding areas are almost always massively overpriced. Meriden seems to have better deals on Hotels.com than North Haven.