I have laminate in my kitchen/hallway. We are doing it ourselves, one room at a time.
I love the laminate. I haven't had any problems with staining. It cleans up great! It's far more durable than hardwood(real wood). And my home NEEDS durable w/ 4 kids, 2 cats, and 3 yrkies running around! Laminate is HARD to scratch up. Have you tried the key test yet? laminate Vrs. hardwood....Hardwood will have gouges in it after scraping a house key on it. Laminate won't & marks rub right off.
The thing to watch out for on laminate is.....don't leave water spills on it too long. I wipe any spills right up. If the water/pee/whatever sits on it too long, it'll soak into the seams and can cause buckling. I had this problem when my refrigerator ice maker line was leaking. We didn't realize the leak was under there til it started effecting the floor in front of the frig. Some buckling occured. Since we did the floor ourselves, we pulled up the bad area and replaced with new.
adding....the type I bought is nailess/glueless. It's a snap & lock floater type system. We really lucked out finding a flooring warehouse in out area and buy our for .89 square or $21.00 a box.