Liked: The staff was extremely polite and helpful.

Great stay; helpful staff; easy to find way around the city.

Liked: Friendly staff; clean and comfortable room; upscale amenities in bath; walking distance to The Fillmore and safe walking back at night.
Disliked: None.

Exceptional

Exceptional

Dance party hallway

Liked: Not a thing. Except the kid who assisted in my check in. I wish I had caught his name.
Disliked: What is UP with the speaker playing 80s music right outside my room? And why does it play until the staff "feels like" turning it off?? 730 am it starts? REALLY? And why does the hall smell like cat pee and cigarettes? What is the huge grated hole in the shower wall? Why doesn't the door close all the way? I can't figure out how you calculated my score , this place deserves 1 star. It would have been 0 except for the kid at the front desk was super nice.

Passable

Liked: Buffet breakfast was delicious and the hotel was clean.
Disliked: Staff at night didn?t do as required of them. Had to go down to the front desk myself to get what was needed. And the television wasn?t working properly. Hotel had an odor that wasn?t pleasant but not over powering.

Good surprise

Liked: Management
Disliked: Glass cup available in the room and disposable cutlery

Suspicious and poor service

Liked: As a frequent patron of the Holiday Inn Express we have pretty sound expectations of the properties. Comfortable and clean rooms, great breakfast buffet options and typically good service. We experienced 2/3 this time around. Holiday inn tends to make an effort to go right above "no-frills," making guests feel like their getting their bang for their buck.
Disliked: This seemed fishy right from the start. This has to be one of the more difficult and frustrating check-in processes we've ever experienced from the brand. Upon arriving for check-in, we were told that while the front desk was able to see that we booked through Booking.com, they couldn't pull up our reservation. (Yes, we too were confused about how that made any sense). The person checking us in (Jose) told us that we could wait for him to call booking to get things sorted but to be warned that the wait could take up to 30 minutes to an hour. Another option he offered was for us to cancel our room via booking and rebook the room (at a cheaper rate) directly through him. This sounded a bit shady and since this was clearly an issue on the hotel's side we opted to have him contact booking directly. After it was clear that we would not be canceling our room through booking, miraculously our reservation appeared. After about 25 minutes of waiting and back and forth with Jose, we were checked into the room. At the end of the whole ordeal, we were only offered a half-hearted apology for the delay of service. Things would only get worse from their. Upon going up and inspecting the room, we were welcomed by excrement marks on the toilet. It had appeared that the room (at least the bathroom) was only partially clean. The final straw had to be the parking situation. Upon returning the the hotel -- the parking lot was closed off and you couldn't get into the lot. We went around and parked in the temp parking area, to see what was up. We were told that it would cost an additional $10 to park the car on the premises and that it would need to be valeted (an additional request for tip was made). This was not stated at check in and had us walking away thinking this hotel was some money making racket. An overall surprising poor customer service experience from this HIE.

Exceptional

Liked: Location is so central. It?s small but run very well with warm and hardworking staff.
Disliked: The breakfast could be changed a little more especially since some of us stay for more than one night. Not enough fruits or greens on offer, too much gluten.

Very good

Good