Overview

While doing some work for a company in NY I had to travel down to North Carolina a few times. On one of my trips I stayed at the Holiday Inn in Raleigh, North Carolina. This was my only visit to a Holiday Inn. I have struggled over placing this in Recommended or Not Recommended sections, to me they were right on the borderline. The rooms and hotel itself was nice, but the staff was horrible, and I've stayed at better hotels at much more modest rates. I decided in the end to recommend them because I felt that the staff issues couldn't carry all the weight since I only stayed there once for 2 nights. The hotel itself was nice, the food was good, and it has a good location.

Rates and Reservations

The standard room rate when I stayed there was $135.00 a night. I was later told that I could have received the room
for $125.00, I fault this to my company not them, besides I didn't pay for it.

Reservations can be made by calling 1-800-263-9393. Online reservations are available at http://www.basshotels.com/holiday-inn DO NOT GO TO WWW.HOLIDAYINN.COM This web site is for "Holiday Inn By The Falls" and only accepts reservations for this one Holiday Inn located by Niagara Falls on the Canadian side.


Rooms Setup

The room I stayed in was done very nicely and was very clean at check in. It contained a King Size bed, 25" Television that was housed in a cabinet, which also contained a refrigerator on the bottom. The cabinet was also constructed with a large desk on its right side as well as a drawer for papers. There was a jack for you to plug in your laptop there as well. The room did not have a fax machine, but there was one downstairs which guests were permitted to use.

The bathroom was quite large as hotel bathrooms go; it contained all the necessary items like hair dryer, shampoo, soap, towels, toothbrush and toothpaste. There was a coffee maker with small bags of Maxwell House coffee in there as well, which was nice in the morning.

Restaurant/Food Services

The restaurant at was very nice, a bit small, but still nice. The food was quite good, I'd give the restaurant 4 stars. Room service was ok, a bit slow, but the food of course was good because it came from the same restaurant.

Amenities

The hotel provided a small business center for faxing and phones calls, I do not remember the fees, but they were reasonable as hotels go. They also provided s swimming pool, but at the time of year I was traveling it was closed, so I can't go in depth into that. In the lobby they provided the usual newspapers and array of magazines for your reading pleasure.


Staff and Management

Here is where they go downhill in my book. If it weren’t for the staff, I would have given the hotel a 4 star out of 5 rating.

Stop Thief! While staying at the hotel I had things stolen out of my room. The funny thing is they weren't valuable to anyone accept me. Just some folders with some important business documents in them, a dress shirt, and a pair of socks. While this may seem to be a bit strange, that's what the person took. I reported the event to hotel security and they seemed like it was nothing. I was a little upset because the documents were very important for my trip. I explained this to them and asked them to investigate and see if they could just find the papers, and if they did I wouldn't press charges. They refused to conduct an investigation or even interview people who had access to my room like the maid or room service. This was very upsetting.

Upon check in I had nothing but trouble with the staff, the room was pre-paid by my company but they were trying to charge me for the room. I found them to be very rude, and after 20 min they finally straightened it out and found that it was paid for in advanced. The sad thing is I didn't even get an apology when they found out they were wrong.

Upon checking out I spoke with the manager and explained my concerns with him about his staff, but he seemed uninterested and basically said sorry for your inconvenience and hopefully you'll find it better next time. Well there wasn't a next time, I stayed at a Howard Johnson on my next trip.

Final Thoughts

Like I said earlier, this is a borderline hotel to me. The rooms, lobby and hotel itself are very nice, clean and pleasant. The food was very good and the location was great as far as being near the business district. The point of security, employee theft and staff rudeness is what really hurts this hotel. Perhaps it was a one-time thing and I was just unlucky, but you decide.



Recommended: Yes