Holiday Inn Express Boston North-Woburn by IHG — Attraction in Woburn

Holiday Inn Express – Woburn The hotel is located across from a small Mall (Woburn Mall) and several restaurants. It is a smaller hotel than I expected but has a fresh and clean outside appearance. They have spaces in the parking area specifically designated as parking for Gold and Platinum members which is a nice touch. I was greeted at the front desk with a welcome, recognized as a Spire Elite member and offered a choice of incentives. The front desk associate went over the hotel services and facilities and also mentioned the whirlpool but said sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I checked. It wasn’t. The hotel only has one elevator and I had to wait several minutes and numerous times due to housekeeping services using the same elevator. My room was smaller than other Hi Express hotels but was clean and well lit. There was a mini-fridge in the room but no microwave. The bathroom was very small and had no room for my toiletries until I moved some of the Hi Express items to the bottom shelf on the sink vanity. The switches to the bathroom lights are on the outside wall next to the bathroom door. My air conditioner would not cool the room even though I set the thermostat at 68 degrees. I notified the front desk and a hotel maintenance technician arrived approximately 20 minutes later. The technician moved a chair in the room which he said was blocking the flow of air into the room (?) and lowered the thermostat down to 66 degrees. He said he would have the front desk check on me in about 30 minutes which they did but the air conditioner was not cooling the room adequately even after I set to it to 60 degrees. I inquired to the front desk associate if all air conditioning systems in the hotel operated at the capacity of my room and the response was “some do and some don’t. Depends on how much they get used”. Really? This was the same associate that stated the whirlpool sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. I again brought the air conditioner problem to the front desk associate the following morning before going to work. Upon returning at around 4:00 PM, there was an air conditioning unit in the hall just outside my room and my room was so cold you could have chilled wine in it. They had replaced the entire unit while I was at work. The shower head has good water pressure but it is located so high up that I could just reach it. Anyone below 5 ft. and 10 inches will have a problem reaching it. The Wi-Fi service is reliable with a speed of 4.19 Mbps. The hotel is located next to I-95 which means you hear traffic noise in the room. Looking over the past reviews, I see a common pattern of whirlpool not working, one elevator which is slow, very small bathroom with little counter space, room air conditioners not working and noise from highway. Based on my experiences and the complaints in other reviews being the same, I cannot rate this hotel higher than 2 stars (fair). Pros: Hotel location across from mall and restaurants Outside appearance appealing and special parking for IHG gold and platinum members Friendly front desk staff which recognized me as a Spire Elite member Clean and well lit room with mini-fridge Comfortable bed and pillows Reliable Wi-Fi at 4.19 Mbps

Cons: Whirlpool out of order Hotel has one elevator which is used by the housekeeping staff Room smaller than expected No microwave in room Bathroom very small with little counter space Shower head almost too high to reach Light and fan switches to bathroom located on outside wall Air conditioner did not work properly Traffic...

Reservation for 3 nights First Impression: Bathroom very small, DARK, no mirror above shelf area outside of bathroom where one should have been to allow one a place to get ready - style hair, apply make-up, etc. (could not do at SMALL vanity in bathroom that lacked space and proper lighting) Bed area okay, TV okay. Employees friendly, but not given the tools or authority to make things right. The very bad: Room was HOT and A/C did not operate correctly. As it was very cool outside we assumed the room would cool down after the sun went down. Our first mistake. By 9pm the room was unbearable and we placed a call to the front desk. Roberta was very nice, but stated that they do not have maintenance on duty at night. We asked to change rooms, but were told that no 2 double bed rooms were available (we were a party of 3). We then requested 2 separate rooms for the night. Roberta called her manager (Anna) who said NO to 2 rooms even for 1 night. Robeta could put us in a king room with a rollaway bed. Reluctantly we agreed to that. Oops - Roberta called back - no rollaway available. Roberta came to the room and agreed the room was very hot. She had called a maintenance man to come in if we would give him a chance to repair the A/C. Our ok was our 2nd mistake. At midnight a very nice Pedro changed out the A/C unit and diligently tried to get the A/C to work. Although the room was still warm when he left, he thought it would cool over the next hour. It did not - but we were in no mood to have him come back. We were tired, hot, and just wanted to out of there. Another call to front desk - we could have 2 rooms if we paid for both. Our third mistake - not packing up right then. We toughed it out until early morning when we did pack up and move to a hotel down the street. They allowed us an early check in after hearing of our terrible experience. Our 2 days in the new hotel (not a Holiday Inn) were wonderful! My husband did talk to the general manager (Keri) in the morning who said she would have okayed the change to 2 rooms. Really? That was suppose to make us feel better?Why wasn't she called when the problem was occurring? WORST hotel...

Tonight my husband and I had an issue with our reservation. I had called the night before I arrived and was given false information. The man at the front desk kindly offered us a free dinner at the hotel's restaurant to compensate for this. We canceled our reservation for our planned dinner and went to the hotel's restaurant. Upon presenting the receipt of the dinner to the man at the front desk who offered us a free dinner, he called his manager to get the refund, and found out then that they will only cover one dish, not two. I said that mistake is on your end, which happens I understand, but it should not come out of my pocket because he was misinformed. The man upfront, Ken, spoke to the manager Ryan 4 times while I was on hold for the manager Ryan. He was avoiding my call, not taking it. After 20 minutes of waiting on hold, I said this is (swear) ridiculous, it should not be this hard to get what was promised. I was not yelling or threatening, I'm a 120lb girl. Ken then said if I was going to be rude he would call the cops. I invited him to do so, because I had recorded the entire conversation and stated I doubt they would side with Ken on the matter. He proceeded to refund half and I'm now having to go through cooperate, who has been very kind, to request what was promised. I don't believe this is Ken's fault, if he did state to his manager he made the mistake. Management should have taught a lesson to their employee, using this as a learning experience, but took the hit as any cooperation has to do for their customers at times. However, I am wondering if a video of me swearing, a very small woman who's not yelling, causes a grown man to threaten to call the cops will go...