Holiday Inn Express & Suites Sherwood Park-Edmonton Area by IHG — Hotel in Sherwood Park

This hotel is a really great value for the money. It just is a sharper property than most IHG hotels at the "Express" level. Transportation Issue: My flight arrived in the middle of the night. (The Holiday Inns of the area could do more about the $85 taxi bill that most folks have to pay to get their rooms. The airport is truly in a distant county, and don't let the map fool you. That airport is the most distant airport from it's intended city of service that I've ever seen. The hotels need to come through on this or folks won't come back. That's $170 round trip. I saw this coming and got a cheaper deal arranged ahead of time, but most folks won't think of that.) The graveyard shift clerk and the manager are both simply fantastic and service oriented above and beyond the call of duty. I was unable to connect with the other clerks in the same way. The rooms are standard, but really clean, with really-working air systems, bathtubs, (not to be taken for granted in Canada or Europe), nice supplies, great beds, solid television, fairly-effective blackout windows, (very important for the Far North where 19 hours of sun per day makes resting up a bit hard). And, I must praise their wonderful breakfast. This is simply the best Holiday Inn breakfast deal in the world. I stuffed myself so well, (and found enough attractive food to do it), that I was not so hungry throughout the day; so in that way they're saving you meal money, (and in Edmonton a mediocre cut of beef-steak can run $28; and I can't imagine what a New York Steak would cost). The breakfast had some unattractive dishes to me and some cheap stuff; but the upside is that they were always doing many parts of the breakfast right, even if there were failings. So you left there full, and charged with caffeine. Cheers to their breakfast. The dining-room / television room / club room was really nice and comfortable, way better than most places, which have a sterile, plastic, cheap feel, (even at high-end hotels). Okay, another place the hotel falls down on transportation is that the local system there is beyond absurd, and super expensive; so if you don't rent a car, and you're not a mass-transit total-believer like me, then you can't stay there, because, just as all of Strathcona does little about transit to the airport, the miserable transit into Edmonton means that you add three hours per day, round trip, minimum, just getting to Edmonton itself; and then if you're traveling to St. Albert or Fort Saskatchewan, you'll be on buses all day and night. So this hotel and Strathcona County fall short on transit to and from the airport and to and from Edmonton. Again, it would be hard for them to do much on their own, as small as this hotel is; but the IHG Group here should move out of franchisee mode and get together, as they have tons of hotels up there, and pitch in to do a little something so that folks aren't losing hundreds on cars and cabs and or spending dozens of hours a week on buses just to get downtown or to their room. Also, I don't have a laptop, and their one computer for customer use is controlled by a very outdated system, and is way behind in plug-ins, and is shockingly slow, specifically slows to a crawl on Facebook. Still, the room, and some of the staff, and the breakfast workers made it all worth it in the end. Oh, but unfortunately, I had some beads there that I think they lost in the laundry, so that was a drag, but it was partially my fault for not remembering to remove them from the bed. So, I wanted to give it a 5.0, but I have to be honest and say there just are some systemic problems that make it more of a 4.5, which it well-deserves. Note: I never got my gift-points, which Platinum Elites are supposed to get; but, to offset that, they did give me the exact type of room I wanted on the floor I wanted to be on. But they are not yet on-the-move with the Platinum Elite thing like Irvine or...

We were looking for a pet-friendly hotel in Sherwood Park, and our choices were this hotel and the Ramada. Usually we stay at Best Western locations, but the hotel was not pet-friendly. First off, Lindsay at the front desk was amazing and provided exceptional customer services. She gave our dog a treat, even remembered our first names, and called the room a few minutes after we checked in to make sure things were ok. This was a lovely touch, and we really appreciate her friendliness. However, the hotel left a bad taste in our mouths. We paid $20 extra for our dog, yet the exterior landscaping of the hotel was extremely poor with weeds and thistles everywhere. The hotel garbage bins were decrepit and had piles of garbage stacked beside them (looked like old hood vent fans or air conditioning units?). There was ample free parking which was nice, but the initial impression of the hotel was not impressive at all. Next...the room. We booked a 2-queen bed basic room, and were fairly disappointed in it for the price that we paid. The bathroom fixtures were rusty, the shower curtain did not fully close and did not have a liner on it, the bathtub drain was very slow and probably plugged up with hair, there were sections of wall covering peeling off, there was no bible/pen/paper etc. in the dressers, there was no extra blanket, and there was no clock on the bedside table. There were plugins for our devices on the bedside table, which was a nice feature, but overall we were quite disappointed in the room and hotel quality. The room was essentially clean, but very out-dated and in need of a lot of TLC. The included hot breakfast was a nice touch, as there was a great selection of hot and cold foods, and the tables were very clean. For over $150 including the $20 pet fee, I was not satisfied at all with this hotel and do not feel that we received value for our money. We won't be returning to this hotel. Thanks for reading this and I hope...

I booked my room at this hotel a few weeks in advance, and in my reservation requested a 'quiet upper floor room, far from elevators and ice machine'. Instead I was given a ground floor room immediately BESIDE the hotel's party room. On this night it was set up with several tables, with many bottles of booze on them, and also alarmingly, huge speakers. I did not see a liquor licence posted at the room.

Well the party and noise started around 8 pm, so I went to the front desk to complain. A manager came to see me by my room and told me this was a staff party, and that the party would go on!! He offered to move me (we had just unpacked after a long day of travel and activities), but told me there were no rooms of my type available. He showed me an inferior room on the 2nd floor, which I took since I wanted to be away from the party room and the noise and felt I had no choice.

In any case, we went to bed in the new room, but could hear noise coming through the floor since they put me in the room DIRECTLY ABOVE the party room!! I hadn't realized this when I was moved since I was not familiar with the layout of the hotel, or I would not have accepted the move to this room. In any case, we couldn't sleep, so I called down to the front desk and asked when they had quiet hours at the hotel. She responded that quiet hours were from 10 pm on. It was after 10 pm, so I told them that if they did not shut the music and noise off, I would call the police!! Magically after that the noise stopped, and we were able to get some sleep.

There were no other issues during my stay. No one, however, came to follow-up, to apologize or to see how we were after that. It was only the lady at the checkout who was sympathetic and said she'd let the manager know about this. Even with that, the hotel manager has not bothered to check with me in the 3 days...