Holiday Inn Express & Suites Albany by IHG — Hotel in Albany

Poor leadership. Could not get a win here during my stay.||I checked into this Holiday Inn on 2/26, for two nights. I arrived at about 4:00 on the 26th. Check in went smooth. I liked how they gave you different options for room cleaning service. You can either pass, get a small refresh or elect to have a whole cleaning. This is marked on a small piece of paper that is mated with your guest folio. I elected for the full cleaning. I’ve been an IGH member for a long time, and with that, you can add small notes for special requests. I always request rooms at the very end of the hall. I learned this request went unnoticed on this stay. ||On arrival to the room I found it was a double-queen room, not a standard like I had booked. This change wasn’t mentioned during check in. On top of that, the previous guest had obviously been a smoker, as the smell in the room was pungent, to say the least. It was bad enough it would have undoubtably made my clothes smell. ||I went back downstairs and let the front desk agent know about the issues. The agent had no explanation why they had changed the room type on me, and told me even though I was among the first to arrive that day, he couldn’t put me in a king-bedded room that hadn’t checked in. I asked the agent if he could see if a manager check into this instead. He went and grabbed her. ||The manager came up and explained the same, telling me she could only move me into another double queen room, which was near the elevator. I never got her name, she doesn’t wear a name tag like everyone else. ||I asked the manager if she could put me in a different room type. She told me there was nothing else available. Unbeknownst to her, I had just pulled the hotel’s app up and selected my dates, seeing they had both a standard room and an upgraded room type available. I showed the manager this and she said she would not sell me the room at my current rate. I mentioned my tenured status as an IGH Member, but she told me she would consider it if I was a high tiered member. ||With this, I asked the manager if I could go back to get my things, and just spend a few minutes finding another hotel. The manager said I could, but she would charge me a nights room and tax as a penalty. ||I ended up taking the new room keys and going to my double queen with my tail tucked between my legs. As a consolation, the manager told me she’d credit me an additional 500 points to my IGH account. Sort of a last slap in the face. ||The new room was clean for sure. Comfortable, all the beds in it too. Lol. Definitely exceeded expectations for the rate.||The following day, I picked-up some around the room before leaving for work, knowing the ladies would be coming through to clean. On my way out, the manager asked me how the room was. I told her it was good and I asked her if she had inspected the first room. The manager downplayed the odor, but said housekeeping was going to fix it. ||At the end of the day, I returned to the room and found neither of my keys worked. I walked back downstairs and talked to front desk. Turns out, the manager had made my new keys and only keyed them in to work for a single night. ||Back at the room again, I found no one had come to clean, like even for a little bit. I suspect the manager failed to transfer that cleaning card over to the new folio. ||I called and talked to the front desk. He told me housekeeping had gone home for the night and he had no idea what had happened. The agent offered to bring me some new towels if I needed them. I took him up on this and he promptly walked them up. ||I worked in hospitality in Napa Valley for the better part of a decade. I know first hand how a lot of this works at hotels. I can attest, it’s not hard to provide hospitality, in fact, it’s enjoyable to provide it. With this, I know sometimes an upgrade or allowing a guest to walk is just part of doing business. As mentioned at the start, I just could not get a win here, and I feel like it all falls onto management. Whether it’s the front desk manager acting as if I wanted to take the food from her mouth, or a housekeeping manager not second guessing why a room doesn’t have a preference in cleaning, or allowing another room to pass inspection when it should have been left out of order. Plain and simple, leadership here failed the guest, and failed their team. ||So, I’d say it’s a game a risk on coming here. Luckily, there are a lot of great alternative options in the...

Overall my family and I found this hotel to be one of the worst places we've stayed. So much so, that we considered not actually staying but didn't want to lose over $200 on a single nights stay. We felt that the room, 2 queen beds, was dark, dingy and lacked any kind of appeal to make you feel comfortable. The carpets were extremely dirty, my husband walked while barefoot from the first bed to the bathroom and commented on how sticky they were. You could see stains on the carpet as well. The wall are also so thin that you can hear other guests in the hall clearly and in nearby rooms, not just the rooms on either side of your own, but even across the hall. Our TV remote was not working properly and I called the front desk to see how to fix this issue. The girl said she would bring a new remote up to the room to try in a couple minutes. After 10-15 minutes she still hadn't showed. I went down to the desk and she and another front desk clerk were standing there chatting. No other guests were around. I asked again about the remote. She says, "Oh yeah, that's right, I'll grab one". She then comes with me up the room and tries to see if it will work. Nope. She tells me we are going to have to wait until the morning and see if someone else can fix it. We check out in the morning so that's really not helpful. She mentions she will go see if there are any other remotes that may work and that she will be right back. Another 10-15 minutes goes by and she sends the other girl up to say they can't help. I definitely feel that they should have discounted our room since this in-room amenity was not usable, but they didn't. Also, the toilets seem to run for 2-3 minutes after a flush. Sometimes it would even get hung up for longer. I can not imaging how loud this must have been for the guests below us. The A/C fan also is extremely loud and runs forever. It can impact your sleep considerably. Lastly, the breakfast was mediocre. Hardly anything available and...

Exceptional service - I've stayed at this HIE several times in the last couple years, and their quality has continued to be of the highest. No matter who I speak to at the front desk, she is smart, quick, accommodating, helpful, and pleasant. I've gotten in at 1am a couple times, and the front desk person is always right there. I ask for quiet rooms, and they always make sure to place me away from other guests or further down the hall away from potential noise.

The rooms are so clean! For the last 10 years, I've traveled down the west coast from Seattle to Los Angeles and often stay at the same hotels. ALmost all of them go downhill after a time, things not fixed, stains not cleaned, and in a few years a nice, new hotel is shabby and dirty. Not this one! It's improved, in fact.

I love the movie night, where they put a movie on in the breakfast room and have red vines and popcorn for the guests, and there's always fruit available any time of the day as well as juice and coffee and tea.

Parking is easy, the lot is clean and just minutes from the freeway. It's quiet and in a good and safe location, well-lit, and the pool, sauna, and exercise rooms aren't just afterthoughts, but offer a lot.

The rooms are comfortable, the beds feel new, and the bedding is clean and new-feeling. Even though they allow pets, I've never smelled any pet smells or seen any dog or cat hair on anything there, which is quite a feat. I've stayed in enough pet-friendly hotels to know that many of them don't clean well afterwards. This hotel is spotless.

There's good lighting in the rooms for reading, comfortable chairs for working and relaxing, and the layout works well for work and leisure. Towels are fluffy and fresh, and the shower head allows for light misty trickle up to serious massage-like flow.

I love this hotel and now try to schedule my trips so that I end up in Albany, so I can stay there instead of any...