Holiday Inn Express & Suites Cincinnati SE Newport, an IHG Hotel — Hotel in Bellevue

This is honestly the nicest and most congenial staff of hotel enployees I have ever met. And, my room is so cute! The decor is contemporary boho, clean, and nicely decorated; accent walls, wall art, cool lamps, and you can make so many lighting options with all the recessed, underside, and lamp options; there's literally 10 different lights in a single king room! They have usb plug-ins on the desk, and at each bedside. The amenities; breakfast (delicious, with both plenty of healthy options alongside the diner-type choices), freshly-baked chocolate cookies on non-busy days, an indoor pool, a cute little patio with an umbrella table in the back, tons of parking, an office space, temperature-controls in the rooms, tons of movie and tv channels on big wall tv's that can swivel, and the dining area is open until around 10 or so if you want to have a coffee, a tea, share a meal, or just hang out and listen to the lobby music, and the tv in that area plays local news in the morning. The hotel is off the main road, so it's nice and quiet at night, with a very pretty view of Ohio. There's a gas station & burger restaurant next door, and a Kroger plaza, with a bunch of other fast food/shopping options, only a five minute walk away. The sidewalk to the plaza and bus stop is nice and wide for folks needing accessibility options or room for strollers. A bunch of shuttles and buses come around every 15 minutes or so, and the fare into Cincinnati is reasonable. The guest laundry room is always clean, has a commercial-sized washer and dryer that work great, and is also very reasonsable. There's even a chair, outlets, a house phone, and a place to fold & hang your clothes. There's a microwave, mini-fridge, iron/board, hair dryer, ice-bucket, coffee/tea maker, and the housekeeping staff is top-notch! My only complaint is that the snacks and convenience foods they offer are a little pricey - about whst you'd pay at a convenience store, but it can be billed to the room if you don't have cash on hand. I highly recommend this hotel, even if you are doing most of your visiting in Cincinnati, because Bellevue & Newport are cute little towns with a lot of character, bike & scooter options, and even though they have pricey tourist areas, the local's shops/restsurants are just as cute, and more affordable. I was fortunate to stay for an extended time, and I am so glad this was where I lodged! I felt safe for my entire stay, but fyi ladies, they cater to a lot of traveling workers, especially during the slower weekdays, so I did things like laundry, etc when the housekeeping staff was working, because they are on top of their game! I gave only 4 stars for location due to the buses requiring two different state's bus tickets, but that would prob only affect you during a long-term stay where you might use public...

If you are a frequent IHG customer, do not book through any other org. than IGH because you earn zero points and they charge $16 to book for you. I learned this the hard way!

I’ve stayed at quite a few Holiday Inns this year and this was by far the worst experience of them all. Will never stay ant this hotel again.

The ice machine on my floor was out of order, so I went up to the next floor and got ice. Upon returning to my room I realized there were black specks in most of the ice cubes. I reported this to the front desk and then got ice from the main floor. It also had black specks but not as much as before, so I ended up picking through it. The next day when checking out I noted the ice machine repairman coming into the hotel. I reiterated my experience with the receptionist who said she would follow through on the problem.

The carpet in our suite room was hideously stained. The stairwell had new carpet. No excuse for the room to be like this. The floor by the door was sticky. (Caused by the cleaning solution?) The couch cushions had white splotches on them. When I turned them over they also had white splotches on them. Gross!

There is actually no room at this hotel with a “view”, but my room extended farther than the room next door, so the view was the neighbors’ window. Thankfully they kept curtains closed. The walls and ceiling were thin and not insulated as I could actually hear the neighbors talking in a normal tone, playing their music, and popping/crackling noises from the ceiling as the kids staying over me were running back and forth repeatedly.

There were very few drawers for clothes if someone were staying for a while. Thank goodness I only stayed one day/night. Also, there was no extra blanket.

This hotel requires a $50 deposit if caught with an animal that was undeclared. They did reimburse this to me.

The breakfast was the normal Holiday Inn fare, but the scrambled eggs were hard and they ran out of coffee. I reported the lack of coffee to the receptionist who promptly filled the two carafes.

Lastly, the taxes and fees on this room was almost one third the cost of the room. The room charge was $164, but the taxes and fees were $51 for a total of $215. Way too much for this room!

I do not recommend this hotel. If you are going to stay here, demand to see the room first.

My experience...

STAFF WENT INTO OUR ROOM AND REMOVED ALL OUR LUGGAGE AND PHOTOGRAPHY EQUIPMENT*

We were told upon a 4:30 pm arrival that our rooms were not ready and they were shortstaffed. The entrance was messy with a remodel being done, wet paint and wallpapering. When we returned later the lobby had a snake of a line of people all trying to check in and behind the desk they were saying they had double booked. We had reserved 2 rooms, each with 2 queen beds. But one of our rooms had a King. That still worked for us so we didn't add to the chaos and went out to dinner. The rooms seemed clean and had adequate ammenities. The hallways needed vacuuming. But Christina from housekeeping went the extra mile to help us out when needed.

When we returned from dinner there was staff sitting on a park bench in the driveway, the manager and the receptionist, and the receptionist came to the desk as we approached. ALL OF OUR LUGGAGE HAD BEEN REMOVED FROM OUR 2 QUEEN ROOM and was behind the desk. We were there on business and all our cases of photography gear and cases...handbags...had been gathered up from our room and removed and I was shocked they had touched my stuff....not called me. The receptionist explained that the manager would be coming in to speak to me to make an accomodation. THey needed to move us to another 2 Queen room??? Huh? Why move us and replace us with later arriving customers...why not give those customers the same 2 Queen room they were going to move us into? WEIRD. Again, we were told that this was a chaotic, understaffed day and for some their first day. The Manager never came in to speak with us, never called and we assumed there might be some discount on our bill. There was not. We asked upon checkout again if the manager would be addressing the issue with our rooms and were told no.

We were left with the impression that things didn't run smoothly there and that the customer was not considered. Did not find the Holiday Inn Express experience to be one I want to repeat for business or...