Holiday Inn Express & Suites Cape Girardeau I-55 by IHG — Hotel in Cape Girardeau

My daughter was graduating high school and my mom was coming for the graduation. I booked with this IHG and am a gold member. I've become more and more disappointed with my IHG stays for many reasons, but this is the one that will keep me from ever going back. I am a business owner and travel quite often. IHG used to be my go-to, but have begun shifting away.

Well, I booked the room for my mom to stay in, with the same card on file that has been there for years. However, I first had to call because they wouldn't let me mom get to the room until they heard from me. Which was incredibly inconvenient based on a business meeting I was in. Then I found out that I needed to approve the card on file, which I found out after hanging up with them from the initial call. My mom had to tell me. But get this, I had to go to my email, download a pdf, fill it out with a pen, then scan it, and email it back. The info they needed on the printed form included all the details that I had already given them when I booked! Ridiculous!! The whole time my mom is sitting in the lobby and having to wait! I feel like we went back in time or something to hotels of old.

First off, the fact that my card on file wasn't good enough upon arrival, is wild stupid in the time we live in. Secondly, how can you be asking me to print something, etc. It was not even a pdf you could fill out digitally. I had to physically get it all done. The whole process from first being forced to call, to getting the form back to them, was at least 45 minutes of my mom sitting in the lobby. What if I didn't have a printer on hand? What if I was in a meeting that couldn't be disturbed? What if she couldn't get ahold of me? To add to that, 45 minutes of my time on a work day is worth something as the owner of a company. So you can tack on more money to that reservation, because giving the hour of process to this was worth quite a bit to me and my business.

As a customer in May of 2025, what the heck is going on?! IHG, you better up your game because from recent experience, you are looking to suffer as a business.

UPDATE: Catherine responded below to my comment, but I want everyone to know that what she is describing, "based on my safety", is an archaic process that is NOT well executed or thought through. There are 100% better ways to do what they forced me to do. No matter whether you communicate it well or not. It was a lot of work for something that should be seamless based on 100s of other hotel experiences I have had via travel. Be aware that they will hold you hostage based on their "procedural" process. It is beyond stupid and if I ran my business like that, I would be out of business at this point. So I have no doubt it will suffer from these hardline, black and white, procedures that they have put in place by someone who has not entered into our modern technological era we now live in. They are cutting costs somewhere, but on my lost business alone, they could have paid for the system that actually serves the customer. Again, physically printing out their form and putting raw information on it is as old school as it gets. Not to mention the rest of the process they put my mother through. HORRIBLE. Go somewhere else that has caught up to 2025 in their systems...

When looking for a hotel for a weekend trip for the family, we narrowed it down to this location and a few others based on price, amenities, and location. Here were some pros and cons from our experience. Please note we still rate this a 5 out of 5 and would return, even though we experienced cons. This is just for documentation to help other travelers.

Pros: Rooms are nice and updated Staff were extremely professional, polite, and kind from check in to check out. One staff member had a line at the desk, a phone ringing non stop, a rude person on the phone, and still handled everything quickly and professionally all while working by himself. Great location, close to everything and parking Very safe part of the city. Warm, fresh, delicious, breakfast served daily consisting of popular food items. The lobby is very nice and updated with plenty of seating. The room had a fridge and microwave. The floor also has an ice machine and vending machine. The lobby has a shop filled with items to purchase which was fully stocked with fresh items.

Cons: The rooms are nice, but we did find trash under the bed, paint chips falling off on a small section of the room, and scuff marks what appear to be from a wheelchair (we had an ADA room). The ADA rooms are the farthest from the elevators. Photos from the hotel website and posted by the hotel show a jacuzzi/hot tub next to the pool. This has since been filled in and is no longer an option. It is now a seating area. The towels in the pool area are rarely restocked and we had to ask the front desk each day to bring down more towels. The 2nd time, the towels never came and the kids had to walk through the lobby soaking wet. Only one elevator. Although it doesn't appear this location would get very busy and most probably would use the stairs in a 4 floor building, the elevator is small and slow. The breakfast photos and description advertise bacon as a food item, they do not serve bacon. My kids were disappointed, but I can live without bacon. The rooms did not have any guide or directory about the hotel, amenities, or...

We only went to Cape Girardeau so we could see the totality of the 2017 Solar Eclipse. We picked this hotel because it was the closest we could get to where we live and we booked back in mid October 2016! We weren't expecting much so we were very surprised by the overall quality.

The breakfast and the cookie social we covered by our room price and both were very good though labeling food would be a good idea given the amount of food allergies. The place was so crowded on August 20-21, 2017, that I was concerned about staff keeping up with the food but I think they did a good job.

The room was suite style with a kitchenette, bathroom, office area, living room area, and huge bedroom with two queen sized beds that were actually queen sized. There were two choices of pillows -- softer and firmer. There were outlets everywhere. We also appreciated the LED lighting.

One big problem was the air conditioning. First it pointed directly down the little hallway created in the room between TV and beds, between office area and living room. Also the air would not flow constantly on automatically and this allowed humidity to build up as well as sounds to go on and off. Both...