Holiday Inn & Suites Cedar Falls-Waterloo Event Ctr by IHG — Hotel in Cedar Falls

1. Front Desk does not answer its telephone. Tried to call them more than 4 times over an hour as I was traveling to the hotel. No answer. Eventually I called the police dept because they could have been in trouble. I later found out that the hotel manager is not staffing the hotel front desk properly.

2. This hotel is understaffed. The front desk night shift, and some day personnel are asked to do many things that are long distances away from the front desk which is why they did not answer the telephone. I cam back to the hotel on Wednesday at +/- 12:30 PM. No one at front desk. I had to knock on staff only door to right of front desk area. Middle aged gentlemen came out - had a angry look and demeanor. Did find for me the younger front desk person that had given me a great lunch restaurant recommendation. But I do not think that this person was happy that he had to do this. This hotel has poor hotel management. They need to remember that they are in the customer service business and not in the run the hotel at the lowest cost business.

3. The breakfast buffet is good, but they serve the same thing three days in a row. Some change like scrambled eggs with salsa may be a good replacement from the horrible omelets that they served for three days.

4. No milk at the breakfast area other than the Fairlife concentrated milk products. Poor selection of good products.

5. No cereal or other none overly sweet options available for those who want something like this for breakfast.

6. The dinner options at the hotel is poor. Went out for dinner all three nights that I stayed at the hotel.

7. Hotel construction did not place TVs and other items in the main customer area so that they are easy to work with, manage, or operate. In talking with the hotel staff their manager does not talk with them about issues that they have or listen to them.

8. Hotel manager must be dictating their politics beliefs onto the customers. Customers ask to change TVs to Fox News, but as soon as they left the area the hotel staff went back to MSNBC. This hotel seems to have lots of AI capability to see what the customers are viewing for news in their rooms. And at times they have lots of guests for the conference that are more middle of the rode. Why not use the room TV AI information and the general sense of guests coming to the property to select news channels for hotel.

9. The way you turn on the showers in the room is terribly design. Small space along side of toilet area is what you need to manage around to turn on the shower. Then moving the sliding doors can be hard for some people (children in particular). Poor choices by the hotel designer. Lots of room in main part of room. Could have made the bathroom 1 foot bigger and opened up much better options.

10. I was at the hotel for a farmer conferences +/- 400 people attended. No coffee available to the attendees during the day without going back to main hotel area. Not good! The conference organizer may not have wanted to pay for coffee at the meeting which was a poor choice on their part, but this also reflects badly on the hotel. Event organizers thinking that the main area free coffee option was a good idea is a bad idea. This lack of coffee at the conference, poor breakfast options (lots of people could have purchased a coffee and donut if option available - these were +/- 400 farmers that generally get up early - coffee and donut at 8 AM is a good option for them), and poor dinner options left a bad impression on the guest that attended the event. Some of these people also book other farmer or other business events in the region with 10...

The hotel room and hotel itself is very clean and the lobby area is very inviting. Also like the outdoor patio area. Overall, my stay was good. Just wanted to mention one bad experience I had with one employee at the front desk on the day I checked out, the 2nd. Being an IHG member, one of the perks they "advertise" for you to take advantage of is a late checkout, which I did for my stay. I called the front desk and they said 1 pm checkout was no problem. I also hung the "come back later" sign on the outside of my room door. I left for awhile and came back to my room around 12:15. The sign on my door was no longer there and my key didnt work. I was slightly alarmed -- perhaps my late checkout was not properly marked and my room had been cleaned and all of the items in my room were gone. EVEN THO I had put the sign out to please come back later. I went back to the front desk and told the gentleman what happened. He said that my room was marked as a late checkout and did not know why the sign was gone from my room. I went back up to my room (3rd floor) and the key card still did not work. I went back down again and the gentleman did a few things on the computer and gave me a new key card. Not once did he apologize for my key card not working and that I had to come back down TWICE to fix the error -- certainly after that happens to a guest once, the second time you would ensure it would work. NOPE. Even after I had to come down again, he did not apologize. This was noticed by me, I was surprised...so I did not say my normal "thank you". Instead, I just started walking towards the elevator and the employee says very loudly "YOU'RE WELCOME". Sarcastically of course. Thank goodness all items were still in my room but not happy about someone entering when the sign was out -- we found it on the floor right...

First let me explain that I have stayed at 17 Holidays since the end of June. I have stayed in 8 different states. I have used Holiday Inns for many years as they usually provided an upgrade from the average. Across the board I have been extremely disappointed this year with the Holiday brand. Way below expectations. Most where poorly maintained and some needed remodeling ASAP. Broken toilets, clogged sinks, plugged shower heads, dirty and worn out carpets, and etc. There were several recent remodels of extremely poor quality. By remodel, I mean new floor coverings and paint. Holidays in Nebraska and Kansas came the closest to meeting Holiday standards of the past.

When I arrived at the Cedar Falls Holiday Inn and Suites, I was excited that it was newer and looked nice. Upon check in things deteriorated quickly. Although the staff was very good, it was obvious that they were short handed. The desk clerk informed us that breakfast was no longer complimentary and now it was $12.00 for less than before. There would be no maid service during our four day stay. If we needed clean towels we could pick them up at the front desk and throw the dirty ones in the hall. Really? Our room was on first floor. No ice machine on first floor. I went to the second floor for ice. The hallway carpet on the second floor was filthy with dirt. soiled spots and debris, It hadn't seen a vacuum in quit a while. In fact I never saw a vacuum in use our entire stay. The room across the hall set out trash that remained in the hall for three days. The internet was down our entire stay. If this is what to expect from Holiday, I want...