Holiday Inn Niagara Falls State Park Entry by IHG — Hotel in City of Niagara Falls

I traveled here with a group of 4: myself, my wife, her sister, and her sister’s husband. We had to pay for parking, it’s not included in the overall fee. I believe it was $20 per night.

We booked 1 room per 2 people (2 rooms total). Our group arrived early. We asked the front desk if it was possible to check-in early. One of the rooms we booked was ready (nearly 3 hours early) so they checked-in and we all set our stuff in that room then left the hotel while we waited for our second room. When we came back at our check-in time, we were told our room was still not ready. They ended up switching our room 3 separate times during the check-in process, which ultimately cost us our view of the falls (we booked our room for that very reason). Despite that loss, I’m glad that we didn’t wait for our original room because another guest was in the lobby irate because they had been waiting for their room for almost 6 hours.

The room was a bit run down and they were using all the white paint they could to make it look new. The shower’s temperature did not pass lukewarm, the bed was so stiff that I woke up with aching joints (I’m only 25), our AC was leaking and their solution was to leave some sort of machine to suck up the water in our room.

The hotel’s restaurant is HORRIBLE. Just take the loss and find somewhere else to eat - seriously, I promise it is not worth it. Unless it comes with your room, you will not be offered a free breakfast from the restaurant, and even with that package only some menu items are available. Everything else is an out-of-pocket expense. They charge fine dining prices for low-quality food. Every check we got from there was somehow incorrect. The waiters were inconsistent, unavailable, and at times outright rude.

The highlight of our stay was myself getting stuck in the elevator with my sister-in-law. When we realized we were stuck, we hit the Call Button inside to reach what I assume is the front desk. It took two presses of the button to contact someone. Once we told them we were stuck and on which floor, they hung up on us. If it weren’t for our respective spouses outside of the elevator calling us, we wouldn’t have had any communication with the hotel staff about any updates or steps to recovering us. The hotel staff could not get us out, and we ended up being rescued by the fire department after 40 minutes of being trapped. We later learned that that same elevator had broken down the day before, same situation of someone getting stuck. I can only assume it was negligence that led them to not put the elevator out of service. They even had it up and running roughly 10 minutes after we were freed. With that track record, it’s only a matter of time before someone else gets stuck.

When we were freed, the only staff who approached us was the maintenance worker (I think) who apologized and said he was glad we were okay. Whoever that man was, we appreciated your concern and you are not the focus of our negative review at all. The other staff just looked at us and walked away. A warm welcome for sure! We got stuck in the elevator during the hour before our checkout time. Thankfully, the hotel did accommodate us and said they would not force us out by our established time nor would they penalize us for not leaving within said timeframe… after my wife brought it up first and insisted we would not be doing so anyways. Additionally, my wife had learned the staff offered to waive her sister’s parking fee ($40) as compensation for being stuck in the elevator. My wife said that we would like the same reimbursement, and the same staff member who gave it to her sister threw some attitude at my wife asking “Were YOU stuck in the elevator?”. FYI, when you’re married, you and your spouse have shared property and income. Her $40 is my $40 regardless of if she was in the elevator or not. Myself nor my wife were offered any sort of services, refunds, or even an apology for my getting trapped. We had to ask for it, and it was handed to us with reluctance and attitude.

Lodge literally...

We stayed at this hotel for one night recently while we visited the Niagara Falls area. I was not expecting 5 star luxury and am very familiar with IHG brand hotels, as I've been an IHG club member for years and we regularly stay at both Holiday Inns and Staybridge Suites. This was by far the worst experience we've had with this brand of hotels.||If for some reason you do stay at this hotel, whatever you do, request a room that is NOT on the first floor. We were directed to a small hallway completely away from the elevators and the rest of the rooms in the hotel that houses about 7-8 rooms near the service elevator. It's obvious the hotel tried to eke out as many rooms as they could and decided to turn what probably were some small closets or other rooms into hotel rooms. The door was not even wide enough to accommodate the luggage cart if you had luggage on it, unlike any hotel I've ever stayed in. This meant we had to load and unload our luggage cart out in the hallway.||Additionally our "window" stared at a high concrete wall 2 feet from it. I am not exaggerating at all. I did not expect a view of the falls but I DID expect to have a real window that looked out at something. Even a parking lot! We felt like we were in a dungeon. No sunlight in the room. We ended up keeping the blinds closed the whole time. It was essentially like being in an interior room. There is no reason we should have been charged the same for this room as those who booked the same type of room on a real floor with a real window.||The issues don't stop there. The AC unit looked and sounded as if it was from the 90s. The toilet was the absolute lowest toilet I've ever sat on. If you have any sort of knee or mobility issues - good luck getting on and off that thing. Additionally, the toilet didn't stop running so you heard it making tinkling sounds all night long. The icing on the cake is when we checked out in the morning, the woman at the front desk (this would have been around 6:30 AM on July 26), simply responded "OK thanks" when I said we were checking out. Grabbed our keys and went back to her computer. I have never stayed at a hotel where the front desk associate didn't ask how your stay was when you checked out. They obviously don't care.||My advice? Stay far away from this hotel. If you have a passport, I recommend staying on the Canadian side. If you can't, pick literally any other hotel in this area besides this one. And if you have already booked a stay here and can't get out of it, call them immediately and request you are NOT put on the first floor. The hotel should not ever be putting guests in those terrible first floor rooms....

Very nice hotel. However when asked for a Handicap room, they had none. Asked for a shower chair. They had none. Asked for a 1st floor close to an elevator, I got 5th floor pretty close to an elevator. The room was very nice, however pretty small when you have to fit a scooter in there and parking it close to a electrical outlet was a chore. The nightstand lamp has 2 power outlets on it. Nice idea for phone charging HOWEVER, when you turn the light off, the outlets turn off also. So you wake up to a non charged phone. Their bathrooms are gorgeous!! However, the toilet was so close to the floor. I had to fall backwards and hope that I landed on the toilet. Being a Handicap person, the most important thing to me is a shower chair. They could not offer me one of those. Their bathtubs have NO appliques to keep your feet from sliding and the tub drain was very slow. This makes bathing very challenging. The bed, very comfy but definitely needs to be turned. It was very hard to get into, had to climb up hill to keep from rolling out. Very nice lobby. There is a cornhole game as well as a massage chair, all very close to the restaurant/bar and pool. The hotel itself does not offer a breakfast. Disappointing for a big name hotel. They do mention that the restaurant serves breakfast for a charge. The pool was beautiful but definitely not Handicap/elderly accessible. There were ladders, to get in and out but no stairs to make it easy to get in and out of. And the water was FREEZING cold. Very disappointing for a big chain hotel. The cleaning crew emptied the trash can we set outside the room but did not put a liner back in the can. Kind of strange. The customer service people were very nice. The furniture in the lobby was beautiful and I LOVE the colors. This Holiday was fantastic if you are a normal functioning person. Not very handicap/elderly friendly. This hotel is a nice walking distance from Maid of the Mist & Wind of the Cave as well as downtown...