Holiday Inn Clark - Newark Area by IHG — Hotel in Clark

I came to this location a couple days for a tour before reserving rooms because my son was leaving for the military. The woman assured me that we can be in their lobby/bar area where there is plenty of tables, games and sitting area by the television that lead to the small outside pool area with more seating. We check in (a little after 6) and are ready to enjoy our last night with my son before he leaves. We're told there's a wedding party coming so you after be outside in the small outside area. Mind you they have other rooms,like banquet rooms upstairs. We gather outside,maybe 10 of us and we are like ok. She points me to a table outside of the gate across the street near wooded area and say you all can be over there. No,Thank you, right her is fine mame. For the whole duration of us being outside a woman kept coming out not to check on us but to check us...are you doing this, you can't do that, wanted to know what kind of food did we have, are you drinking, is anyone smoking...You already put us OUTSIDE, we get it, we're behaving! It's now a couple hours, still being watched that we don't assemble in the lobby, where there is still no wedding party and is open to the public. Finally, around 9, the wedding party comes, they are enjoying themselves, drinking,yelling,falling over...good times. The same woman comes outside and says people from the wedding party to want come out to smoke, they paid a lot of money to be here...OKAY, the door isn't locked they can come outside. At this point, I now see it must have to do with my ethnicity. They did not come out but she sent security guard out for maybe 7 adults and 5 children to say we have to leave the fenced in area that we were "PUT" in. We pack up, walk those out you were not staying and those you I paid for a room to stay but no longer want to stay at this establishment. I stayed the night and tried to process what I had just experienced. The next morning I wake up to the room phone ringing, way before checkout.Because I didn't get much rest, I went online and reserved for another night, thinking, I'll get to enjoy the pool and relax. Oh no, now I hear my room door opening during my prayers, then the phone rings, my love let's the woman know we're extending and will be down once I'm done with my prayer...again it's not check out time. We make our way downstairs, I ask the woman who was the staff working last night, she's not sure and I proceeded to finalize my payment for the extra night. My love asks her if everything is ok because he told her I was coming down after praying and she kept calling. She became very unprofessional, started going back and forth with him,told me my reservation was cancelled and took out her personal cell phone and called her husband and started discussing what was happening. I was appalled,I could not believe that, this woman who looked like she may have been a manager, called her husband. Of, course, I asked for the GM, they weren't available, I asked for the GM contact information, they didn't have it smh. After leaving, I called back several times and I'm not sure if they had called ID but I never got to speak with the GM, after being put on hold, told she was in meetings or just hung up on. The white woman with the long blonde hair, kinda thick should NOT be interacting with any guests on any level I don't care what her position is,the higher that may be the worse it looks for the Holiday Inn Clark ,the brand overall. It also explains why the staff is the same way, aggressive, unprofessional, intrusive and on ALL...

I typically stay here when I come into town and this time it was noticeably different. My first room’s bathroom (5 minutes after checking in) had a terrible smell and was unclean and the telephone did not work properly. It was static in the line so bad I could barely hear the front desk. The desk clerk refused to move me and told me housekeeping was gone for the day. I told her I just saw housekeeping on the elevator with me. LIIIIES!! They sent housekeeping to my room which now delays me from leaving and running my errands. When they came to inspect the room the lady immediately smelled it and said oh no that is not the air as she initially thought. She said she will send someone to clean it. She sent to other Latina women who spoke NO ENGLISH. The only thing they did was change a shower curtain and attempted to leave with the smell still there. When I tried to tell them it needed to be recleaned she pushed her phone to me to use Google Translate to talk to her. I refused and went back downstairs and told them to move me IMMEDIATELY! By this time the General Manager, Kathy was present and told me to come to her office and she apologized and said she would move me. The next room smelled better but their phone did not work and it began to rain and water was leaking in my room on top of the air conditioned. Maintenance came and had to caulk the wood above the air conditioner so the water would not come in. He didn’t speak English well and he was being trained. He seemed lazy to me. The other guy was trying to help him but again he seemed lazy and not really interested in doing the job but just having a job. I went in the bathroom before leaving for my event and the bottom of the toilet itself was NOT cleaned by housekeeping. See the pictures. This is why the first room probably stunk. All of this should have been seamless to me but this was my experience. It seems thee are new owners, management, inexperienced staff and array of different things happening at the same time and the place is not worth the money they are charging. I should not have to deal with any of this when I check...

Avoid if you can. I preface this review with the fact that I gave the front desk manager two weeks to respond and they didn't. They also blew me off while I was there. When I first got into room 240 I noticed that it reeked of stale cigarette smoke. I immediately told the front desk and they said they'd check it out, but did not offer to get me a different room. Obviously someone sprayed some air freshener and it smelled almost worse, masking the cigarette for a few hours. The next issue was the tv. The ONE thing you can do in your room aside from sleeping is watching tv. Well, my TV didn't work. Someone was sent to my room and got it going, however it didn't last and the signal went out. When I got back to my room later that night ready to lay in bed and watch TV it didn't work AGAIN. This was the theme. It was too late to complain so I didn't. The next morning I woke up with no TV. At 7 am I complained again about both the smoke and the TV and a nice blond lady checked around and determined that there was nowhere to put me because the hotel was sold out. She said they'd get the TV fixed but there wasn't anyone there to fix it yet. A young lady did come up and get it working but again it didn't last and the signal went out. Later in the afternoon I again had to have someone come up and connect the signal. SO ANNOYING! My other issue was the awful breakfast experience. There was a big group of school kids who overran the breakfast area at 7am. There was no coffee or mugs. My family waited patiently until 8 until they cleared out. The food was mostly gone. No oatmeal, no eggs, no plates etc. When we did get eggs they were watery for some reason! The sad fruit had a weird canned taste. I had to eat off a side plate that is more fit for a roll. The waffle was cold. Everything was just way subpar yet the four of us still paid $60! Such a bad experience we told a late comer to go to McDonalds and it would be an upgrade! I will say the bed was comfortable, but not enough of a good thing to counter...