Holiday Inn Express & Suites Colorado Springs Afa Northgate by IHG — Hotel in Colorado Springs

As an IHG Gold Elite Rewards Club Member, I've stayed at IHG numerous times over the years. From Florida to Arizona, to Kansas, and California. From business to leisure, IHG has been my go to selection of hotel groups for myself and my family for years.

Recently, I stayed at The Holiday Inn Express & Suites Colorado Springs AFA Northgate. I stayed at the hotel for 12 nights, and all 12 of them came with issue, inadequate service, and ultimately an unhappy IHG rewards member. Overall, my experience was as if I was staying at a local roach coach motel. From this point on, I will refer to the "Holiday Inn" as such, but forewarn, I would be embarrassed to associate the IHG brand with this shanty shack dubbed a "hotel."

I arrived at the "Holiday Inn" around 3:30 pm and checked in with the front desk girl. I found her sitting at one of the clearly marked guest tables with signage stating all Colorado Law's prohibit seated dining with all other chairs stacked atop counters- while she clearly sat with her Dutch Brothers Cup, textbooks, and cellphone at her very own lobby "hotel." I waited at the counter, and she approached from her lobby "hotel" room and requested to check-in. During this time, she told me the pool was open, the hot tub was warm, and that there would be hot breakfast options every morning depending on supply but definitely during my stay. She thanked me for being a rewards member, and quickly assigned me a room on the 3rd floor, handed me one key, and off I went.

Upon arrival to the elevator, I was met by "housekeeping" carts and the sounds of numerous women chatting in the hallway loudly. I arrived to the 3rd floor and heard music playing loudly from the "housekeeping" cart along with, again, numerous women chatting loudly. I entered the room. Upon my arrival to the room, something was instantly wrong. I walked in, and the carpet was spattered with various debris (what appeared to be crusty, old, eaten, food). I then saw what appeared to be a cockroach on the stand just above where I hung my jacket. Finally, when entering the bathroom, I found the toilet soiled. The room was clearly not clean, or maybe it was just the prologue to the rest of this "hotel."

After quickly gathering all of my things, I walked back through the hallway of women's chatter and background music and promptly approached the front desk to find again the front desk clerk sitting, now eating peanut butter and playing a game on her cell phone at the clearly marked stating all Colorado Law's prohibit seated dining with all other chairs stacked atop counters. I prompted and asked her if I could have a different room as mine was dirty. Utilizing two different computers, she apologized and stated she would call her "manager." She called, received no answer, then decided to give me a new room. The same of which I was initially provided on the first floor. She ensured me that her "manager" would visit me during my stay and ensure everything was taken care of, as I initially checked in on the weekend. I say "manager" because this mythical being never once checked in on my 12-night stay, offered an apology for the dirty room provided to this IHG member, or even acknowledge the laxidasical staff that ran this "hotel."

Overnight, I slept relatively peacefully and was awoken by a car alarm blaring at 0400 that proceeded to 0430. I walked to the lobby first thing the next morning, tired and hungry for breakfast. I was greeted by the overnight desk clerk and told my options were muffin or bagel in a white bag similar to which a 6th grader would bring their school lunch in and that coffee was behind the counter if I wanted anything. I grabbed a "bag" of breakfast, which in turn ended up being a stale packaged bagel, a granola bar, an apple, and warm milk that was being kept on melted ice near the front desk. Far from the "hot" breakfast, the front desk clerk the day before had promised the day before.

Proceeding on, I returned to my room to eat my personal food and prepared to take a relaxing shower. Upon attempting to obtain a towel from my bathroom I found it with what appeared to be a previous guest's shaved hair. I quickly approached the front desk and was provided a new set of towels and no explanation other than, "Are you serious? That's disgusting." I returned, showered, and contacted the IHG service line, where I was placed on hold for quite some time and then disconnected.

Each morning, I was greeted with a white bag for breakfast, warm milk or juice, and the worst customer service of my IHG experience. There was no "Hi," "Good Morning," "How is your stay." It was simply, "there's bagels or muffins this morning." There was never the mentioned "warm" continental breakfast as described by the front desk girl on the first day, and numerous times when grabbing a "muffin" bag, I would find a bagel and vice versa. Numerous times during my stay, I questioned the food safety of this establishment, not to mention the subpar customer service.

A second frequent experience during my stay was the frequent disruption of my room key. Numerous times upon entering the hotel and my room, I was "locked out." Forcing me to walk around the building or back to the lobby for a new key. There was never an explanation, an apology, or even an attempt to improve my stay, just a new key that frequently wouldn't work in the coming days.

A third frequent experience during my stay included the obviously loud knocking of the housekeepers on every room near mine. Promptly at 1000, I heard the keycard knocking on outside rooms and the frequent "housekeeping" murmurs. Similarly, just like the Golden Girls, I listened to their gossiping in the halls from 1000 to 1500pm daily during my business meetings.

During my 12 day stay, there were two offerings of fresh towels. When the housekeeper knocked on the door, I was greeted by someone who was non-English speaking, and when asking for more towels, another housekeeper was forced to translate and provide me with the items I requested. At one point during my stay, there were so many dirty towels in my room I was forced to carry them to the hotel gym and throw them in the laundry there to rid my space of sequestering must. And again, the next morning was forced to leave towels outside of my room as the housekeepers never approached nor asked if anything was needed. During my 12 day stay, they did make my beds once, which was interesting as the sign on the front desk clearly denoted there would be no housekeeping services. Thus, IHG, which was it? Nothing? Or just subpar service that made me wish nothing was an option?

During nights 3-12 of my stay, I was met with an unruly neighbor staying next to me. I audibly heard him cursing at all hours of the night, including at 0300 am. My option to call the front desk and ask him to be quiet was less than inviting due to his treating nature, and my inability/lack of want to move to a "new" dirty room left me hearing his disgusting yelling at all hours of the night, progressing on my last night of the stay to hitting the wall and screaming. Not to mention, his TV and alarm clock were clearly audible in my room as if we were in a hostel.

As time progressed, I decided to use the workout room where I found no cleaning supplies, no paper towels, no towels, and ultimately, a "hotel" environment that represented the rest of my stay, disgusting.

Finally, during the last nights of my stay, I approached the front desk requesting towels for showering. The front desk associate that evening provided me with one towel. I asked for an additional hand towel and washcloth and was told, "sorry we are out." There was no attempt to obtain any washcloths or hand towels or troubleshooting as to a solution. Just a simple no.

Overall, this was quite possibly the worst 12-night stay of my IHG stays. I would be thoroughly embarrassed to call this a portion of my brand yet alone a Holiday Inn. From a customer's opinion, this place needs a serious renovation. From untrained, poor customer service from nearly every staff member. To the disgustingly uncleanly environments and "rooms". Last to the paper, thin walls, and lack of consideration of guest placement. I write this with ultimate destain that I didn't notify a manager during my stay sooner. However, as mentioned previously, another dirty room with continued subpar service wouldn't have fixed this broken circumstance.

Meanwhile, I am still waiting for that "manager" visit from my first day of check-in.... Which never happened.

I wouldn't recommend this hotel to a rat on the streets of New York let alone to a friend or family member. During a time of global pandemic, I expected shortcomings but not blatant neglect. In sum, I am seriously questioning my future stays at any IHG hotel and will be sure to utilize word of mouth and reviews to portray this "hotel" as it should be, a roach coach motel.

A serious overhaul is in order, and please do question associating this brand with such an unfortunate place.

See attached photos for just a brief look...

Bed Bugs! Management Failure!||If I could give it NEGATIVE stars I would!!||My wife and I don't usually care much about the services or amenities that they offer but care significantly about the cleanliness of the hotel as this was something we were extremely concerned about especially with COVID & with my wife being 7 months pregnant.||The first night was fine and we went about our day. We washed up as usual that evening and all was still fine. Sunday morning, my wife woke up feeling itchy and found bites on her neck and all along her arm. I however, at the time did not show any bites. During checkout, we reported to the front desk attendant that my wife woke up with many bites on her neck and arm and due to her being pregnant we want to have the room inspected and have them report back to us so we can try to figure out the source- we mentioned possibly spiders or bed bugs. My wife even pulled up her sleeve to show the attendant all the bites- The camera at the front desk should have a record of my wife doing this. The attendant said she would alert her manager and get back to us.||After checkout, we called a physician and showed my wife's bites and the doctor's first inclination was bedbugs given the number and lines formed by the bites. It is at this time we did more research and came to the conclusion it was most likely bed bugs. Upon arriving home, my wife and I decided to play it safe and throw out our luggage- we had to strip down in our garage and threw away the clothes we wore as well. One bed bug or egg in luggage or clothes can wreak havoc so we did not want to take any chances of transferring a bed bug infestation into our home.||We had not heard back from a manager or anyone for that matter regarding our issue so I called several times to speak with a manager with no luck. Finally, after 5 days, I was able to speak with a manager, Denise. On that first conversation with her, she told me that she was not aware of our complaint and it was the first time she was hearing of it- she even asked us to describe the attendant that checked us out to confront her. At first Denise appeared a little skeptical of our findings so she said she would check the room herself and call me back. She called me back within 15 minutes (we have call logs to prove this- and it was on a recorded line) and confirmed that upon inspection of the room, she saw signs of bedbugs. She said that with her 20 years of experience in the hotel business she was able to tell right away- she apologized profusely and said she would call the exterminator immediately to take care of the issue and send us a report. She offered us 250,000 hotel rewards points for our trouble.||At this point in time, about a week had passed since our stay and I myself began to see bite marks on my body with symptoms of itchiness and some swelling. We were worried we had somehow brought the bedbugs into our home and found ourselves going insane finding new bite marks and with all relentless itching. We found ourselves searching our mattress in the middle of the night for signs of bedbugs. We contacted exterminators to come inspect our home. It turns out that some people show delayed symptoms of bed bug bites. Thankfully due to our diligence we think we avoided bringing the bedbugs home with us.||Initially, Denise was sympathetic and gave me her contact info. Then, all of a sudden she became unreachable. She finally emailed back stating that she had actually heard of our complaint the day we checked out and therefore had "promptly" addressed the issue - A BOLD LIE - She also stated that their exterminator's report came back negative. I would like to see the report and date on the report as I'm sure it was not addressed promptly and if the report did come back negative, how do you explain our bites after staying there? Not to mention the manager said she saw bedbugs.||To this day, she has not contacted me nor sent us the exterminator's report. My guess is her superiors had her change her story to protect themselves because they obviously did not follow proper protocol for addressing our complaint.||STAY AWAY UNLESS YOU WANT TO TAKE BEDBUGS HOME! IF THEY CAN CHANGE THEIR STORY ON US WHO KNOWS WHAT ELSE THEY WILL LIE ABOUT?||Pictures are...

Once again the entire staff at this location have been amazing! Not only is the staff very attentive but very welcoming which makes one feel right at home . Spire Elites get ready! Acknowledgement & appreciation of ones loyalty to IHG is sincere from this hotel .

This type of overall service is a rare find. I travel at least 8 months out of the year and find this Holiday Inn @ AFA Northgate in Colorado Springs to be my favorite!

The hotel is still fairly new and the upkeep is incredible.

The staff goes above and beyond their call of duty to ensure you are comfortable and all you lodging needs are met. Another added plus to the already incredible hospitality of the staff & hotel is , they offer gluten free breakfast muffins!

During a conversation with Management, I informed them of the struggles I encounter with hotels & my travels due to my GLUTEN ALLERGY. I was so IMPRESSED that the management sought out any possible gluten free items on their vendor list in hopes of meeting not only my (future) needs, but for others as well.

My room was very clean. The bed was comfortable. The hotel is very quiet. There was a group of guest socializing in the lobby, but still a very peaceful setting. I thought the group was together but turned out it was a variety of guest just quietly socializing for the evening. The atmosphere was such a warm and friendly setting, even I joined in on conversing with the other guest.

The location is on the out skirts of Colorado Springs. but well worth the extra drive time if you have to commute further south into the Springs. The area is very nice and has a few restaurant options within a mile. There is a movie theater within a mile too.

The lodging rate is perfect too!! I would definitely recommend this hotel to others.

A big thank you to all the staff at , Holiday Inn @ AFA Northgate in Colorado Springs and don’t ever lose this rare and unique...