Holiday Inn & Suites Council Bluffs-I-29 by IHG — Hotel in Council Bluffs

Free parking! Rare to find these days. Adding some pictures of the pool because it’s not very clear what to expect.

There’s a garage that opens so that you can lounge outside. The pool itself is covered, no part of the pool or jacuzzi are outside. The water is at a nice temp, not too cold and easy to acclimate to. Our kids liked it. It’s shallow, most of it is 3ft to 3ft 6in, the middle part declines to 4ft 5in. Lots of towels available, big patio with lounge chairs and a view of the river. Smoking is allowed which is a bit of a turn off for us personally, especially someone who is allergic to cigarette smoke, but it is attached to a casino, so you get what you get. The exterior is otherwise clean and well maintained.

The rooms were fine, nothing special. Glad to have a fridge and microwave. The shower was very clean, the beds were fairly comfortable, the pillows are those lumpy feather pillows. I always bring my own pillows though, I personally hate those. The sleeper sofa is very uncomfortable, but also not unexpected—as most are. It gets very crammed in your room if you pull it out. If you’re going to crowd it anyway, I’d request a rollaway bed instead if your kids find it uncomfortable. I know ours did.

Breakfast is chaos. I hate to “complain,” it is free after all, but there is so little space to accommodate it. Seriously, it’s so crowded. You’ll be waiting 10-20 minutes for a waffle if there’s any kind of a crowd. The later you go towards the end of service, the busier it is. Food was alright, not much to expect for free breakfast. They have a fair variety, just wish it wasn’t exactly the same every day. As mentioned, there’s waffles, plus biscuits, gravy, scrambled egg (like an egg patty), bagels, muffins, fruit, yogurt and granola, cereal, juices, coffee, and milk. Very basic. Some potatoes or bacon would be a nice switch up.

There is another buffet in the casino, but it is not free.

There’s a lounge area outside of the breakfast area with lots of seating and a nice view of the river. We brought down a bottle of wine to enjoy.

There’s an indoor walkway to the Ameristar. Nice touch that you don't have to go outside. We ate at the steakhouse, the food was great for the price point, their host (I wish I caught his name, he was a delight) and their server Angela was a gem. They anticipated every need, and were honestly the absolute best part of our stay. The crab cakes were superb. I hate when they have too much breading. These did not, they were large and the crab was succulent and delicious. The remoulade was a little thicker than what I usually expect, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t delicious. It was. My husband’s steak was incredible, the mac and cheese was also great.

Friday night, the buffet is more expensive because it is crab leg night. $50 each for adults not matter what, even if you don’t eat the crab. We passed, we like crab but didn’t want to crack open crab legs after just arriving.

Overall if we come back to the Omaha area, I’d probably stay again, especially with kids. No kids? We’d probably stay downtown somewhere more intimate. It’s 10 minutes or less from most things downtown, which was very convenient. I didn’t realize how unique and fun downtown Omaha was, it’s a hidden gem in the Midwest for sure. We only live about 2.5-3 hours away, so we may find ourselves making another long weekend getaway to explore more.

I’d definitely recommend this hotel to anyone who has families that doesn’t want to be in the middle the the city, but still in close proximity. It’s certainly not the Ritz by any means, but it will suffice for an affordable spot that seems to be well maintained.

Recommended things to do: Omaha Zoo (if you have a membership in your city to your local zoo, you likely get half off like we did). Omaha Children’s Museum (same, if you have a membership to your local children’s museum, your visit could be free like ours). Gene Leahy (huge playground, cool slides, easy to walk to shops and restaurants) Lauritzen Gardens (beautiful botanical garden! Easy to...

In town with my teenage daughter for a sports tournament. Just needed a place to stay overnight, maybe with a few fun things to do for her. Chose this place, but upon arriving we found that it has some issues.

The good: The people are friendly. When we needed an issue addressed in our room, maintenance was there very quickly. Also, breakfast was fine - not great, but also not bad. Pool was fairly big, tho we didn't use it.

The bad: This place is pretty beat up and not especially clean The alarm clock in my room had a cell out, so when it was 9:00 it read 3:00, etc. The first bath towel I pulled had two holes in it In the shower you could tell there was a place for a little shelf, because the outline for the caulking was still there. The shelf was gone Liquid soap holder in the bathroom was rusty There were chunks of something (food) in the bathroom sink drain when we got there. There was also something on the side of the box spring and floor (near where someone's head might be) that was pretty gross The chair had a tear or possibly burn in the cushion In the fitness center, the treadmill I was using was missing the decal or something on top of one of the controls. You could see the wiring and such underneath (was not unsafe, though). Note that the hotel parking lot IS the casino parking lot. So if you get there on a Saturday night when there are a lot of people at the casino, be prepared to walk quite a way from your car to the hotel. THE WORST is the climate control. Did not have options of heat or cold, it was just on or off with a set temperature. Fan did not have the option to only be on when needed (an "auto" setting), it is on all the time. So what that means is that, on a cold day, it will blow hot air until it gets to temperature, then COLD air for a while until it gets too cold, then repeat. If you turn the temperature way up to not deal with the cold air, then get too hot and turn it on, the air conditioner will kick in, even if it's single digits outside. We eventually just turned it off.

If we come out this way again, we will find somewhere...

On average I stay at about 15 different IHG properties a year and normally stay for a work week and this was one of the worst experiences ever. First I will say the staff was very nice so this is not directed at any particular person. Here are the issues I experience...

1 - A/C unit not working properly and making annoying sound that impeded sleep. It got so bad that at one point I turned it off completely, but because the sun set directly into my window I had to turn back on due to high temps, however this did alleviate the noise for a bit.

2 - the toilet was right next to the sink. Hard to see from the picture I attached but it was only about 6 inches from the sink which makes certain visits to the bathroom extremely uncomfortable. Why not center it between tub and sink???

3 - No shear curtain, just blackout curtains. For someone who likes some sunlight but not direct sunlight this really stinks. And you could see where a separate shear curtain used to be as is usual, it's just gone and not replaced.

4 - Bathroom sink severely clogged. If you ran water for more than a few second, like when you're trying to get the hot water to come on, it would fill up.

5 - Hot water in sink only worked half the time.

6 - Extremely loud plumbing...whenever someone (and I don't know where it came from) in the hotel flushed their toilet and the water came on and then shut off the pipes running behind the wall in my room would SLAM against the bathroom wall like someone hit it with a hammer. VERY LOUD.

7 - Other than at breakfast the coffee downstairs was always old and/or cold.

There are other things that escape me at the moment, but for such a nice, big hotel with a nice location there were many little things that really stunk. I expect...