Holiday Inn & Suites Decatur-Forsyth by IHG — Hotel in Decatur

There were a few positives to this nearly new hotel:

Easy access from interstate and near to Decatur points of interest.

Beds were very comfortable. Linens and towels in good shape.

The sink/microwave area and closet plus luggage rack unit with mirror were useful.

Rolling desk and chair were handy for work.

Nice size TV with loads of channels.

Lighting was ample. Blackout blind worked well.

On the flip side, we were shocked at how unclean the floors were, both in common areas and in the room. The hard surface floors were in desperate need of a scrubbing and the carpet in our room hadn't had a good vacuuming in some time. Actually picked up larger pieces of debris (chip bits, threads, wrappers, etc.) The cords to the lamps were loosely lined out on floor looking sloppy rather than wrapped and clipped.

We noted for four days that the interior of the elevator was quite dirty with smudge marks all over the walls. By the last day, the smudges were gone, but the filth on the floor remained.

We appreciate double-slipped pillows. Of the eight pillows on the two beds, five were properly double slipped. Don't understand why the other three were overlooked. The extra pillow in the closet had no pillowcase whatsoever and the comforter was lacking a cover, as well. The tissue and toilet paper were of poor quality as noted by their roughness.

The front desk staff, albeit friendly, seemed highly untrained and unfamiliar with the hospitality business. When I asked a question of the first front desk person I encountered, she couldn't answer and pointed to another person (perhaps a manager) and said to go ask her, rather than seeking out the answer herself. When I phoned down and asked if there was a charge for local calls, the same person responded, "I don't think so." Another front desk person offered us a free soda pop in exchange for not having access to the out-of-order pool for over three days! I fault management in not properly training their staff.

Another big shocker was the fact that the housekeeping crew congregates in the main lobby. They were all there when we checked in and again the next morning when I went down for coffee. It simply seemed so odd that this unit didn't have a space outside of the main entry to gather to hobnob and/or get their work assignments. Not helping the scene was the fact that some wore tattered pants with cuffs dragging the floor and lacking a professional look.

Upon arrival, we noted that the pool was closed at the time. When we asked about the status, we were told it might be open later that night or tomorrow, as someone was working on the pH. Also, the workout room emitted a very strong chemical-like smell making breathing difficult, which precluded us from using this space. The pool never did open during our 4-night stay.

The soundproofing is lacking. People talking in normal voices in the hall echo into our room. Footsteps in the room above thunder overhead.

The restaurant was closed on our last morning. We had planned on enjoying breakfast there before our road trip to Chicago. Alas, there were not enough workers available to open as scheduled. Also on the sign outside of the restaurant the wording has restaurant spelled correctly and then incorrectly as "restuarant"... on the same sign! On two out of four mornings the coffee pot was empty when I went down to lobby to enjoy this complimentary service.

The upshot: This property has great potential. However, at current style of management, it does not deserve to be within Holiday...

There are Pros and Cons: ||Pros: Great Bed and sleep|Nice mini fridge|Pretty clean|Quiet and nice area. |Friendly and happy people at check in and throughout. ||Cons: Arrived around 5:45 pm on a Friday night. They had scheduled parking lot repairs during this time. Such as, pouring asphalt. We had to keep picking up our suitcases because you couldn’t roll over the fresh, black tar. Otherwise, you’d have it all over your wheels and shoes. Probably not the best time to do parking lot repairs. ||Inside the hotel- Lots of visible stains on the carpets, throughout the whole hotel. They stuck out enough, to where you thought, eww. ||The bathroom inside our room was pretty nice. The bathroom vanity could use updated though. And the floor as well. ||I also unfortunately, did find ants. One was on my bed and one was on the bathroom floor. ||Breakfast the next morning- This place dropped the ball, BIG TIME, on breakfast. Breakfast time on Saturday morning was from 7 am till 10 am. ||Got downstairs at 9 am. Still had one full hour of service yet to go. Noticed right away, that we were not finding the food very easily. ||Little to no markings, on where this was at. We had walked up and down the same hallway twice. Over looked it the first time, because it’s inside a restaurant, and the inside was dark, which looked like it was closed. ||Get inside, had a lady come from around the bar, and showed us where the buffet was. ||Guess what? Virtually no food OR drinks. What was there was cold. The lady said a group of soccer kids wiped them out. That’s something they should be prepared for. ||She was already checked “spaced” out. We had to keep asking for assistance. And still didn’t get what we asked for. We asked for more waffle mix so we could make some hot waffles. That never happened. There was nothing to drink. We ended up finding in a back corner, a pop dispenser’s, but it was broke! ||We asked for orange juice, and she shuffled back to the kitchen, and came out and poured us a glass from a cardboard box. ||She said more food was being prepared, but there were lots of other stuff that she wasn’t being taking care of. Like more water in pictures, more juice brought out, more waffle mix put out. There was no coffee, no milk, nothing. I had to run upstairs to my room and grabbed a Gatorade. ||Ridiculous. No excuse, in my opinion. ||She ended up turning her back on the customers, that were getting there at 9 am and others that were trickling in after that, and the rest of us in the dining area. She stood at the bar, back was to us, “as in us customers” in the dining area, on her phone, and talking to some short guy, that was also behind the bar. ||This was the busiest time, the second wave of us customers. And she’s already “checked-out” uninterested. ||The majority of the tables were filthy, had piled-high trash, and dirty dishes on them. ||She was a very pleasant, friendly, nice person, but sucked as a restaurant worker. Sorry. ||And there was a kitchen guy in the back, that was bringing out more food, that was very nice and helpful.||And I’m by far, NOT a nitpicky person, by far!!! I try to stay far away from having to deal with this time of complaining. But, we’ve spent over $200 dollars just to stay here for one night and to eat one breakfast. And we couldn’t even get a decent meal to get us on our way.||We also only stay at Holiday Inn IHG’s, whenever we travel. And this was the worst service in roughly 10 or so years, of staying at...

The “owner” attempted to respond back to my previous review with Lies! How can someone in our party who walked right to the front desk with their Holiday Inn rewards be booking through a 3rd Party! Secondly not one person in our party had any issue paying a $50 incidental deposit. $50 is not a lot of money. And Free Breakfast is listed on the holiday inn Website and all 3rd party sites! I uploaded pictures of roaches and bugs. Check the photos! The “owner” who responded is just a bad employee who got called out. Now I will be contacting the CEO since you want to continue to be rude. Idc if I have to get everyone in my party to write a review of our experience. I will do so. And I hope I kept the photos that I took inside of the lobby that showed each employee who was disrespectful and rude just like the supposed owner. I’ll upload pictures once again of the roaches and other bugs.

Original review: I’m thoroughly disappointed in the service my family and I received the week and weekend of 02/01/22-02/06/22. My family had nearly 15 rooms booked during this stay, with most beginning throughout the weekend. Everyone’s reservation stated Free Breakfast. No one in our party received this because staff stated they would not be honoring that part of our reservation. So 15 rooms, with multiple adults and children had to figure out breakfast during our stay. We had a room switched because of a terrible leak in the ceiling. We had another room switched because of potential bedbugs. Room 404 if anyone is booked for it. That guest had to switch rooms for times for all different kinds of insects, including roaches. We have pictures! Our stay was horrible! Staff was rude on different shifts. I’m not sure how else to describe one in particular, but it was a younger black woman who worked the front desk, and on two separate occasions of asking her for extra room towels, she repeated the same line to both guests “I only have one towel available and it’s a dry towel.” How can only one towel be available all day everyday to accommodate the needs of the entire hotel? Another person in our party asked the same employee for pool towels and she again could not produce the proper pool towels. She gave us hand towels that didn’t even fit around the body of a child. The morning of our departure a separate employee, a middle aged white woman caught an attitude when I interrupted their “talk” time to ask for a luggage cart. And instead of coming from around the desk to show me where they were she just yelled across the room and pointed “they should be over there” before rolling her eyes. Our stay was horrible overall, and I would not suggest this hotel to anyone. Also we asked this same lady for a receipt and she rudely stated that we wouldn’t get one because we booked through a third party. But I asked for a receipt for the 50$ deposits in 2 rooms. She yelled loudly it will be on your card in 3/5 business days but no receipt. The only positive people were the young Asian worker on 3rd shift, He was a pleasure and the younger aged white woman who conversed with a couple of us at check-in on 02/04. One person in our party had over 14,900 points and was told this hotel doesn’t participate in the Holiday Inn point system. Which makes no sense because this is a Holiday Inn hotel. This was a disaster and we were all there to lay one of our family members to rest. We will be posting about our experience on all social media outlets and Google...