Holiday Inn Express Durango Downtown-Animas River by IHG — Hotel in Durango

I'm giving this place 2 stars because the staff and rooms were great. I would otherwise give this place 1 star for the incessant, phone calls from the front desk, and shady charges we got afterward.

They charge for parking, but they don't include it in the initial quote; they just discretely charge your card after you leave, then send you the receipt later which is shady. The fact that parking is paid is noted on their google maps page so they aren't exactly hiding it, but they need to include the charge up front and list it in the initial quote instead of making a second, separate transaction. It makes it hard to compare hotel prices online when they don't tell you how much they charge for parking online, or include it in their estimate; it makes them look more cost effective when they aren't.

They also asked us to move our car to accommodate other customers. At the time we were not able to do that and they kept calling our room and cell phones over and over which didn't change our circumstances and caused us a lot of stress.

We were parked in an available spot, and not a special "black diamond spot" reserved for loyalty customers or whatever; just a normal spot. We had been parked there for days. It was really unprofessional for them to ask us to move out of a spot that was intended for us; ESPECIALLY since they were charging us for parking. It's normal for hotels to receive information that a large vehicle is coming; because it is normal, they should be prepared with a protocol to make sure they can accommodate those vehicles. They should not be calling other guests the day of asking them to put their vacation plans on hold, go back to the hotel to play chauffeur, and move out of spots they are parked in legally. Don't call their rooms multiple times and disturb them. Guests aren't responsible for moving cars around; especially if you are charging them to park. That parking lot is huge and the hotel should be able to find a spot without treating guests like they are employees, and to change their plans.

They also charged us for parking for the entire day on the day we arrived (in the evening,) and on the day we left, even though we left first thing in the morning, so expect to pay for parking even when you aren't there.

Additionally, they charge you $5 per night for a "green energy fee" with no additional explanation as to what that is, or whether we had a choice about it. This "service" was not presented up front in any way I can find, and they just bill you for whatever it is after you leave without talking to you about it at all, which is super shady.

Just plan to pay extra per night in unspecified charges they aren't up front about.

The front desk staff, breakfast staff, and cleaning staff were great. The rooms were clean and comfortable. They deserve a high rating.

It's the shady policies, the lack of management around vehicles how they want people to park, and disregard for guest time (e.g. contacting them incessantly to be chauffers for a hotel they don't work for) at this hotel that are the problem, not the staff.

Some facility notes:

One of the ladders going into the pool was loose and rickety. It needs to be repaired; if someone gets hurt, the hotel may be liable.

The pool was great, but they had the air conditioning on and it made being in the pool area very uncomfortable. They have vents every few feet all around the pool and they were all blowing very cold air the whole time we were in there, every time we tried to go in there. You could not get out of the pool without cold air blowing uncomfortably on you. The pool was one of the main reasons we picked this hotel, so if you want to enjoy a pool, look elsewhere unless you can verify they have actually...

I hesitate to write this review as corporate will probably blame the poor people at the bottom of the food chain, but this was one of the worst hotel stays we've ever had -- I would put it in the top 5 bad experiences. We checked in at 3:45, knowing we might have to wait a short while for a room, as we were 15 minutes early. However, we were given a room immediately. Upon arrival in the room we found that the toilet was broken. We went to the front desk where an extremely harried, but nice and professional young woman was juggling about 100 things at once. We told her our toilet was broken and she said she would send maintenance up. About an hour later, the desk attendant came up and said maintenance had gone home and she tried to fix the toilet to no avail. She said she would find us a new room, but that it would take about 30 minutes because housekeeping was backed up -- we told her any room was fine -- it didn't have to be the same size we booked. Three hours later we had not been moved to a new room. My husband went down to the desk once again and was told finding us a new room was next up on her list. She was not being lazy -- she was being slammed. She called her boss at least twice on these desk visits, but it didn't appear she got any relief from management. Finally, after THREE hours my husband went down to our car, got some tools, and jerry-rigged a temporary repair on the toilet. This was a first for us -- in 40 years of traveling together we have never had to perform plumbing duties on a hotel room. We notified the front desk that we would keep the room, but that we wanted a full refund. I don't yet know how that will pan out. Obviously, we don't know for sure what was going on, but it seemed that housekeeping and reception were woefully short staffed. I don't know why this was the case, but I know that it is management's responsibility to have contingency plans and to support their staff...

Poor management. Had to wait 3 days to get outlet repaired in the bathroom. Very noisy rooftop fan. When i inquired about having a repairman looking into why the unit was so loud, They couldn't move us because they were full and I was told there was a dispute over payment with vendor so they couldn't call them. Don't count on breakfast. Each day the options was a cheese omelet, cut up some kind of sausage, biscuits and gravy, cereal, old bananas, packaged pastries (did not look good, but, to be fair we never tried them) On the first day they had gravy and no biscuits. The second day I thought I would go for the simple. I wanted cereal, but, hard to have cereal with only chocolate milk. I'm not 12 years old. The topper was they served it all on the most flimsy cheap paper plates they could find. After that we just decided to eat breakfast out for the balance of our trip. We are Gold Members with Hilton Hotels. We thought we would try this property as it was a new hotel. Room was nice other than the fan and outlet. For the price I would not stay at this property again. One final note. I was pretty ticked off at a add on fee they sprung on us when we checked in. They told us there was a $5.00 parking fee before we arrived. I was fine with that, I knew it was coming. But, they added a $5.00 energy fee for the more expensive lighting they installed. I can afford the $5.00. I should of been told of the fee when booking the room. Here is a idea charge me a extra $10.00 per night for my stay and let me feel like i get free parking spot. Every other hotel builds their electric and water fees into their room rate. I hope they choke on my $5.00 extra light fee. Overall it was not worth the money...