Holiday Inn Express & Suites Eagle Pass by IHG — Hotel in Eagle Pass

On Thursday, May 21, 2020 we called the Holiday Inn Express in Eagle Pass (830-757-3050). We called the front desk to see if they had a room available, two double beds and they said they did and about the room rate. I asked if they were taking safety precautions for SARS-CoV-2, such as wearing masks, and they said all employees were required to wear masks. I asked how they handled their breakfast and was told they had employees who would be masked serving breakfast, placing items in takeout bags for guests to take back to their rooms. We arrived at the hotel to check-in around 20:00 and the front desk clerk did not have a mask. There was also a number of National Guard Army personnel who were congregating in groups in close proximity and also not wearing masks. I mentioned to the clerk my concern about his not wearing a mask and the conversation that I had on the phone when booking the room of being assured that all employees were required to be properly masked and that he was not masked at all. We then checked-in and went to get a cart and loaded our belongings up to bring to the room, the cart was flimsy with small wheels, not sturdy enough to go over a threshold without a jerk. Before unloading the cart in the room, I thought I would check to see how clean the countertops were in the room, and discovered they were all filthy, which included the bathroom, the desk, side table, TV stand, night stand, coffee maker, the light switches, and microwave. It was too late for us to go get another hotel room. I spent over 30 minutes wiping everything down that was dirty before I felt comfortable staying in the room. I went to go get ice and discovered that the ice machine on our floor, 1st floor, didn’t work, and the clerk told me I had to go upstairs to get ice; I feel this shows a maintenance problem of lack of upkeep with the hotel. I then tried to connect to wifi and it took over an hour for our phones to connect to the wifi. I tried to call the front desk, and discovered that the phone did not work in the room. I had to call the front desk from my cell phone and was told that maintenance had left for the day and that we could change rooms, after I had already spent an extensive amount of time cleaning the room we were in, due to it being filthy. We decided to stay in the room we had as we were afraid other rooms would be in similar dismay. In the morning, Friday, May 22, 2020, we went to breakfast at 09:30 and discovered that none of the employees were masked at all, including those prepping food, housekeeping, the front desk clerk, and the hotel manager. The hotel had a buffet set-up in which guests served themselves, contrary to what I was told, not a single staff member was serving guests food. We observed large groups of guests, all unmasked as well, leaning closely over buffet serving trays containing food items and breathing on the food. We did not feel safe eating the food. We then went back to the room. I called the front desk from my cell phone. Hector answered the phone, I voiced to Hector my concerns about none of the employees or guests being masked, the safety issues surrounding this and the buffet food set-up, and how this was different from what I had been assured of during my booking the room. We also requested an extra hand towel on the phone. Hector then handed the phone to the hotel manager, who replied that they could wear masks if they wanted, but that hotel employees did not have to wear masks unless they wanted to do so on their own. I inquired with the hotel manager about the national corporate policy on face masks, and he replied that the national IHG corporate policy is that employees can choose whether or not they wish to wear masks, but that it was not required. I explained to the hotel manager the grave concerns I had about this policy, that I work in health care at a hospital, and that I would be happy to explain of the researching supporting proper use of mask wearing, social distancing, and the serious adverse implications their current behavior would contribute to further exposure and spread of SARS-CoV-2. The manager replied still that mask wearing was up to each employee’s discretion per national IHG corporate policy. Once I got off the phone, an employee from housekeeping brought us an extra hand towel, and again the employee was completely unmasked. I again called the front desk from my cell phone, and again voiced my concerns to Hector, the front desk clerk, and to the hotel manager. The hotel manager then replied that he had called several area hotels in town and discovered that they were requiring everyone who enters the hotel, guests and employees, to wear masks and that he was implementing this same policy immediately, that everyone would be required to wear masks. Upon leaving the hotel to go pick-up breakfast, we saw many employees wearing masks; however, the manager still was unmasked and there was a large group of Army National Guard guests congregating in close proximity, in the lobby, visiting with the hotel manager and they were also still unmasked. When we returned, this group and the hotel manager were still there, and again all still unmasked, and this also, despite a sign that had written on the lobby entrance door in a sharpie marker, ‘must wear a mask.’ This situation was very scary and unnerving. I wish we had a stayed at a different hotel chain. I’ve never had this kind of experience with IHG brands before, but it appears like things have...

there is a first time for everything, THIS IS MY FIRST EVER 1 STAR REVIEW

but i should specify: my review is purely and solely based on Customer Service and how i was treated when, without telling me much, they called me to Cancel my reservation days before we got there, so i never stayed at this location. (please keep that in mind as you read this)

HERE IS THE BACK STORY back in May of 2023 my Wife and i Booked a 3 night stay at this Hotel Location for the April 8 Eclipse.

Now i wish to re-iterate this: WE MADE OUR RESERVATION IN MAY 2023 FOR APRIL 2024 practically a year in advance.

and as you can imagine, we got quite a good price for it.

We prepped all year for this trip, we bought cases to ship the Telescopes, Camera Equipment and everything necessary to capture this once in a lifetime moment in one of the best places to see it. We reserved Flights, Rental Cars etc etc, we were fully invested into this event.

HERE IS FOR THE BAD PART In may March 27, exactly 10 days before we were supposed to check in, just as we were Packing the Baggages and i was about to go to the UPS Center to ship the Optics equipment, when i get a Phone call from the front desk of this Hotel.

With no much introduction the lady said: "I am sorry to tell you, but we have to cancel your reservation"

As i attempted to pry explanations, she said they had to close down the Hotel for a necessary renovation and they were forced to Cancel ALL Reservations.

I asked the lady to NOT Cancel the Reservation, and make me do a few Phone Calls.

{i travel for work a lot, and i stay in Holiday Inn properties several months a year, so i played the status card directly to corporate}

IHG was not able to tell me much, they said it seemed strange and they would have a manager call us as soon as possible.

Meanwhile my wife and i started scrambling to find another Hotel or a Camp Site, or whatever. You can imagine, 10 days from the Eclipse there was nowhere in the area available, closest things we could find were hours away, and prices at $600 a night.

Eventually the Phone rang, it was the Manager of the Hotel (a lady named Laura) and with very nervous tone of voice and speaking with very fast phrases that both my wife and i had to ask to repeat several times, she said she was forced to cancel because they had to fix problems with 10 rooms.

... SO... now they are only 10 rooms, earlier they said they were cancelling all reservations due to a flood.

The Manager kept saying she would find us other acomodations, and i told her: "IF YOU CAN HONOR THE PRICE WE RESERVED FOR"

to which Laura replied she could not do that. but she insisted i had to be the one cancelled, even when i asked: "Why me that i reserved a year ago, and not someone else that reserved more recently?"

and her only answer was that other guests were already checked in and she could not kick them out.

She claimed she had found a room on a Holiday inn across the Boarder, so we could go there and we would be just a few miles away, except the Eagle Pass Boarder in TX is currently on a standoff, and there is no way to come back from Mexico.

But to that this Laura Lady crankily replied: "Well, that is for you to figure out"

I bagged her to please not cancel the reservation, but she said she would call me back with other accomodations... she hung up on us, and the reservation was cancelled. (luck on her side, for some reason my phone call recorder didn't save the conversation)

she never called back. ...

Eventually we found a Hotel, Hours away and not in the path of the Eclipse Totality, we paid almost triple as much as what we had the reservation for, so we decided not to ship our Camera and Telescope equipments, and thankfully we didn't ship anything, because the place we ended up being into, turned out to be Cloudy and we saw only 30 seconds of Totality instead of 4 minutes.

What this Manager Laura took away from us is PRICELESS, next Eclipse will be in 21 years..., i just hope by then she will start regretting what she did to us, for now , HERE IS A 1 STAR REVIEW...

It appears to me the corporate headquarters or franchise owner, whichever the case may be has lost sight of the concept of "Customer care & concern". Instead it appears they ONLY look out for themselves and the money they can make. It seems to me the hotel is taking advantage of the contract my employing state government agency has with them, to soak up money, and ARE NOT providing the proper customer comfort or concern that should be going along WITH it. Reasons: The entire HOTEL's phone system was dead the entire week I had to stay there, leaving no way for ANY HOTEL RESIDENT WAHTSOEVER to : 1) contact the hotel front desk, 2) schedule personal wake-up calls, 3) ask for local eating/service establishment information, 4) notify the front desk personnel for any on-site EMERGENCIES, 5) receive incoming or place outgoing calls, etc.... My specific room had a toilet that rocked like a rocking chair, and you could see the imprint on the bathroom floor where there HAD been a larger oval toilet, that had been replaced by a TINY ROUND toilet instead of being replaced by the same size & style a the original. That's going "on the cheap", for higher profits. Plain & simple "money-grubbing". The tiny microwave oven heated about as well as using my armpit, to warm up food, and the turntable in it didn't even work! When I advised the front desk clerk of the problems during my stay and at check-out, she simply said "I'm so sorry", but never even bothered to write anything down, to see about getting the issues onto any maintenance schedule to get them FIXED. These may all seem like minor or trivial items to most folks, but when your state government agency is being charged $120.00 per night (taxpayer's money) for each of approximately one hundred plus continually contracted & guaranteed paid for quantity of rooms, the expectation is that things should be WORKING when you stay there, and customer SAFETY should be a primary...