Holiday Inn East Windsor - Cranbury Area by IHG — Hotel in East Windsor Township

Holiday Inn East Winsor – Cranbury Area

05-04-2023 to 05-05-2023

Our initial stay at this hotel was in May of 2022. We were very impressed with the staff, overall cleanliness, quietness and the availability of a restaurant right in the hotel.

We stayed there again in October of 2022 and were still impressed with our stay with one exception. Our room was right across from the entrance to the Fitness Room. There were people going in and out of the Fitness Room essentially all night. Each time the door opened and closed, the slamming of the door latch was very loud and kept us awake most of the night.

We again stayed there on 05-04-2023 to 05-05-2023 and this stay was not good. The following issues were problematic:

Because of our Fitness Room door closing problem on our previous stay, we requested a room further away for the Fitness Room. We were placed in Room 140. The room was clean but the heating/AC unit took almost 15 minutes before it started blowing warm air (into a cold room) and was quite noisy. Then it cycled on/off about every 15 minutes throughout the night resulting in very little sleep.

The room telephone has a button on it labeled “Restaurant”. When you press it, it just rings and rings and rings. No one answers. So I called the front desk and they transferred me to the restaurant. But again it just rang and rang and no one answered. I had to walk down to the restaurant to place a take-out order. If the restaurant can’t answer the phone, there should be something in the rooms to let you know.

At 5:45AM the soap and shampoo dispenser in the shower fell off the wall and crashed to the floor. My wife and I thought someone was trying to break in through the door.

The hot water ran cold for almost 5 minutes before it started to warm. When it did, it only ran warm, not hot. Later, when my wife showered, it finally ran hot. The body wash dispenser (on the floor) was empty so I had to use the shampoo for both my hair and my body. The conditioner bottle was broken (by the fall!) so I went without.

The electrical outlet next to the sink pulls out of the wall when you try to remove the plug for the hair dryer! SAFETY HAZARD!!

As we were leaving, the A/C unit was making a strange noise although it was not running.

When I went to the front desk at 7:00AM, there was no one there to describe all my problems to or to get a receipt. I had received an E-Mail telling me to “Press Here” to get an E-Mail receipt, but I wanted to talk to a human being. By 7:00AM, there should be someone on the front desk.

One other thing to note: The 2 previous nights before we stayed here, we stayed at 2 other Holiday Inns – the Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites Florence I-95 & I-20 and the Holiday Inn Express Morehead City. Not only were both these hotels immaculately clean with great staff hospitality, they had a delicious complimentary breakfast which we thoroughly enjoyed. The Holiday Inn East Winsor – Cranbury Area has NO complimentary breakfast.

In the future, we will not be staying at this Holiday Inn. In just one year this hotel has gone from being our favorite to one we will not visit...

Our son was married on July 12, 2014. He and his bride had reserved a block of rooms for the wedding guests many months in advance at the Holiday Inn, East Windsor, NJ. As the parents of the groom, we personally reserved five rooms for our elderly relatives from out of state. Our rooms were reserved by phone in May, and we called two to three times in the weeks before the wedding to ensure that our reservations were confirmed for the big day. Check in time is at 3:00. At approximately 4:30 a large group of our guests arrived at the hotel after church and we were told that our rooms were not ready! We had a shuttle scheduled to pick up the wedding guests at 5:00. The lobby was literally filled with our guests. Some needed to get changed, all wanted to freshen up and at least get their bags into their rooms. At around 4:50, we were given just a few rooms, and everyone had to quickly throw their belongings into those rooms and literally run to take the shuttle! The Parents of the bride were so upset about their guests that they stayed behind and drove themselves to the reception! When we returned from the reception at midnight, our guests once again had to wait in the lobby for a good half hour before they sorted the rooms out. When we finally received our rooms we were quite annoyed to find out that they were on all different floors and none of our guests were near each other. As if that weren’t bad enough, when we finally got to our rooms they all had a horrible odor, and in fact, a window was wide open in one of the rooms (presumably an attempt to air it out). Throughout this horrible experience, we received no feedback from any kind of management, since there was none present. When we checked out the next day, we realized that we and our guests had been charged more than the agreed upon price for the block of rooms. When I asked to speak to a manager, a woman behind the counter identified herself as one. I expressed my dissatisfaction to her and she said she was “sorry”. Well, “sorry” can’t make up for the mortifying experience the parents of the bride and groom had to endure on a once in a lifetime day. We and our guests were not compensated in any way by the “management “of this hotel and their lack of concern was, quite frankly, appalling. They did not even offer an apology on the next day until I expressed my displeasure. I noticed in the reviews of this hotel that another bride had a similar negative experience on July 1st of this month. The response posted by hotel staff on July 3rd reads: “We would like to take this opportunity to apologize for the inconveniences you and your wedding guests experienced. We are very disappointed to hear this and your comments will be addressed with the entire staff to ensure that this does not occur again. Again, we apologize that this was your experience. Sincerely, Holiday Inn East Windsor” Well, P.S., it did occur again, in fact, only 11 days later! That’s some track record! I cannot think of a single positive thing to say about our experience at the Holiday Inn, East Windsor. In fact, I would never stay at another Holiday Inn, and I’m sure my guests feel...

When my boyfriend and I booked a two-night stay at the Holiday Inn, we had high hopes. We had intentionally booked a four-star hotel with the expectations of good service and a nice room. While our room was very nice, the service was not acceptable.

During breakfast, we went down to the hotel restaurant for our overcharged meal. We immediately had problems with the wait staff. Our waitress forgot to bring us water, so my boyfriend had to get up from our table and ask again. Then, while she was asking if he was done with his meal, the waitress started piling trash on the plate and took his dish with food still on it before he could answer. A quarter of his $12 breakfast was still on the plate. We received no refund for the food that was taken from him.

When we brought up this issue with hotel staff, they apologized profusely and said they would be in contact with us to take care of the issue. They never called us. We even brought the issue up again with a manager, who promised that he would be in contact. We were never contacted, and the issue was never resolved.

Then, we witnessed another guest’s party be assigned hotel room that was already booked. They came up to the front desk after unlocking what they thought was their room, saying that there were people sleeping in the room to which they were given. This is very unprofessional and could be potentially dangerous.

We also had problems with our own room. After a long (and terrible) day at Six Flags Great Adventure, we were excited to be greeted by the comfort of our king suite. We tried each of our keys… and the door didn’t unlock. Tired, sweaty, and already in a bad mood, we were forced to walk down two long hallways again and travel down to the first floor to get new keys.

We also believe that there is a filter in the air conditioning unit in our room that had never been cleaned. I have a dust allergy, and I was up in the middle of the night choking on and filling tissue after tissue with thick, viscous snot. Both my and my boyfriend’s throats hurt, and I couldn’t stop sneezing. He was so concerned, he suggested putting me in the shower to loosen up the nasal discharge.

I highly do not recommend staying in this hotel, especially if you have a dust allergy or want privacy (and not to be walked in on by other guest when you’re trying to take a nap). It is very mismanaged, and the service is...