Holiday Inn Express El Paso - Downtown, an IHG Hotel — Hotel in El Paso

Stay somewhere else. We stayed in an El Paso Holiday Inn Express a year ago and were pleased with all aspects. Mistakenly, I booked this place thinking it was the same one we'd stayed at before. DISAPPOINTED. The only way this hotel could be closer to I-10 is it was literally on the freeway. Very loud. The neighborhood feels a little unsafe, but I will say the parking lot is well lit. We arrived at the same time as 2 other guests and had to wait in line to check in for about half an hour. The desk is understaffed, but the reception was incredibly warm and helpful. The process was easy once it was our turn, and the young lady assisting us was great, just wished they had a little more help to speed things up. I work a small inn for a friend of mine for a living, so I know exactly what it takes to prepare a room for incoming guests. It's not easy by any means, but what we found in our room was completely unacceptable. The elevator and hallway were obviously dirty, but considering we arrived around 9 pm when housekeeping has been gone for hours and there has been plenty of foot traffic, we dismissed the dinginess and dirty floors. However, upon entering the room, the state of things was off putting. First of all, we had requested (and paid for) a room with a couch. We received instead, a badly stained chaise lounge that looked as though a cat had clawed it up. The desk chair in the room was also torn and the polyfill was exposed. The website described the hotel as newly renovated, but nothing about the furniture or floors said, "new." We set our belongings down and considered a quick shower before bed. Hair on the toilet. Hair in the tub. Stains. No Bueno where the bathroom was concerned. Skipped the shower and tried turning down the bed. Dingy bed cover, makeup or grime left behind by the previous guest. Tight, curly hairs on the pillows and in between the sheets. Bedding was clearly not laundered, or not laundered properly. We stripped the bed and requested fresh everything. A wooden bench in the room is all we felt comfortable sitting on while we waited for sheets. The timeout afforded us the opportunity to really pay attention to what we'd gotten ourselves into. Housekeeping hadn't even bothered to vacuum the floor. Tags from new clothing, chunks of what appeared to be sock lint, small bits of trash, etc. A discarded sugar packet drew our attention to something we really hadn't bargained for - toenails!!! Little bits of pink polish gave them away. We even found them in the vents of the AC. "WE ARE BREATHING IN TOENAILS! THEY'RE IN OUR LUNGS!" she screamed as she shut off the unit. We called the front desk and also requested a vacuum cleaner. It took her a few minutes, but when she showed up at our door with the new bedding about 10 minutes later, I walked her over to the heinous little clippings. She moved us to a new room down the hall and waited while we inspected the bed. The bedding was still dingy, but at least the suspicious hairs were missing. The floor in our new room is still not vacuumed - we aren't comfortable enough to even take our shoes off. The room feels more like a house of horrors than a respite from traveling. We've only encountered the one staff member, and she's an absolute doll. Unfortunately, her kindness and professionalism is so far the only real positive thing I'm able to say at this point. Im terribly unhappy with our reservation. We paid 139 for what should be a 60 dollar a night stay, and that's just because they include breakfast and food is not cheap these days. If you've read this far, I do not endorse this hotel. For the money, it's worth staying somewhere else (even if they toenails for free). PS Now that we're stuck here, I'm curious...

I worked in hotels for 10 years at a similarly priced hotel and have, on this 2 week trip, stayed in a Drury, Hampton Inn, Best Western, and this Holiday Inn last night on 12/29/2021. Having done everything in hotels from front desk, to housekeeping, breakfast, van driver, management, etc. I have a great insight into hotel functioning and I have NEVER left a bad review, but this property is so terribly managed and poorly maintained that something really needs to be done and no one needs to pay to stay there - this is no reflection on the staff who were very nice - except the breakfast attendant who I could see through the window into the back kitchen scooping scrambled eggs from one container into another with her bare hands. Filthy: stained dirty carpets, room smelled of mildew, stains on upholstered furniture, mold in the caulk of the tub, stained drop ceiling tiles, stain on the lamp shade, etc. The luggage carts were falling apart and 1 had been reassembled with caulk. The elevators seemed to be falling apart and were, frankly, concerning. There was no indication of construction on the website and the front desk person said nothing, but the hotel is apparently being worked on and has been for some time. No indications of what floors were out of service, which my wife found out as she stopped floor-by-floor hunting for a functioning ice machine. There were none, but the front desk rep got some for us from the kitchen. The 2nd shift front desk attendant did not have easy access to housekeeping staples like towels and wash cloths. It appeared she was the only one on shift since she checked us in, brought extra towels up to our room once she found them, and got the ice for us. If she was the only one here, that’s terrible for such a large hotel and is at worst an exploitation of her labor and, at best, very unkind to her as an employee. The customer service agents did not wear uniforms - is this property providing uniforms or are staff expected to wear their own clothes? Breakfast: the pancake machine was broken, there were no cinnamon rolls, the English muffins and bagels were stale, the juice machine was only dispensing water, and all of the “hot” items were cold. The coffee was meh, with nothing provided but half n half and sugar. Not to mention the bare hands egg scooping. If I owned or managed this hotel, I’d be embarrassed and rightly so. They really need to get it together. I definitely do...

Have stayed in 9 Holiday Inn Express in the past year. All have been acceptable for a night stay. Until El Paso. This hotel is under major reconstruction! The staff treated me with no greeting at all and handed me a roo key after paperwork, No apologies for hotel condition, no explanation as to were one might get breakfast. I inquired about a luggage cart and was informed it wasn't there. I needed a cart for I had a large volume of items, I waited in my car 20 minutes for a cart to reappear and inquired again was told they didn't know where cart was? I had witnessed the people just before my checking using a cart. I asked if that could be contacted to bring the cart back, was told there was no way of finding who they were and what room they were in. These people checked just before I did no body else checked in in this time period. I then asked to be booked into another Holiday Inn Express as this wasn't working. Then someone was dispatched to look for the cart. I went to my car and waited some more approximately 10 minutes the cart appears. A nine story hotel with one luggage cart? Dirty elevators on way to room. Enter room everything new, workmanship on remodel of poor quality big crack in brand new shower stall, feed for toilet big chunk out of wall, Allen wrench on floor in bathroom, grime on tub and bathroom floor, no wash cloths, vanity mirror loose from wall. It appear no final inspection had been completed before renting to guest just

A surface clean and some clean linens. In the morning the workers started a 7:30am with hammering. No fresh fruit at breakfast limited selection compared to other HI locations. No luggage cart in am for use, the desk clerk had to go find it. I mentioned that maybe more than one baggage cart might be a good idea. "I know we used to have another one but they broke it" This franchise owner is not living up to the standard. Non communicative staff, shoddy workmanship on remodel, no amenities available due to construction, dirt and noise due to construction. Yet I payed more for this room than any other HI I stayed in this year. O and the front door was broken so you had to manually...