Holiday Inn Express Northern Lights Inn — Hotel in Fairbanks

We had a wonderful stay at the Holiday Inn.  The staff is very friendly and welcoming. The hotel is very clean and the amenities are well taken care of.  The cleaning staff does a great job.   The front desk staff are knowledgeable and willing to help in any way they can.

Breakfast and Restaurant The breakfasts are great. They offer nice, well rounded options. There are warm options and cold options.  We love the sausage and biscuits as well as the omelets.   There are eggs, fresh bread, yogurt, cereal, fruit and muffins as well. This is nice because many hotels do not offer breakfast at all.  The hotel does not have a restaurant, but the hotel also provides dinner once a week on Wednesday, which was a pleasant surprise.  The dinner on Wednesday is great.  The meals range from brisket stew to potatoes au gratin. They do sometimes run out of certain items for breakfast.  This is due to the challenges with shipping stock to Alaska and out of the hotels' control.

Cleanliness and Laundry We stayed in two different rooms during our stay.  Both rooms were well equipped and clean. The sheets were fresh and the towels were clean.  The floor looked great, I have no complaints. As an added bonus, we were given soap, shampoo, body wash and conditioner as well.  They offered to clean our room once per week, however, I would rather clean my own room so I regularly declined. When they did clean our room, they did a fantastic job.  I have no complaints.  You can ask for the schedule at the front desk so you know when they are planning on coming in.  You can also request a specific time that works for you if you do not want to wait for them to come by. They restock the rooms at least once per week.  We ran out of a few things before our restock day and just ran down to ask the front desk for more. Every floor has a laundry facility, which is a very thoughtful amenity.  The laundry room is kept clean and even has a utility sink for tough stains.  Each laundry room has a set of 2 washers and dryers.

Location and Property We enjoyed the view of the sunrise and sunset from our room.  The inn is walking distance to the commissary and exchange, bowling alley, gym, library, MAC Bank and the welcome center. It is in a very convenient location if you do not have a car.  There is also a Burger King within walking distance.  Additionally, there is a play structure outside for the children which my children played on even in the snow.

Office and Gym The hotel offers a convenient office and gym.  The office in the Lobby is well taken care of.  There are two computers with printers for public use. The gym has an elliptical, a treadmill and a bike. There is a television in the room, water and towels.  There are also games at the front desk that you can check out to play.

Service and Staff The staff is very responsive to any maintenance requests. We had a light go out in the room and it was taken care of that day.  They are all incredibly friendly and went above and beyond to make us feel comfortable and help us to have a nice stay.  We are so grateful to the entire staff for all of the hard work that they do to make our stay so comfortable.  Thank you for all you do!  I highly recommend this hotel and will definitely...

We recently stayed here for a little over two weeks and while the staff was wonderfully friendly, a lot of the amenities were lacking in cleanliness and housekeeping left much to be desired. We had a standard room for a family of three (my husband, myself, and our toddler) as that was all that was available at the time of our booking. Housekeeping came by once and since we were in such tight living quarters, finding places to store our things was difficult, and our toddler would leave toys out. I understand that because of personal belongings, the floors couldn’t be tended to and the bedclothes couldn’t be changed, but in our whole two week stay, they took trash out once and replaced towels without having to be asked to do so once. I tried calling down to the front desk at one point to ask for new sheets, as I had noticed a stain on our current set and I wanted to get that changed out, and I was told that housekeeping had left for the day and there was nothing they could do until tomorrow. I ended up walking down to the front desk the next day (after housekeeping left and I was still presented with no new sheets that day) and complained that I was having to wash sheets on my own and we have received no communication from housekeeping. I was then given a new set of sheets from the back office by a front desk worker. After I made the complaint, housekeeping only came by twice and we still ended up having to ask for things to be given to us such as new towels and toilet paper (which are cleanliness things that are unaffected by the personal clutter of the room). I find myself to be a fairly adaptable person, I even bought a swiffer mop and lysol to ensure the cleanliness of the room was maintained as much as I could, but the lack of communication beyond a card left on the bed stating they couldn’t change the sheets because of personal belongings being left on the bed is sub par in my opinion, as this still has no effect on other housekeeping things such as towels and toilet paper.

Aside from my issues with housekeeping, the overall stay was a pleasant experience. Breakfast was great with lots of options, staff was friendly and helpful, and the location was very convenient. The wednesday dinners were a nice touch, and the extra points added to our account for the A/C issue was nice. Overall, not a bad stay but it could have...

Being on TDY at Fort Wainwright means you have to stay at this hotel which is very unfortunate. When I first arrive the heater seemed to be blowing cold air so I turned it off. When it got down to 65 degrees, I finally called for maintenance. The maintenance guy was nice enough and said the unit wasn't switch to heat which was strange since it was mid-November in Alaska. The next day after returning from work my room was a sweltering 98 degrees. I called again and he came and turned it down. I haven't switched on the "heater" since he fixed it the last time.||||The hot water is another issue. I have been at the hotel for 10 days and twice in the morning had to take cold showers because there was no hot water. The operations manager explained to me there was a compressor issue and they were waiting on a part to arrive. After working out, no one wants to go to work gross and sweaty, so I suffered through a cold shower. I'm not sure how a hotel can even run with shoddy heat and no hot water. ||||I hope for the sake of those who stay here after me that these issues are fixed, but I don't think that...