Holiday Inn Express & Suites Fairfield-North by IHG — Hotel in Fairfield

My stay at this Hotel was a nightmare and do not recommend anyone staying there and I mean anyone. My story starts with our softball Debs team being in Fairfield for the State Tournament. We check in on a Friday night, the first night we were there, wasn't there for an hour and we are told to keep our girls in their rooms...because of other guest complaining......even though there were other teams there, with the kids running the halls and stairways constantly. The next day we played two games after returning to the hotel we are told that our girls were not allowed to have their softball name tags that is a tradition and that we have for years prepared for their doors. Privacy reasons in case of a terrorist attack! Now the icing on the cake is when my grand daughter 3 years of age, finds a little blue pill in our room and brings it to my son in law. After googling the pill, because you could barely see the lettering on it. This pill was a prescription diabetic pill. This pill could have dropped my grand daughter blood sugar to the point of being life threatining, not to mention my one and half year old grandson was also staying in this same room. (if he had swallowed this pill we wouldn't have known and could have been tragic) Also had other small grand kids in and out. Housekeeping does not do a very good job!!! Now get this....we turn this room upside down searching to make sure it was safe and the front desk was told of this action. After we all leave & check out...I get a phone call from one of our coaches saying they had called her and was complaining about the condition of our room. So I call and their words exactly were....House keeping came to us complaining of the shape your room was left in......I was like really....and what was wrong with it...she continued to tell me there were cracker crumbs on the carpet and hand print on the glass.............I was like really......I told the lady on the phone....k.......first off , I had two small children staying in this room, if I had thought to pack my vacuum cleaner I would have cleaned the floors because lord knows all the cabinets, desk, end tables etc....were clean because I cleaned them myself and shouldn't have. The smudge on the glass...well I'm so sorry my 1 1/2 year old grandson probably left that and geezzzz if I would have thought about it I would have packed my glass cleaner also. Then I continued to tell the lady about the beds being out of sort, because of searching for pills that HOUSE KEEPING FAILED TO FIND BEFORE US....and that my grand daughter was the one who had picked one up in this room........The lady on the phone automatically said "ohhhh ok, thanks for calling Ms Pate" She was very nice after that.... ....the complaint was done and over with fast..... First off housekeeping does not do their job but yet they want to complain about a small childs hand print and cracker crumbs on the floor..... this is ridiculous. So if you do decide to stay in this hotel, please make sure you do a good sweep of the room and please make sure you carry your vacuum and cleaning supplies with you!! God only knows they will complain if you don't. Again I will say, this was a total nightmare but will never happen because I WILL NEVER STAY AT A HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS EVER AGAIN, especially in Fairfield Tx......I give it 50...

So many negatives on this visit and would not recommend this place to anyone. I am a higher level rewards member for IHG and have stayed at numerous IHG brands all over the world as well as all over the USA. First, let me gives some positives because you can always find positives. The bed at this particular HIE was very comfortable and I slept well. In addition the air conditioner was quite and was fantastic at cooling off the room where i could sleep.

However, that was not near enough to make up for the lack of professionalism and other non-relaxing issues that occurred. The hotel locks everything down by 10pm!! I was trying to check in and had to call to get someone to come let me in at 10:08pm so that I could check into my room. I wasn't able to get into the hotel itself until 10:17 almost 10 minutes later. There should not be any occasion for an IHG property to close the doors and lock down at that time of night (or at all for that matter). The lady checking me in was nice and polite but took awhile to get there to let me in. I was not recognized at all for being a valued member of IGH rewards club.

On top of that the elevator was broken. It happens, but then you are going to give the very highest rooms to your valued IHG members?? The next morning after I had already been up and down the stairs multiple times to get breakfast, take a walk and get some tea; I was going to check out. BTW, before 10am, there was a knock on the door by a guy asking me when I was going to leave because I was supposed to be checking out. The information said checkout was at noon!! But before 10 this person was knocking so hard on the door to rush me out of the room. So I quickly got my stuff together and then went out the room. There were three people standing there just looking at me. I decided to go past them to the other end of the hall way to go down the stairs and then to my vehicle. They stopped me. Then they said "you can't go that way, the elevator is messed up." I let them know that i already knew that and I was going out the stairs on the other side of the hallway. They refused to let me go out that way and blocked me from going. Started saying I can only go down the stairwell that they want me to.

There were also rips in the chair in the bedroom as well as the toilet seat was up when I got in the room as it appeared someone had used it since it had been cleaned. Those things happen and I understand but coupled with the terrible service from staff; just goes to show the overall disregard of guests at this hotel; especially IHG reward members. I would not recommend nor come back and stay at this hotel. To be honest, the night before I had probably the best stay at an IHG property I have ever had and so they had a lot to live up to here. This was one of my three worst stays with IHG though. Also, be careful not to crash when you are coming in the entrance. It is very hard to find and then they have cement blocks in the middle of...

Word of advice. Count your towels and pillows. Take photos and use video. We stay at hotels all the time and never consider having to do this. This Holiday Inn, although clean, and located in a decent area, has horrible staff. They're very rude, unprofessional and lack integrity. As your friend, I advise staying away from this hotel unless you want to get scammed out of extra money including credit authorizations. When we checked into this hotel, we appeared to be missing towels, but since we were only staying one night, in two separate rooms, prepaid by Priceline.com, we didn't think anything of it. I allowed the hotel to authorize $25 on two credit cards, one for each room, for incidentals. A week after check out, they charged one card $215 and the other still had the $25 authorization pending. Talking to the hotel about these charges were uncomfortable as they were argumentative, gave conflicting explanations stating: 1) that Priceline did not reimburse them for the rooms, and 2) that we had stolen towels from the rooms, which was ridiculous and simply untrue. They are very rude to deal with and flat out accused of of stealing towels. To be labeled a thief was most insulting. They said their house keeper of 14 years would not lie or make a mistake counting towels. Both black male & female supervisors, were very rude, condescending, and hung up on us. Also, the black front desk girl seemed incompetent and when I first complained to her, she kept putting my call on hold and lied stating she called us after we checked out to ask us to bring the towels they accused of us stealing back. We got no such phone calls after checking out, plus we did not steal and had nothing to return. Why would I give two credit cards for authorizations and steal from them? Makes absolutely no sense. Stay at your own risk, and please record all your conversations with them, record the room and take pictures of the room. Do you own inventory. It can come back to bite...