Holiday Inn Express Fairhope-Point Clear by IHG — Hotel in Fairhope

My husband and I decided to take our kids on a back-to-school trip to Tropic Falls OWA in Foley, AL. Initially, we booked an Airbnb that unfortunately did not work out. As we were leaving the Airbnb, we searched for properties nearby. This is where we found this hotel. I booked directly through my IHG account. Upon check-in, the gentleman at the desk was friendly and even gave us some recommendations for places to eat in the area. However, when we got up to the room, it was unusually hot, especially since they had the A/C set at about 68 degrees. We didn't think much of it and decided to go out for dinner. When we got back, the room was still extremely hot, and still set at 68 degrees. I called down to the front desk to see if there was something they could do. They said that maintenance was going to look for us a fan to put inside the room. I asked for a room switch and was told that they would have to get management's approval in order to move us to a new room. That never happened, "maintenance" brought us a big industrial fan that was marked for use in the housekeeping laundry area. When the guy came, he had on flip flop sandals and said that the room was big so that's why it wasn't cooling in all areas - why build it that way? The fan was obnoxiously loud and blew extremely hard. We toughed it out for the night. The next morning, we got dressed for the water park and went down to breakfast. As we are finishing breakfast, my friend was told by Crystal at the front desk, that she could not be in the breakfast area dressed the way she was dressed (a bathing suit with shorts and two cover ups), and in order to be down there, she needed to go put on more clothes. We explained to her that we were leaving, and that we were heading to the water park. She said that she didn't care and that she needed to put on more clothes. It was apparent that this was due t us being one of the only few black people at the entire hotel, and the fact that she was extremely curvy. We decided to leave for the park and ignore the hatred. On the way out I asked Crystal to give me her name so that I could report the incident and after asking a few times, she barged over (wearing no shoes- only socks) and got up in my face telling me that if I wanted to talk to her, I need to come to her. We left and headed for the park. On the 40-minute drive to the park, I called and reported the incident, and by the time I got to the park, I got a call from Crystal herself - how ironic- telling me that she was told to move our room. I politely declined. When we got back to the hotel that evening, I talked to the front desk guy that checked us in and he assured me that a manager wasn't available, but he would get them to contact me. The following Monday, I was contacted and told that they would investigate the incident and make sure to contact me, as well as try to rectify the terrible situations we experienced. However, nothing has been done and no return calls have been made. I suggest that if you are a person of color, please do yourself and your family a favor and stay in a more diverse area, or at least in an area closer to that OWA area. Everywhere we went in Fairhope, we were given looks as if we didn't belong there, and this hotel was...

We stayed at the HIE in Fairhope this past Saturday. We made our reservation for a suite 2 weeks ago. Knowing that we would not be checking in until late, on the day we were to check in, I called the HIE and talked to Tiffany (at 3pm, around 9pm and about 10:45pm), who said that I was booked with a regular room. I explained to her that I was supposed to have a suite, and she said she would gladly change it. I realized we were going to be really late, like midnight, and wanted to make sure they knew we were coming, so I called and talked to Tiffany again. She assured me that my suite was still available and they would not give it away. She let me know that she would get off at 11pm, but everything would be fine. We arrived at the hotel around 12:30am to find Margorie at the front desk. Margorie was very nice and explained that "we just purchased this property, so if there's anything wrong, any little thing, let me know". Well there was so much wrong, I didn't have the time to talk to her about it as we were on a tight schedule. Margorie looked up our room...guess what...not a suite, just a regular room. Even after all the calling, we still weren't booked correctly. I can appreciate that Margorie was able to get us in the suite that we originally asked for, but to have to go through all the calling, then the stress of finding out it was all a farce is just unnecessary. Margorie was very nice and came to the room with us to make sure everything was fine. At a glance, it looked ok.

Now, about the room...Every fabric in the room was filthy. Some furniture was threadbare and had holes, but it was all dirty and obviously old. The headboard had obvious goo smeared and dried on it. I dropped my charger on the floor by the bed and the amount of dust and dirt on the carpet between the bed and the wall was completely disgusting...makes me itch just to think about it...I actually felt the need to wipe my charger off! The bathroom seemed pretty clean with the exception of the door jams which had OBVIOUS dried tan-colored liquid on them and the toilet seat was loose. Nothing like sitting on the toilet and having the seat slip from under you!

We didn't experience any more of the hotel.

The point is, this hotel is extremely dirty. I took pictures of the obvious dirt on the walls, floor, door jams, etc. and would gladly post if I could

I'm still itching...like REALLY, I am itching.

One more thing, all staff members encountered were VERY nice. Too bad they mess my reservation up...i felt that I had been lied to by Tiffany considering a called and confirmed with her twice to make sure that my king suite would be available for me when I arrived. I explained that I know that sometimes when people are late that their room could be given to someone else...she assured me that would not happen....not the case when I arrived!

Not once was I asked if I was a Priority...

Everything started out great. We were staying at the hotel for a soccer tournament that weekend. We weren't scheduled to check in until 4:00 that Saturday afternoon, but our first game ended early so we stopped by the hotel to see if we could check in early. Luckily our room was ready and the lady at the front desk was super sweet and very polite. She gave me the keys to our room at let me know

that most of the soccer players would be staying in the same area which was in the second building behind the pool. We got to our room, unpacked our things and relaxed

for a couple of hours. After being on the soccer fields all

morning, it was a nice break to be able to relax in the AC

and prop the pillow up behind us while we watched TV.

After a couple of hours, we were still relaxing and enjoying

the room, when all of a sudden, a random man used HIS

KEY TO UNLOCK THE DOOR AND WALK INTO OUR ROOM!.

The first thing that popped in my mind was that it must be

house keeping not realizing the room was already ready and didn't know it already been occupied. But no, that man had his wife with him, and they were just as confused as we were to see someone else in "their room." The girl at the

front desk had booked our room again for another couple

after it had already been booked for us. So even tho she had

already put the number for our hotel room on the cards, the computer still allowed her to put the same room number on another set of cards. Apparently there is no computer

program in place for the Holiday Inn that helps to prevent

against this sort of thing. I acknowledge everyone makes

mistakes and we are all human, but if someone is going to

be responsible for putting in the numbers on the key cards

for the hotel rooms, there should be some preventative

measures in place to keep mistakes like this from

happening. After this had all occurred and we were back in

our hotel room for the evening, we all were ready to take a

shower. The bathtub was extremely slow to drain due to the

enormous clumps of hair that was wrapped around the

drain of the bathub. It was honestly disgusting. Other than

that the room it's self was nice, the beds and pillows were

comfortable and the AC worked great. It also has a minifridge and mircrowave. We were right across from the washer and dryer which would have been extremely

convenient if they wouldn't have both been out of order.

Breakfast was great and the breakfast area was very

clean. There was a wide variety of options to eat as well as to drink. It was definitely more than we were expecting as far...