Holiday Inn Express Munising-Lakeview by IHG — Hotel in Grand Island Township

I booked two separate rooms for one night at the Holiday Inn Express in Munising. ||||For context, there aren’t many hotel options in Munising. This is a small, remote town with far more visitors than the limited lodging supply can handle. Even if new hotels were built, staffing them would be nearly impossible absent a significant increase in the local population.||||That context aside, my experience was mixed.||||The front desk staff were excellent — polite, professional and genuinely hospitable. Small-town friendliness at its finest. Housekeepers deserve credit for their hard work. I saw one lady working from 7 a.m. to about 4 p.m. Across multiple floors. Maybe she is the only housekeeper. I don't know.||||The real issue I experienced is ownership and management. Maintenance and cleanliness problems suggest neglect at the top, not with the frontline staff. ||||The single elevator looked as if it had survived a war zone. My room on the top floor was also in rough shape. The bathtub had stains and hair, while more hair was scattered across the bathroom floor. It appears some parts of the hotel have been renovated, but my section — with different carpet, wallpaper and room numbers — didn’t match the rest of the corridor. It was almost like two hotels in one building. If this is the condition of the best rooms then I don't want to see what the worst rooms are like. ||||Beyond that, the room itself was standard Holiday Inn Express. Amenities were minimal: no bar of soap and no bottled water, not even a bottle of water offered at check-in for IHG elite status guests. The breakfast was adequate but about half the size of the usual Holiday Inn Express buffet.||||Other aspects of the property were better. The lodge-inspired decor was attractive, the gift shop was a nice touch and a complimentary daily newspaper was appreciated. Still, considering the hotel’s location outside downtown Munising, a beer and wine license for the pantry market would be practical. As it stands, there’s no safe way to get back after drinking in town — walking along a busy highway without sidewalks isn’t an option. ||||Parking is also a challenge. The hotel's one parking lot was extremely full. It didn't seem to have enough parking spaces for the maximum number of guests and staff. I had to improperly park in an empty area of the lot because none of the marked spaces were empty.||||The biggest sticking point is the price. I paid over $700 for two rooms including taxes on a weeknight in mid-September. That is extremely expensive for a Holiday Inn Express in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Yes, the limited number of rooms with balconies facing Lake Superior offer spectacular views, but those overlooking the parking lot and highway are not worth the rate. $150 would be fair. Maybe even $175. But over $300 for a standard room with a parking lot view is excessive. For that price, guests should at least receive higher standards of maintenance and cleanliness.||||In short, if you can book a Lake Superior-facing room, the views may justify the stay depending on the rate. Otherwise, it’s hard to recommend unless you value IHG points. Next time I need to stay in Munising, I’ll probably try the...

Such a great hotel even before we checked in. I greatly appreciate the confirmation phone calls & emails before my date of arrival, I felt confident our room would be waiting for us... no worries of a misplaced reservation or an overbooked hotel. There are plenty of luggage carts & they are easy to handle. There is a little snack & tourist souvenir shop inside the lobby, they sell laundry soap & dryer sheets too for the guest laundry area. The clean little laundry room is a fantastic amenity, for a small cost, we had a full load of clean clothes. One of my favorite things during our stay was the lobby coffee machine. A computer touvh screen gives you a choice of decaf, regular or hot water. After choosing a coffee selection, place a cup under the machine then it grinds the beans & brews a hot cup. The little coffee bar is stocked with hot cocoa, teas, three creamer flavors and various sugar packets. I visited the awesome coffee station a couple times a day. We had a first floor, lakeview room. The room was very clean & well maintained. The room had a walkout cement porch with two lawn chairs & a little table, such a cute touch & a wonderful amenity for those of us wanting to enjoy the view & watch for the northern lights. There was rainy day during our vacation, we spent most of the day in the room only leaving for about two hours in the middle of the day but housekeeping is dialed in, not missing anything, they came into our room while we were out... made the bed, took dirty towels and left clean ones & vacuumed. I am so impressed by this hotels housekeeping!! I cannot say enough how much this meant to us. Housekeeping left us alone most of the time since we had a sign on the door saying we weren't ready for them but as soon as we removed the sign... they were on it. So impressive, above and beyond any other hotel or motel we've stayed at in 5+ years. I highly recommend this hotel, hands down a wonderful place to visit as the desk staff were always super friendly and helpful. Oh.. there's an amazing breakfast served every morning with omelets, breakfast meats, pancakes, oatmeal, various cereals, various pastries, juices, milk, fruit... phenomenal... delicious and at no additional cost. Breakfast is served in the cafe area of the lobby where there are several tables, chairs, even booths which is also a great meeting place for groups of friends or family staying there. The pool and hot tub area is very large and well maintained. Both are kid friendly with a shallow end starting at only two feet to the deep end of five feet. Hot tub is fairly large to hold more...

Nice view, nice staff, but OMG that so called sofa!! I am sorry, but I feel that Management should know that what is supposed to pass for a sofa in the room we had last night is nothing short of a torture device. It does not even have a complete back on it. We paid $340.00 for our room with a balcony and there was no where comfortable to sit! I, myself feel that it is critical to provide customers some place comfortable to sit IF they pay for a room with a living room/sofa area. It was so bad my husband gave up and went to bed crazy early. Meanwhile I fought with trying to get the air in the room at a comfortable temp. We would have liked to enjoy letting fresh air in the room thru the balcony door. But that kept making the heat kick on. Then the room would get too hot. I closed the door and turned the AC on. That worked to a point. But we like to have the fan running on those units to help drowned out the noise from any neighboring rooms. Sadly the fan did not have an high setting that would keep running once the room reached the temp I had the thermostat set for. It seemed like a simple enough control system, but it could have been operator error on my part. I could not get it to just run the fan only. Ugh the people around us had no consideration for others. We had to listen to other tvs, heavy footsteps, someone drumming on furniture next to us until 11:30 at night. Then in the morning all the doors were slamming. I know that management can't control their customers. Keep in mind I was wearing good earplugs and could still hear them. You can actually feel people walking around in the other rooms next to yours. Other than that, it was clean enough, minus the old blood stain on the sheet, in photo. The balcony was a nice option. The decking gets slimy and slippery when wet, they do need to be cleaned and resealed to stop that from happening. Be aware to wear shoes on them and be very careful not to slip. The staff was very nice. But PLEASE throw out those awful half sofas. They are the terrible. UPDATE. I got to thinking why on earth would I have even selected a room with such an obviously uncomfortable looking piece of furniture in it. I just looked at the photos on the website for the room I had selected. That photo shows a nice, comfortable (at least useable) chair with a footstool in front of it. Now I am reall...