Holiday Inn Express & Suites Gulf Shores by IHG — Hotel in Gulf Shores

We give it 4 stars because 2 of their staff members went above and beyond.|The Good:| Anna Kay (Breakfast Service) and Mrs. Melissa (check-in) are 2 of the sweetest and kindest individuals that we have ever had the pleasure of meeting, and my children adored them. They both were always smiling and ready to greet us every single time we passed them, and we're very accommodating. Anna doing a fantastic job of making sure there were plenty of food choices for the children, and Mrs. Melissa helping us figure out how to maneuver through The kinks of the room like getting the TV's working and getting around taking showers without making water messes because of the short shower curtains.|Towels were clean and soft, they provided some wonderful body wash, shampoo and conditioner and other personal hygiene accommodation products.||The Bad: |As soon as you enter the room there is a stale odor, the room appears cleaned and made up but, you take a couple steps to the carpet and in the bathroom and see they have a few things they need to improve. The walls, counters, and beds look good. However the carpets are quite filthy and full of stains, we were adamant about keeping our house shoes on so not to filthy our feet. When I checked the bathroom and toilet to disinfect it before any of my family uses the restroom there is urine on the toilet and opened tissue just as if the toilet had been used by someone before we checked in, or it wasn't cleaned properly after the last guests. So, right away before getting settled in, I had to clean the toilet, next, as soon as one of us is taking a shower, water is getting everywhere due to the shower curtain being so short, Then one elevator was out of service our entire stay, and the one working elevator was constantly getting stuck between floors, at one point everyone one of us on the elevator had to just take the stairs."Ok, No Biggie, we are patient people, we've got this, we will still enjoy ourselves" Our stay was from 5-13-24 to 5-17-24 but, due to a little booking confusion we had to check in on the 13th and check out on the 16th and then recheck into another room on the 16th and check out on the 17th. They handled that transition quite smoothly. "No Biggie". (We enjoyed ourselves because we were with each other) however, for what we spent to stay, they definitely need to enhance their accommodations and update their floors, elevators, and get longer showers curtains. Our recommendations would be, to add a game room where preteens and teenagers could mingle with each other, add either a bigger pool area or at a hot tub area. Maybe add a bar and an evening restaurant area where the men can mingle in...

We decided for our honeymoon here to Gulf Shores that we would do a smaller/cheaper hotel since we wanted to explore a ton and didn't anticipate being in the room a ton. We were pleasantly surprised with this hotel for the price we paid for 5 days, 4 nights. We had some flight changes on our way here and ended up arriving 4 hours before check in after a red eye and 3 hour time change. The hotel staff were able to get us into our room early and were SO kind about it. We were able to nap and still enjoy our first day here without sleeping the whole day away because they got us in. The rooms are the best I've seen at a hotel chain like this. Our room was clean and spacious and had everything we needed to get through our week and pleasantly surprised us. The breakfast was also perfect for us as we don't eat huge breakfasts but needed something in the morning. Our towels were changed each day (we swam a lot so this was a necessity), and we didn't experience any issues. The staff were unbelievably kind and I loved their beach ball that could be signed in the lobby. The only thing(s) I noticed were things that didn't seem huge to me anyway. Our bed wasn't changed/remade each day which did not matter to me as I didn't feel that we needed new sheets every day and we could make it loosely ourselves. Towels were the only things we needed replaced which was done. There were a few tiny ants when we first arrived but it's summer and that's how things go. They weren't everywhere and weren't impacting our stay AT ALL. I also only saw them the first day. Those things to me were not enough to give anything but a 5 star, especially seeing as the staff was unbelievably kind, and every other aspect of our stay was ideal, especially for what we paid. Had I paid a lot more money, I maybe would have some qualms, but this was perfect for our expectations and hopes for the trip.

Also, I stay in hotels a lot between work and other travel reasons. This was the first hotel to have mounted LIQUID hand soap and that made my visit. Thanks for having normal...

We stayed two nights at this location. When we checked in I asked the person at the front desk whether the room would be refreshed with towels the next morning and she said they put fresh towels in every day. The next day we returned to the hotel after being away for the day and found out the towels weren't replaced, I went to the front desk to get fresh towels, the same person was there who checked us in. When I asked her why the towels weren't replaced, she had a horrible attitude, got very snippy at me and claimed that she didn't work in the mornings and had no control over what the staff does. Hmmm.

We had planned on extending our stay but because of the way we were treated by the front desk we chose to check out after two nights. I mentioned to the assistant manager (a woman) during checkout my experience with the front desk clerk and she truly seemed horrified and promised me extra points for my troubles and that she would talk to the person.

Two hours after checking out, we realized my wife had left her curling iron in the bathroom of the room we checked out from. I called right away and spoke to a man at the hotel who said he would check and let us know. He never called back. I called again the next morning and he said he didn't check but would call back. We were still in the area and it would have been easy to go over and pick it up. We never heard back from the hotel.

When we got home, I called again and spoke with the assistant manager who I spoke with when we checked out. She seemed very helpful and said she would go up and check the room. I told her the iron was on the shelf under the sink and she said it probably got shoved back behind fresh towels and she would call me back. She also promised more points for all my troubles. No callback and not points have shown up. We have given up. If you do stay here, cross your fingers you don't have any troubles because you will never solve a problem here. Poor service and...