Holiday Inn Express & Suites Lincoln City by IHG — Hotel in Lincoln City

If I could rate this hotel a negative 5 stars I would in a heartbeat. Booked a room here over the weekend for my family as a holiday gift. When they arrived, they called me mentioning that the room wasn’t clean. Human and/or pet hair all over the bathroom and in the shower. I phoned front desk asking either for housekeeping to take care of it, or to get switched to another room. Sadly, housekeeping had left for the day and all the rooms were booked up. The lady working front desk on 12.29.23 @6:11 PM was nice enough to head up to the room to clean it herself, however not competent enough to do it right as you can see in the pictures taken below after they “cleaned”. I called again, asking to speak to the manager and was told they’d leave a note for the manager to call me back the following day as the manager had left for the day as well. After receiving no call from the hotel the morning of 12.30.23, I called front desk about 15 times with no answer, and then decided to call them again from my girlfriend’s phone at 9:32 AM and voila, the phone was answered by another lady at the front desk. I asked to speak to the manager, and was told they had “come in for a short period of time and left”, but that they’d be back later that day. After asking if they had received seen the note left last night, they responded “what note?”. I submitted another request for management to reach out to be ASAP and waited all day. At 9PM of that same day, I called back again and this time a guy answered the phone. After explaining the situation once again, I asked if their manager had seen the note left for them to which they responded “I don’t see a note here, when did you call?”. Left another request to be called back again and waited a few more days. After getting no contact from them once again, I called back on 1.4.24 @1:40 PM and the phone was answered by another lady at the front desk. I explained the situation once again, and over the course of the 12 minute call I was put on hold 4 times while she served as a middle man for the line of communication between me and the manager who happened to be there at the time. When I asked if I could talk to the manager directly so as to “not waste any more time than had already been wasted”, she told me the manager was “too busy to talk to me directly”. I was also told management had stated that the hair and filth found in the bathroom “could have been ours” and that if the room wasn’t up to “our” standards, we “should have found a room somewhere else.” That a “refund couldn’t be issued because they had stayed in the room regardless of the state it was in.”

Management accused my family of four, with two little kids, and told me they should have found somewhere else to sleep.

After a naturally heated exchange, I decided to call Holiday Inn offices directly and escalate the situation. After exchanging information, they told me they’d be in contact with the Hotel in order to issue a refund. On 1.5.24, management from the hotel finally called me back, only to say that they couldn’t issue me a refund because I had booked through Priceline and not Holiday Inn directly, so they told me to call Priceline customer service. All they could offer me was Holiday Inn reward points, as if I’d ever want to stay there again. I called Priceline on 1.10.24 @2:51 PM, explained the situation, and they put me on hold because they had to contact management at the hotel in order to issue the refund.

Management’s response? “Yeah, we’re not going to do that”. They played me just to get me off their backs, make it someone else’s problem.

This is by far the most disgusting, disrespectful, incompetent, rude, unprofessional, hotel and staff I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with. Great management work Lori and Paris, if I had it my way you and your whole team would be fired. I hope this review can provide insight to future families, travelers, and tourists who are looking to stay in Lincoln City, so that they can see what a big failure...

UPDATE: Contacted by management only through this Google review and offered a gift card for a one night stay next time we are in town. We are over 12 hrs away.

We paid for 3 nights (over $600) for a clean, safe, and private room. They did NOT provide this. Despite their agent’s advice to us to explain to our credit card company what happened and we’d secure a refund, they are now denying a full refund to our credit card company. Some terrible handling from a company we used to trust. We will be reporting you to the Better Business Bureau this week.

Original Review: Wow. Unbelievably terrible experience last Saturday (8/3) evening at this Holiday Inn. Arrived early evening with a reservation for 3 nights for my family including two young children. After waiting about 20 minutes to be checked in, we went to our room. The room was located directly behind the front desk IN the lobby itself providing absolutely no privacy. Multiple strangers commented on the terrible location while we were bringing our bags in. With young kids, the lack of privacy was a serious red flag for us. Upon entering the room, the whole family was struck by a musty foul odor throughout the room. It was nasty…. My kids refused to stay in the room because it smelled so badly. We also noticed the outlet that the a/c unit was plugged into was had no cover on it..leaving the wires exposed. Anyone with curious young children knows how dangerous this is. We returned to the desk to ask for an alternative room. The two agents offered zero solutions, offered no customer care and told us they were sold out that night and nothing could be done. When we said that was unacceptable they said that was the only option. We found a room in a neighboring town at another Holiday Inn Express and asked them to help transfer our booking and they refused, citing that because we booked with our credit card travel portal there was nothing they could do. They said they spoke to their manager who was not on site and the only thing they could offer was free snacks for the kids from their kiosk. No thanks. Several hour later, after a multi day drive to get to this hotel, with frustrated exhausted kids we told them there was no way we were staying in the assigned room and they needed to cancel the booking and that we’d stay elsewhere. Again, with zero help or care the agents said there was nothing they could do because we used a third party to book (the Chase Credit Card portal). We asked what we were supposed to do and they told us to call “Expedia”, tell them what happened and they will be able to take care of it and refund our stay. We again asked if they could simply cancel and they said no. So, after some tears, a frantic search, multiple phone calls, stressed out kids we packed up the car and drove 30 minutes south to the Newport Holiday Inn where we received a nice room for 50% more than our original booking. The agents at the desk were incredibly compassionate and kind; a night and day difference. We stayed one night and switched to an alternative brand…I cannot imagine we will ever stay with a HIE again. Currently, we are battling various customer service agents to make this right. Holiday Inn Express Lincoln City claims to have no record of the issue and do not want to refund the stay. Terrible...

We stayed in the King 1 bedroom because we have 2 children and it just makes life a lot easier. We called ahead to specify a certain room because my wife really liked the first one we had which they said they could accommodate but upon arrival put us in a different one. Not a major issue just wouldve been nice since we called a month in advance. Its a standard Holiday Inn Express. Room appeared well kept and maintained. The fireplace did not work upon our arrival and we informed the front desk who said theyd put a work order in. Followed up the next day with the next person who was at the desk who said this was a known issue and it would be weeks before somebody would get out to fix it. However on the third day one of the gentlemen, whose name I forgot but had a southern accent and was incredibly friendly, was able to get the fireplace working for about 15 seconds. When I went back down to figure out his trick for making it work he said its a common problem and some parts needed to get worked out. It overall sounds like the fireplaces are a known issue and maybe management isnt actually working to get the issue solved? Overall I am not blaming the staff because everybody was friendly and nice about it so I am sure its just what it is. Breakfast is basic and had the typical foods like yogurt (chobani), egg taco like things with one spiced and one not, rotating bacon or sausage links, pancake maker, and sweet rolls. Food was generally warm and was available. Some times it was empty but they were working on it. I think its just one guy going between normal job and keeping the food out so grace is sort of expected and the food was there so no issues. The bacon could be cooked a bit longer. Wife is pregnant so we microwaved the bacon because it was noticeably floppy. Like mentioned above we have kids so obviously we went to the pool which was mostly empty. Was great to have the pool open and available for the kids. Could be slightly warmer and in years past we have asked if they could warm it up a few degrees and they did. We didnt ask this time because it was warm enough. If we ran out of towels or toilet paper or what have you we could always ask the front desk or one of the cleaning persons and they were quick to get it resolved. Great service by staff members really goes a long way. We did stay 5 days so on the 3rd day our room was cleaned. Got new linens and towels and all of that but they didnt vacuum. We tried to clear the entire floor so they could vacuum easily and didnt have to deal with our kids. Not sure if thats something we have to request for the future or if they just dont do that for these stays. Ill probably just bring a simple rolling vacuum with us because its easy enough.

Overall we were bummed about the fireplace not working but it was still a great stay. Its a holiday inn express and for the cost of the room (about $100 or so a night) it is unmatched value in the area. We would recommend others to go here with or without kids and we will...