Holiday Inn Express Van Nuys by IHG — Hotel in Los Angeles

If you plan on not staying in your room all day, this place will certainly do. Service workers are fast to help and are primarily available. They're fast if you need help or there's an issue with your room. Rooms get cleaned everyday around 8am-10am; dirty sheets and towels get replaced, trash gets removed, and they also ensure the toiletries get refilled; toilet paper, soap, lotions, etc. They also clean the bathroom counter as well without disturbing your items.

Free breakfast is served 6:30am-10am in the back lobby area, no longer in paper baggies, you can serve yourself. Selection is great; egg omelettes, scrambled, toast, bagels, biscuits and gravy, sausage patties and links, cereal, yogurt, pancakes, and even dessert. Drinks vary from coffee w/ creamer options, orange juice, apple juice, and cranberry juice. Everything is in catering containers so they stay warm, cooked all thoroughly and taste great, definitely help yourself!

As for rooms; beds are clean, no stains or weird smell. A work desk if you need, a fridge, AC, ironing table and iron available. The walls are not sound proof, you can definitely hear people loudly talking if they're next door or under you. You can even hear people's TVs audio as you walk down the halls. The lower walls and floor aren't in good shape; stained in areas as if someone rammed furniture into the wall, and red carpet has some dark stains in it primarily at the entrance of the room. I can ignore all of that cuz it doesn't inconvenience me.

The most inconvenient thing is the shower. There is a shower curtain, but NO shower LINER, so as you shower, water gets EVERYWHERE. The curtain is fabric so it can't stop the water from shooting through it and getting water everywhere. Everything just gets wet. ALONG with that, the water pressure of the spout and shower head is extremely strong, causing you to feel like your skin is going to get peeled off from the high water pressure. Not relaxing at all. The water pressure also shoots an enormous amount of water that the drain can't drain the water fast enough, so you're standing in a giant pool of soapy water majority of your shower. I'm certain there must be mold growing under the carpet outside the room from the massive amount of water that the shower shoots out. I hated showering here.

The area isn't the best, with an abandoned burger king building in the parking lot next door, homeless loitering nearby, and little business workshops around. The streets are well lit though, since the buildings nearby are car dealerships, so it doesn't feel so scary to walk around at night to access the food carts and other stores nearby. Positive thing is the hotel is essentially right next to the free way so you can easily travel around via car, and it's not so close to the freeway so you don't hear cars all day & night. If you also love Denny's and Taco Bell, you're in luck, they're right next to the hotel.

If you want to use the pool, the only way you can access it is by a side door exit or by walking from the front of the hotel all the way to the back where the pool is located. Relatively oddly shaped, but it's quite clean and gets quite bit of sun throughout the day. Sucky thing is you can only get back into the hotel from the swimming pool is by walking all the way back to the front of the hotel, so if you plan on swimming, bring sandals.

They clearly are still trying to improve the hotel by renovating areas, so you do hear construction work (like banging or screw sounds) in the morning (10am) til the afternoon (3pm-ish). Happily, it's not too loud even though it was right below my floor (3). Improvement is good, but they should definitely fix the shower problem in their current rooms first.

Overall, it's definitely a 2-star hotel, not luxurious or mind blowing, a relatively nice place to stay (if the shower...

I wrote the review on the IHG website. They never responded. I guess they ignore negative reviews. So I rewrote today and copied it here posting it here for others to read. ||I wrote this before but it appears to be not here. They must not allow bad reviews. This is disturbing because other than here, the Holiday Inns have been awesome. I wondered why I never heard back from them about the review.||Let's start with checked in, guy at desk tried to con me out of reservation for 2 beds into 1 bed room. I always get 2 beds traveling with my son.||No one else, in any hotel has attempted to question that. Every other IHG has given us water at check in. I didn't think anything of it, until the next day I asked the morning guy at the desk why they don't sell beverages like they do snacks. He said they do and I told him and he was surprised the night clerk didn't. I Aldo told him the night clerk had referred me to a 7 11. I also asked him why there was a weight bench in the fitness center and no free weights. He was surprised the weights weren't there and said something about the hotel going through renovations. But the hotel didn't look like it needed reservations.||Breakfast is only large tables to share, no small ones for small familes . A woman I saw in the elevator said she was eating in her room as a result, because she was afraid to eat there.||Another person in the elevator said the places skimpy on thongs.||There were no towels in the weight room and the water cooler was broken. The water line was duct taped.||Back to breakfast. Pancake machine was broken, ok that happens. But there was a sign on it that it was the disinfectant station for the staff to clean the tables.||Our 2nd day there, we came in, the only 3 tables available were dirty, and there were two staff standing there chatting away, ignoring the situation. I had to go up to them and ask them to please clean the tables.||At one point. The clerk from check in was there during the day and I asked him to break a $20. He said they don't have cash there. ||I am sure I have forgotten one or 2 things because it has been too long. But I am going to copy this and post it on other sires as well. Since it appears negative reviews are not allowed. I am sure the manager wi respond and say how it is not usdusl for them. But this would not be occurring if it wasn't usual. I h g is now on the bottom of my list for hotel chains...

Staying at 4 different hotel chains this 36 day road trip. Evaluating which to keep. This hotel makes me want to delete IHG.

Right upon entering, the guy at the desk tried to con me into a 1 bed instead of the 2 beds I had reserved long in advance. Other holidays gave us water, upon arrival, but no big deal. Layer I came down to look for vending machines for a drink he said don't have any referred me to a 7/11 down the street. Last day I asked to break a $20 bill, same guy said they don't have change. The first morning I asked the guy at the desk about why they don't have vending machine or water to sell, with their snacks and he said we have water here. I told him about no water upon arrival and he was surprised. Food, 1st day breakfast, a bunch of rotting Bananas out. No one partook. The tables at breakfast were all long 8 person seated tables. A woman in the elevator said she was scared to eat there and was taking her food to the room. Another person when I mentioned the weight room said this hotel as skimpy alot. Back to breakfast. Very limited selection. No holiday inn had such skimpy so far. Pancake machine didn't work and sign on it said it was the cleaning station for sanitizing. There were no cleaning supplies there. 2nd day breakfast was pretty busy. 3 empty tables were dirty. Nothing else available, I walked over to the 2 women employees who were standing there chatting away to each other and had to ask them to clean the tables.

Exercise room, had a weight bench, no weights. A ball rack, no balls, The stepper/ treadmills electronics didn't work. It kept giving a strange error message. No towels in exercise room. Water cooler didn't work, I know how to press the buttons so they work. The water line was duct taped. And even if it worked, there were no cups. I told the guy at the front desk and he was surprised there were no dumbells or exercise balls. He said hewould inform maintenance. And the place was under going renovations. It didn't look run to me. Every other fitness center at Holiday's have had dumbells. Wasn't even...