Holiday Inn Express & Suites Marble Falls by IHG — Hotel in Marble Falls

My recommendation is for you to run far away from booking a room in this hotel. Please support other Marble Falls hotels that treat customers like valuable human beings.

Why?

Short Answer: This hotel has the worst customer service and professionalism. They have a zero accountability culture and it starts from their leadership.

Long Answer: My friends and I booked and prepaid for 2 rooms for 4 people through hotels.com. We arrived and checked in early (not necessary anticipating that rooms were ready but we wanted to try) and were greeted with "We only have one room for you. Hotels.com must have only sent us one room request."

There was no apology, only apathy. No follow up questions. No ownership. No offer to try to help us find another room somewhere else. AND they also flat out refused to give us a refund or provide proof that we only received one room when we pre-paid for 2 for hotels.com.

Well after about 25 minutes of back and forth trying to figure this out with the employee and a manager, (with a whole lot of growing frustration and annoyance) a GM stepped in and found our reservation. Now, this is all understandable right? Annoying yes, but we figured it out so all good.

Wrong. One of our rooms received 3 separate "wake - up" calls starting at 3:58 AM and the other 2 happening between 4-5 AM. Y'all, the person was laughing on other end of this call. When we asked for the wake up calls to stop we got a reply of "we'll see what we can do." The calls only stopped once we unplugged the phone. There is zero way this was an error. This was retaliation, for frankly, an check-in process failure that was not the customer's fault and we thought had been resolved.

Now comes the even more appalling part of the interaction. Any business leader would want to know about their employee's retaliatory behavior right? Wrong. It took numerous phone calls with excuses, unanswered phone calls, unanswered emails over days to finally reach the hotel manager John. It became so comical that we couldn't get a call back, that another member of our party called the hotel to inquire about a "group rate" and received an immediate return phone call from John. What was John doing instead of addressing a customer service issue? We were told he was "in a meeting", he was "off property," he was too "busy" to get on the phone.

When we finally got a hold of John he told us he had been sick. He also never actually called us back, he just happened to answer when we tried calling AGAIN. He believes the wake up calls were correct calls just made to the wrong room, but couldn't provide a record of the request. There was no empathy for the multiple late night wake up calls. No acknowledgement that normal wake up calls do not involve laughter. Nothing done than escalation to his GM.

This interaction with leadership honestly made it way easier for me to understand how an immature retaliation like this was even possible in the first place. Zero accountability. Acceptable lying. No customer service.

At least the GM replied to an escalated email. His response felt like a little bit of customer service, but still wasn't enough after what we had just dealt with the other staff.

Please support a business that treats its customers better. We all work really hard to spend our money and vacations in wonderful places and this business does not deserve your...

We booked a room at this hotel for two nights. When we arrived, it was obvious that the hotel was undergoing a renovation (something certainly not mentioned during the booking process) with dust and debris and plastic sheeting everywhere. The elevator was filthy and scratched up. Every single room had matching triangles of sheetrock dust trailing from under the doors onto the hallway carpet.

All of this was fine. I feel they were probably doing their best under the circumstance. However, upon arriving to our room, we discovered that it wreaked of new construction - mostly the smell of as-of-yet-uncured caulk and paint. The caulk in the bathroom was actually still tacky and the room was filled with fumes.

We immediately called the front desk to see if there were alternate accommodations (knowing the hotel was full due to an athletic competition near town). The young lady at the front desk showed us the one other option - which was the room nearest ours - but had been less recently refurbished. Unfortunately, and to her horror and surprise (she'd expected the room to be clean and ready), someone had been in the room, had partially unmade one bed, and there was a pill of some sort on the other bed. (Someone from the hotel staff or one of the construction workers had obviously accessed the room without her knowledge.).

We agreed to stay in our original room for one night but with the understanding that we'd check out the following morning (a day early) to go to a different hotel. The Holiday Inn was barely habitable.

Per the night before's conversation, we checked out that Saturday morning. We were told that, since we'd booked through Expedia, we would have to go through them for the refund, but that the hotel would honor that.

Also, I was told I'd receive a phone call from the GM that same day to discuss the issue. That phone call never came.

Once I was back home, the following Monday, I contacted Expedia to begin the refund. Everything went fine and they contacted the hotel for authorization. For two days, Expedia attempted to get the refund authorized, but the hotel's GM and AGM couldn't be bothered to do so. After two days, I received a message from Expedia saying they would not refund my purchase as the hotel had not authorized it.

I called the hotel, but the GM was not on site. The desk clerk made notes that I'd called and said I would receive a call from the GM to work out the situation. This went on all week and no one ever called. I'd call, they'd make notes, nothing happened.

Finally, I was told that I should I not anticipate a call from the GM as, in addition to not handling my issue, he'd left for vacation. And, that my only recourse would be to contest the purchase with my credit card company.

Today, I called and spoke to a nice gentleman on the phone. He got his AGM on the phone and, after a full week of nonsense, got the AGM to authorize the refund. I was then able to contact Expedia to initiate the refund and everything is done.

Don't stay at this hotel. While the front desk staff was wonderful and accommodating, the management is terrible - and the hotel is a total disaster. The customer would really be best served to stay away until this renovation is complete. They obviously do not have a handle on the situation.

We visit the area frequently, and this hotel has permanently lost...

In all my years as a travel program manager for a large Fortune 100 corporation, working closely with hotel general managers throughout the world, I have never encountered one so rude, insulting and lacking in manners and customer service skills as I did at the Marble Falls IHG HIE. I’ll get to that later. First…|THE GOOD:|• Proximity to Marble Falls|• “City View” upgrade available with Hill Country vistas|• Housekeeping and front desk support staff were friendly and helpful.|THE BAD:|• Dark, musty, and outdated. |• Malfunctioning equipment: Third-floor ice machine broken with no sign indicating it as such. Lobby refrigerator-freezer broken and/or empty (see photo).|• No labels on breakfast bar items. Is that pork or turkey sausage? A vegetable omelet or is there ham in it? Not everyone eats pork.|• Bed headboards had many handprints and headprints from previous guests. Ewww.|• Lampshade between queen beds very dusty and oversized for the nightstand. Removed it to stop sneezing and to better see around the room.|• Suites need a second television for the sitting area. One must be in bed to watch TV. Not good if someone else is trying to sleep.|• Partial partition between sitting and sleeping areas do not block light or sound.|• This hotel does not feel like an IHG brand, but rather a mom-and-pop operating on a shoestring.|THE UGLY:|• My husband is active-duty military on orders in San Antonio. We have one rewards number, with my husband’s name and my contact info, since we normally travel together and often stay at contracted IHG properties on military installations. Same with our IHG credit card.||As often happens, my husband needed to return to base, so I was the one who checked out. I had a quick question before I did, so I stood at the front desk between five and ten minutes while the GM was on the phone. Rather than put the caller on hold or acknowledge that I was standing there, he chose to continue the call and avoid eye contact with me.||I am hard of hearing and had trouble understanding his accent when he did speak to me, so I asked him what he’d said. He condescendingly prefaced his reply with a snarky “And again…” As he reviewed our folio, he saw my husband’s name on the reservation. I was shocked when he had the audacity to accuse me of FRAUD and of ABUSING the military discount, and said he was going to report me to IHG corporate!! I showed him my military ID and told him about the situation and that I had done nothing wrong. He continued to press it. I am normally non-confrontational, but I was livid. Shaking with rage, I raised my voice and told him my husband wasn’t there because he was busy keeping him safe. As I was leaving, there was no “thank your husband for his service,” but a patronizing sing-song voice to “have a nice day.” |I hope someone from IHG corporate reads this. Would have given this two or three stars, primarily for location, but the GM...