Holiday Inn Express & Suites Marshalltown by IHG — Hotel in Marshalltown

Nice facility but horrible customer service

I stayed at this hotel for three days in late October. I'm a business traveler who spends three or four days per week on the road. This is a fairly recently built hotel, similar to the style and design of the newer Holiday Inn Express properties. The facility itself is very nice, spacious rooms with modern amenities and a light airy feel to the place. Unfortunately that's where the good vibes ended. After the first night, I left for the day on my business outing. Upon returning to my room in the evening of day two, the room had not been made up. No maid service happened. I called the front desk to complain and the clerk blew me off. It was like 'Oh well, too bad, we'll try and clean your room tomorrow.' Not even an apology. I insisted on clean towels and the clerk did deliver them to my room. The next morning I repeated my dissatisfaction with the lack of maid service to the early shift front desk clerk who informed me that the policy of this hotel is NOT to provide maid service on a daily basis. I was shocked, never heard of this before. I requested that my room be made up, and also asked for the General Manager's name. During the day I called the hotel three times to speak with the GM, each time I called I was told she was in a meeting and unavailable to take my call. I left several messages for her but she did not call me back.

So I return to my room at the end of day two and yes, the room has had maid service, but it was the bare minimum. The bed was made, the towels were changed, and that was about it. No new soap (I was almost out), no in-room coffee replenishment (I was completely out), no carpet vacuum. I am a reasonable person and can understand if somehow the maid service was overlooked one time. What blows my mind is that none of the front desk clerks seemed to care and the feeling I got was the staff at this hotel has no clue about customer service. This appears to start at the top with the GM, if she dismisses the customers then of course the staff will do the same. I have several future business trips scheduled in the next few months in Marshalltown, and as nice as this new hotel facility is, I will not return due to the terrible attitude of the staff and lack of daily...

The Hotel is newer and offers the level of amenities one would expect from a HIE. No major gripes that would prevent me from returning, especially given this is the newest and best option in town, though a couple of resolvable issues prevented it from being a top notch HIE experience.

First, the ambient temperature of the commons areas was WAY to high. In fact, I'm almost certain there was no AC or air circulation at all in the hallways. I normally couldn't care less what hallway temperatures are maintained at, but with no circulation, it was like getting slapped in the face by a blast furnace stepping into the hall. This also made the overall hotel, including the rooms, very humid.

Second, the ice machine was nonoperational, perhaps because they're not designed to operate inside the furnace like hallways? This wasn't a big deal, the staff got us ice from the kitchen, and said they would take a look at the machine. Our issue was the 2nd day of our stay the machine was still inoperable and when inquiring with the front desk on the 2nd day they had no update and were unaware that it wasn't working.

Third, the breakfast was standard as expected HIE options. The difference being both mornings, several items, not limited to juice, eggs, bacon and sausage, were gone, this also coincide with a nonoperational pancake machine. Not a big deal, as I expect items to run low during the peak breakfast time, my issue was none of the depleted items were replenished in a timely fashion.

Again, nothing that would prevent me from staying here, as this is an overall good hotel. But there are a few i's...

We stay at HIE’s exclusively if they are available and are members of the IHG rewards loyalty program. My wife and I were coming into town for a funeral so we booked into the HIE. We were going straight to the visitation before stopping to check in, so that morning we called and confirmed our reservation and made sure a late check in was okay. They confirmed our reservation and our late check in. We arrived at the hotel before 6 PM. And the desk clerk couldnt find our reservation. She searched by our name, checked several other things, asked us who we had talked to, took our IHG rewards card and did some checking with that...couldnt find the reservation. As we were about to leave, the clerk says “you don’t have to go, we have plenty of rooms”. So she books us into a suite at the same rate we had been confirmed for, which was nice. So everything worked out, until tonight, when i was checking my credit card transactions online, and saw that we had been charged exactly $50 more than what our receipt said. I called the hotel and they told me they had charged us an “incidental charge”. Why? We didnt spill, stain, or damage the room in any way. We didnt turn on the TV. We werent loud. My brother was in the room next door and he came over and visited but it was quiet and subdued. Funny thing is, this isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened To us at a HIE. Once after staying at the HIE in Rochester, MN, they tried to put a pet charge on our bill. You guessed it...we dont travel with a pet. Might be time to get on the Honors...