Holiday Inn New London - Mystic Area by IHG — Hotel in New London

I'm a Spire Elite member; I spend a lot of nights in hotel rooms.

My stay at this property was a mix of good but mostly poor experiences that makes me doubt if I will ever consider this property in the future.

First, the good. I booked two weekend nights at this property, the first was an award stay and the second a revenue booking. The property was kind enough to upgrade my award booking to a suite so that I would not have to change rooms. They also assigned me the suite on the 5th (top) floor, per my preference. Most importantly, during the morning of my arrival, it looked like I needed to book an additional room for a family member and while the hotel was sold out, the Front Desk agent on duty agreed to put me on a waitlist and call me if a room became available which he did later that day. While I ended up not needing the room, I still thought that this was exceptional customer service and I arrived with lots of goodwill for the property and was looking forward to my stay.

Here's some notes on the property and suite. The property itself has a nice location that's not too far from I-95 and the New London Union (train) Station. There was minimal noise from the trains and overall, the area is quiet and seems safe enough. There's a number of convenience stores and restaurants within a short drive, as well. There's also ample free parking both in front of and behind the property in a well-lit lot.

That being said, I'm sad to say that for me, this property does not rate well when compared to some of the newer Holiday Inns with suites (PHX and DFW airport locations come to mind) . This is an older property that hasn't been kept up that well. The suite was an L-shaped room, basically wrapping around the elevator shaft (there was some noise from the elevator machinery, but not bad enough to disturb sleep). The larger portion contains the bathroom and bedroom and the smaller living room area has a desk, sofa (with pull-out bed) and microwave and mini-fridge; there's no doors between the bedroom and living room. The bathroom has a marble counter with a single sink and a large tub with a shower. There's a wall-mounted air conditioning unit in both rooms of the suite but only the bedroom unit was activated, so the living room was a little stuffy. Frustratingly, the only source of light in the bedroom and living room are the table lamps on the nightstands/desk; both rooms should have had a floor lamp to brighten things up properly, especially the living room. There was only one remote control in the room, so if you wanted to watch TV in the living room, you needed to grab the bedroom remote. Finally, as noted in another recent review, the ice machine on the floor was non-operational but there wasn't a sign advising as such. All of these things add up to a general impression that there's a lot of cost-cutting and not a lot of attention to guest comfort, which, even during these difficult times, must be called out.

The most significant issue I had with my stay was that despite notes in my reservation that I needed a feather free room and a call to the property two days before to confirm this, our room had three feather pillows and only one foam pillow on the bed and the property was unable to provide us with at least one other foam pillow during our two-night stay. The fact that this wasn't resolved by the second day of our stay had me prepared to abandon our stay and move to another property, but all of the places I looked at were sold out. The weekend staff on hand were nice enough, but not properly trained or empowered to resolve issues. As such, this property showed a lack of caring or concern for their guests' health and wellbeing and for that, I must caution others against staying here. The Holiday Inn Express in nearby Mystic would be my suggested...

First of all, the Inn appeared to be really old and not in the best condition for what I expected it to be and for the price i was paying, being that I've only stay at Holiday Inn for years throughout New England and New York, (for 20 or more years)

2. When I made front desk reservations via phone call, and spoke to a clerk on location, which I verified. I requested the top floor (there are 5 floors), near an elevator (due to limited walking distance for me) and HP accessible bathroom due to me being handicapped. I was advised that I would have these two requests.

3. The price complete price was explained to me, and I excepted the amount of $294.46

This reservation was made on August 24,2024 for a stay on October 12 through October 13th, 2024, which I felt was more than enough time to accommodate my request.

Upon arrival, I was informed that my room was on the 2nd floor, and it was not handicap accessible and it was not nearby to an elevator there was nothing mentioned on my reservation about my requests

When I spoke of the top floor and handicap accessibilities, the desk clerk informed me that they were pretty booked up, and she did not have any notes of my original requests. but she would try and accommodate me. (she did try but not hard enough)

When I came back after having a bite to eat, she informed me that she was happy to inform me that she had a room not on the 5th floor but on the 4th floor but that it wasn't near an elevator, it was actually at the end of the hallway and she said that the room was handicap accessible, which the hand held sprayer in the step over tub (not walk through) which was originally requested, did not work and with very low water pressure that made it difficult to shower.

Oh, did I mention that when I turn the heat on that I smelled like something was burning and stunk really bad and I had to turn it back off.

As I mentioned, she did try to accommodate me the best she could do with what she had to work with, but she wouldn't have had to do any of that if it was taken care of at the time of the on location original, phone call reservation.

The other minor thing was that there were 2 other people in my party, my older sister and my wife staying in the same room and there was only one suitcase stand so one of our suitcases had to put on the floor and when I asked for another one, I was informed that there weren't any suitcase stands left.

The last thing that I was surprised with was the compounded $100.00 "incidental" charge to my bill that was not even spoken of during the reservation process, which I had to accept.

The clerk advised I would have it returned if nothing happened.

Upon checkout, no one was willing to check out my room for any "incidental" problems that might have happened during my stay. So now I wait for the return of that deposit,

All in all, after staying in many Holiday Inns over the years, I am extremely disappointed with the nearly $300.00 per night stay in New London CT, which included a $10.00 extra person charge and with the extra $100.00 "incidental" deposit that wasn't mentioned to me until I arrived.

Holiday Inn, I will be thinking really hard about stay at any of your establishments in the future and will seek out other accommodations. I AM VERY...

Stayed at this property many times in the past, seen new owners come and go, the latest owners have no pride in this Hotel and it shows.

Pros: Conveniently located by the Ferry and downtown area. I usually stay here because of work nearby, but this time we were in town for a concert at Mohegan. Front desk (Diana, I think) receptionist allowed us to check in early, and the process went smooth. Did not receive anything (Priority Club always got me a restaurant discount coupon or at least a bottle of water and snack. I saw the bags behind the counter so I know someone was getting them, just not me) The room was on the 4th floor, facing the front of the Hotel, nice view.

Cons: On the 4th floor, getting off the elevator, there were a number of bags of garbage and fast food bags on the ground outside some rooms, there was also three pieces of luggage sitting in the hall outside of a room. The garbage and luggage was there for hours, and still there when we returned at 2am...The room for whatever reason was either too cold or too humid hot. There was no middle ground. The thermostat was a constant 67-68 degrees, but either ran frigid air of warmish air constantly. The bathroom was disgusting and not clean. A wad of hair was stuck to the wall of the shower, the sink still had water and gunk in it, it did not drain (backed up), no working vent in the bathroom, no shampoo, soap or conditioner on the amenity tray, no blow dryer.

The bed had a nice array of pillows, but when I flipped two of them over there were stains and spots of dried something on the pillow cases. (blood or mold) I was grossed out at this point.

Called down to the front desk to complain and order a blow dryer, the person that answered said he would alert housekeeping to go get one out of another room and bring it to us (?)...nothing about new pillows or anything. At this point we had to leave because we had a concert to catch and I told the desk to not enter the room while we were gone. 10 min later I opened the door to the room and the desk guy was there and shoved a blow dryer into my hand and walked away.

The restaurant/Bar was nice except there is no free coffee for guests anymore (they said Covid) meanwhile there is an open coffee station inside the restaurant to make coffee at, except it's $3 dollars a cup of watery weak ,sour coffee. not worth 3 cents.

Will be seeking a different property next time I come up here for work. It may be worth the drive to Groton or Mystic to get a...