Hotel Indigo Orange Beach - Gulf Shores by IHG — Hotel in Orange Beach

This hotel was our home away from home for Spring Break.

The hotel has everything you need in-house for an incredible vacation in this area.

My 7 year old and I arrived just in time to check in on Saturday afternoon. We instantly fell in love with the decor and vibe of the hotel. It is elevated, yet laid back. Our room was absolutely beautiful, comfy bed, spacious bathroom, mini fridge, and great area to prep beach picnic food.

The location of this hotel is convenient. We planned on using the hotel shuttle to take us to the beach but the entrance to the beach was so close it was even easier to just drive and pay $10 for the day to park. Ron Jon Surf Shop is in walking distance, and in the same little area are walking trails, and Southern Grind coffee shop/ice cream shop. We enjoyed all of the places mentioned. Southern Grind is connected to the hotel. I enjoyed coffee and my daughter enjoyed gelato from there several times.

The hotel food was AMAZING and we chose to have dinner there a couple of times because the food was so good and it's just so convenient. Food is not priced any higher than restaurants in the area, but also not significantly lower. It's just right. Highly recommend the burger and fries, the mahi mahi served with rice, the Gulf shrimp appetizer, and even the Caesar salad was top tier. The front desk also had helpful recommendations for dining out. The person working at the hotel restaurant was sweet as pie.

The indoor pool, outdoor pool, hot tub, and outdoor hangout was absolutely wonderful for the days when the beach was just a little too cold and windy. We had double red flags one day at the beach so it was great to be able to come back and swim at the hotel.

One minor inconvenience is the hotel front desk staff mentioned a promotion with the hotel restaurant as a way to get more IHG points. The promotion was not well-explained and I did not get my 500 reward points because I didn't get my coupon signed by the restaurant at the time of order. This was never explained to me. I was told if I spent $50 at the restaurant I could get 500 bonus points. What they should have said is that you must spend $50 before tax and tip on one check, and you must present the coupon to be filled out and signed right then and there. This was poor execution on the hotel side so watch out for that.

One minor lookout was the cleanliness of the indoor pool. It was spring break so there was a high volume of guests, but the pool filter needed to be checked and the indoor pool and pool area were in desperate need...

Beautifully decorated and landscaped; the clean, newly modern style hotel had super friendly and helpful front desk staff. The indoor/ outdoor pool was awesome, comfy cozy lobby and sitting areas inside and outdoors. Southern grinds coffee shop is connected to the building, offering delicious breakfast and lunch items as well as tasty coffees, teas, and scooped ice cream. The coffee shop has one of the best coastal gift shops I've ever seen in the area. We were offered 500 bonus IHG points if we spent $50 in food/drink in the bar, but the menu didn't look that great, and we had our heart set on Cobalts anyway. The room was very spacious with wood like floors and modern marine decor, a very comfy bed. The bathroom and shower were also modern, with glass doors and optional spray wand. It felt like coastal luxury. It's further down from the busier strip area, but that's not a bad thing. The only inconvenience is that you can not walk or cross the busy road to access the beach because there are private rentals that don't allow pass through pedestrians. You will actually have to initial an agreement that you will not do so or be fined? If you are a smoker, they have orange Adirondack chairs in the back parking area where you can puff. Other than that, smoking is not allowed anywhere on the property, not even in front or at the coffee shop outdoor tables. They say there is a shuttle that takes you to the public beach entrance less than a mile down the road. It's a nice Pavillion and showers/bathrooms, BUT parking is $10 a day! We didn't see a shuttle but then we didn't ask. We drove there with our beach gear and paid the $10! I suppose you could walk a mile if you had a wagon to haul your stuff to avoid paying the $10 beach access lot parking fee, but who wants to do that on a hot summer day. If staying at Indigo, I would inquire exactly what does using the beach shuttle entail? Anyhow, we usually use IHG points to stay at HI on the beach but it's ridiculously expensive between Labor and Memorial day (the high season), but if your looking for a nice place to stay that's away from the hustle bustle traffic in orange beach, Indigo is great if you can make arrangements for a ride to the beach access at a time suitable for your party (or just cough up the $10 for parking...

This is our 3rd year at Hotel Indigo and while we did enjoy our stay for the most part, we were super bummed upon check in. We checked in at email time 3:00pm, we were told that with new sanitation procedures, our room wasn't ready. Understandable. So we went ahead and signed documents and then took our kids to the pool. An hour later, we go to check the progress and there are 2 other families fuming as they books the Kid's suite (same room we booked) . When asked what I had signed, I was told that I was given a Double Queen instead of the suite (a whole lot less in price but I was paying suite price) as that is all they had and 2 other families who had these rooms and were suppose to check out, extended their stay. There was 1 kids suite for 3 separate families who booked this room.

All 3 families asked to speak with the manager on duty about the issue

(Lisa) and when asked to come and speak with us, she was too busy (hiding in her office) Couri, the front desk attendant, did amazing with the situation and was able to get our family into the room we originally booked (not sure for the other 2 families).

We were disappointed though with the "sanitation measures" they took. When arriving in our room, (thank goodness for bringing our our sanatizer) you could tell the room had been rushed to be cleaned. The floor was full of sand/hair and some of the bedding you could tell hadn't been changed out. The coffee cups and 1 glass cup were also used prior and not changed out.

We did request new sheets, pillows, towels and changed them ourselves and sanitized our room.

Besides those issues our stay was nice and the room was great.

We enjoyed the rest of the staff and our trip. We may consider coming back next year, if the cleanliness issues and over booking issues...