Holiday Inn Express & Suites Santa ANA - Orange County by IHG — Hotel in Santa Ana

If I could give negative stars I would. The location did not feel safe. The hotel is aware of this and employs security to basically keep the homeless from harassing hotel guests. If you do decide to try to walk down the street you will be dodging people passed out on the sidewalks. My room was not cleaned, which I didn't notice until later the night that I checked in since I just dropped my luggage in the room and left. Around 1030 that night when I got back to my room I went to take a shower and saw that that shower had hair and dirt and grime covering a lot of the shower floor, the sink also has what looked like dried coffee that had been dumped into the sink at some point. Wiping the sink with a wet cloth wiped away the stains but this simply showed that whoever put the folded towels in the bathroom didn't bother to even wipe down any surfaces let alone actually clean thing. The same brown liquid stain that was in the bathroom sink was also present on 1 of the headboards behind the bed. Called the front desk and my option was to pack up my things and move to a different room at 1030pm because they didn't have anyone available to clean the bathroom in the room I was in. When I said that was unacceptable and pressed for a better solution magically an employee was found to come up and wipe down the shower floor. Later it was near impossible to sleep due to the loud traffic noise. This hotel has non existent sound proofing, not only is the traffic noise very loud but you can also hear everything other guests do and say. And the volley of gunfire that rang out at night was also very loud. The hotel has 2 elevators but 1 was broken. This wouldn't have been a big issue if guests weren't vying for elevator space with employees and their large carts. It took 45 minutes to check out because housekeeping staff were using the 1 elevator to ride up and down with their carts which took up so much space in the elevator that you couldn't get on with any luggage. I watched the same housekeeper and her cart stop on floor 6 twice while I was waiting to bring my luggage down on the elevator. Due to this ridiculous timeframe to simply get on an elevator I ended up being late for an appointment. Perhaps one of the biggest disappointments is the fake reviews on this hotel's website. Reading through the reviews there was one 5 star review praising the hotel's excellent location across from the Anaheim parks. This hotel isn't even in Anaheim and the only thing across the street is a gathering of people getting high. Also 5 star reviews discussing room service and the hotel restaurant. This hotel offers a free breakfast, not exactly what I'd call a restaurant, and no room service. Once you finally get past the obviously fake reviews talking about things that this hotel doesn't have you can start to read the multiple reviews like mine discussing uncleaned rooms, particularly bathrooms, as well as the perceived safeness of the area. Also the broken elevator and issues other guests had trying to vie for elevator space with hotel staff. It became clear the issues I experienced were not one off unusual things but rather issues experienced by many others and repeatedly not addressed by the management of this hotel. To summarize: don't believe the high star rating as there are positive reviews that obviously do not apply to this property. The hotel isn't clean and management appears to not care since, based on other reviews, it continues to be a problem. The location is not safe and management knows this, as evidenced by the security guard who hangs out outside the hotel and ushers people off property. The elevator has been broken for quite a while, may or may not be the fault of management but guests having to either carry luggage down many flights of stairs or wait 5, 10 or more minutes for the elevator to have enough room for a person and luggage due to staff monopolizing the only elevator during check out hours demonstrates management not prioritizing guests. It's not difficult to ask staff to avoid loading carts during checkout hours, especially since it appeared all floors had a housekeeping room with supplies. Stay here at your own risk, from both a cleanliness standard and also safety. I will never stay at this location again and probably won't stay an any IHG branded hotels after this absolutely...

The location did not feel safe. The hotel is aware of this and employs security to basically keep the homeless from harassing hotel guests. If you do decide to try to walk down the street you will be dodging people passed out on the sidewalks. My room was not cleaned, which I didn't notice until later the night that I checked in since I just dropped my luggage in the room and left. Around 1030 that night when I got back to my room I went to take a shower and saw that that shower had hair and dirt and grime covering a lot of the shower floor, the sink also has what looked like dried coffee that had been dumped into the sink at some point. Wiping the sink with a wet cloth wiped away the stains but this simply showed that whoever put the folded towels in the bathroom didn't bother to even wipe down any surfaces let alone actually clean thing. The same brown liquid stain that was in the bathroom sink was also present on 1 of the headboards behind the bed. Called the front desk and my option was to pack up my things and move to a different room at 1030pm because they didn't have anyone available to clean the bathroom in the room I was in. When I said that was unacceptable and pressed for a better solution magically an employee was found to come up and wipe down the shower floor. Later it was near impossible to sleep due to the loud traffic noise. This hotel has non existent sound proofing, not only is the traffic noise very loud but you can also hear everything other guests do and say. And the volley of gunfire that rang out at night was also very loud. The hotel has 2 elevators but 1 was broken. This wouldn't have been a big issue if guests weren't vying for elevator space with employees and their large carts. It took 45 minutes to check out because housekeeping staff were using the 1 elevator to ride up and down with their carts which took up so much space in the elevator that you couldn't get on with any luggage. I watched the same housekeeper and her cart stop on floor 6 twice while I was waiting to bring my luggage down on the elevator. Due to this ridiculous timeframe to simply get on an elevator I ended up being late for an appointment. Perhaps one of the biggest disappointments is the fake reviews on this hotel's website. Reading through the reviews there was one 5 star review praising the hotel's excellent location across from the Anaheim parks. This hotel isn't even in Anaheim and the only thing across the street is a gathering of people getting high. Also 5 star reviews discussing room service and the hotel restaurant. This hotel offers a free breakfast, not exactly what I'd call a restaurant, and no room service. Once you finally get past the obviously fake reviews talking about things that this hotel doesn't have you can start to read the multiple reviews like mine discussing uncleaned rooms, particularly bathrooms, as well as the perceived safeness of the area. Also the broken elevator and issues other guests had trying to vie for elevator space with hotel staff. It became clear the issues I experienced were not one off unusual things but rather issues experienced by many others and repeatedly not addressed by the management of this hotel. To summarize: don't believe the high star rating as there are positive reviews that obviously do not apply to this property. The hotel isn't clean and management appears to not care since, based on other reviews, it continues to be a problem. The location is not safe and management knows this, as evidenced by the security guard who hangs out outside the hotel and ushers people off property. The elevator has been broken for quite a while, may or may not be the fault of management but guests having to either carry luggage down many flights of stairs or wait 5, 10 or more minutes for the elevator to have enough room for a person and luggage due to staff monopolizing the only elevator during check out hours demonstrates management not prioritizing guests. It's not difficult to ask staff to avoid loading carts during checkout hours, especially since it appeared all floors had a housekeeping room with supplies. Stay here at your own risk, from both a cleanliness standard and also safety. I will never stay at this location again and probably won't stay an any IHG branded hotels after this absolutely...

I couldn’t agree more with that review right under me. This hotel is an absolute nightmare! Paid quite a bit for an overpriced suite here at this hotel for three nights. The third night (tonight) they were having a party outside the hotel that sounded like it was right outside my window. Extremely loud music and screaming. I have to be up early and get some sleep. I cannot imagine having a child here trying to get them to sleep with this chaos. I called and asked them when it would be over at 8. They said 10. At 10:30 nothing had stopped and infact had only gotten louder and louder so I called at this point had a headache from the outside noise in my hotel suite and they said 12. The guy said all he could offer me is ear plugs because “they paid a lot of money to be here.” I don’t give a damn what they paid, and I shouldn’t have to wear ear plugs in my hotel room to sleep. I paid money too, and so did every other paying person staying here, and I shouldn’t have to pay to be at a hotel where I can’t sleep because yall cannot keep the noise down. So you only care about the people that pay for parties?? The rest of your guests don’t matter. Got it. Extremely rude and inconsiderate. The customer service is terrible. I have to get up early in the morning and I am not going to be able to sleep with my headache I now have. On top of that I have to wait to speak with the manager who apparently doesn’t show up until 10. I would highly, highly recommend staying somewhere else. This stay has been less than pleasant and the management here does not care at all about their “regular paying” guests.

Update: progressively louder and louder so I went down to front desk and the front desk girl said no management is there tonight which seems ridiculous to me and that all she could do tonight is let me check out… you’re now offering for me to check out so I can go somewhere else and pay for some decent sleep that I couldn’t get here when I’ve already paid $600 for this suite with no refund tonight. Not to mention when I reminded the girl up front that the other paying guests matter too which apparently according to her, and this hotel they don’t. She also let me know that the whole floor was complaining which says a lot. Then she let me know she only saw $200 on their side for me for what I paid according to her. I had to remind her yeah $200 for the damn night. I guess she is saying you don’t value your guests that actually only do pay $200 for the whole stay? What a unprofessional and weird thing to even say. How embarrassing for you to even offer for me to check out at this time at night when you have no manager and can not yet offer me a refund, and for this to be acceptable for this line of hotels. Indecent and obnoxious!!! This place is a joke.

It’s 12:30 now and party still going on. I have called the front desk from my phone and the room phone and they will not answer. My neighbor has also called and they aren’t answering her either. This hotel obviously does not care at all about their guests trying to sleep! Won’t even answer my room phone.

It’s now 1:00 in the morning and party still going on. Wish I could post time stamped videos of how loud and obnoxious it is for everyone to see.

Update: party didn’t end until 3am. Went to front desk this morning and manager isn’t here yet but the girl just said “I know.” So once again if you want to stay at a hotel where you actually get some sleep and they value you whether you pay $200, $600, or for a whole damn party...