Holiday Inn Express & Suites St. Cloud by IHG — Hotel in St. Cloud

As I laid in bed, I put the following dominos together which did not provide me any sleep as I waited for the next event of someone busting into my room.

I checked in early at approx. 2:00 P.M. for a one night stay.

At approx. 2:45 P.M. I got a call on the room phone. Thought it was strange. No one at work knew where I was. I answered it and I assume it was hotel staff asking if my room was OK and if I wanted any tooth paste. Thought it was strange but, went back to doing some laptop work in the hotel room.

At approx. 3:30 P.M. I was laying on the bed watching TV while playing some games on my iPad when all of a sudden my hotel door opened and than heard a shallow, “Sorry” and the door closed.

After the door closed, I got up and looked down the hall and down the stairway which was immediately across from my room. No housekeeping cart or anyone to be seen.

I immediately called the front desk and informed them someone had entered my room with a key. They asked if it sounded like a male or female voice. I said female and they said they’d contact the hotel manager and check it out.

Within about a minute to my surprise I had a call back. They said it was hotel staff and that I should put a “DND tag” on my door. I told them I did not see a reason for staff to be entering my room. They insisted I needed to put a “DND tag” on my door. I then said if I had left the room I had electronic devices and personal belongs in the room and I was concerned. Again they insisted I needed to put a “DNA tag” on your door.

I laid in bed watching TV thinking how I could be at fault for failing to put a “DND tag” on my door allowing staff in my room. I stay in hotels frequently and have never had hotel staff enter my room for a one night stay uninvited to attend to something.

At approx. 5:30 P.M. I thought about this enough and decided to talk to the hotel manager face to face. My room number was 432 directly across the hall from the fire escape stairway. The fire door leading to the stairway was wedged fully open. The hotel room kitty corner across the hall from me had a “DND tag” hung on the door. As I walked to the elevator positioned on the center of the building, I noticed no other “DND tags” and no security cameras on my 4th floor. I then reversed and decided to go down the stairway adjacent to my room. Sure enough, the stairway lead to an exterior door with cars parked immediately outside and you didn’t need to enter the first floor hallway to be seen.

I then went to the front desk and asked to speak to the hotel manager. The manager was summoned to the front and I asked her just to listen to me and not comment. I expressed my concerns reviewing how someone unannounced had entered my room. Talking to her, I could tell this was all new information to her but, the staff at the counter couldn’t wait to interject. I asked the counter staff to wait and let me finish. After finishing, the counter staff jumped in and stated it was her that told me to put the “DND tag” on the door and that it was a soft spoken staff member that had entered the room and should have knocked first. The manger was sympathetic and stated she would review this incident with the other managers. I expressed concern that if I had been missing items without a forced entry, I might not miss them until after I had left the hotel or thought I had left them at a previous work location.

The next day during checkout, I asked if it was customary to check in on hotel staff by phone to see how everything is. The staff counter person informed me, “ We’re supposed to but, we don’t have the time.”

Call me paranoid but, I didn’t sleep well waiting for someone to bust into my room that night. I probably should have just checked out and gone somewhere else I would feel safe. I have never felt as unsafe that night ever but, the dominos kept lining up for an event I did not want...

This was our 3rd night, but got an additional room so our friends with a larger family could use our "big" suite....well it was supposed to be the big 2 bedroom suite with 2 baths, but 2 days before arrival they called and said they could NOT honor our reservation (even though we had reserved this about 3 months in advance) because they had people using that room and they wanted to stay longer! They said it's their policy to not honor a reservation if someone is in the room and wants to stay additional nights! WHO DOES THAT! Needless to say I was NOT HAPPY!

We were staying there for our Daughters wedding and needed the space to do wedding stuff. They did give us 2 different rooms, one was a 1 bedroom 2 queen suite & the other just a regular 2 queen room and didn't charge us more (which they shouldn't) for the 3 days we were there.

So in this new room of ours the one queen had hair on the sheets and a pillow, and the other one had some weird scabby pieces and flecks of something on it.

I went to the desk at midnight (mind you we had been at the venue since 9am and were exhausted) when I discovered it to get new sheets and a pillow case. He said, well I will see if I have any left...there have been other guests having the same issues with hair on their linens. It's just the housekeepers long hair...we have been having problems with that at times. GROSS....who cares whose hair it is! I told him it is for the bed with the scabby flecks I want new sheets for.

While he was in the back looking for the linen another customer had come down with a pillow in his hand. He told me that their linen was full of hair also and that they had just gotten new sheets and pillow cases....he then showed me his pillow case full of what appeared to be dog hair (for the most part). He was completely disgusted and they were leaving for another hotel.

The man came back with the linen and said I looked them over and they don't appear to have any hair on them I thanked him and went to the room and changed the sheets. They were fine. I felt bad that this man had to deal with all these linen issues.

I am not sure what is going on at this hotel! Maybe the person doing the laundry is newer or they need more training or maybe they need new washing machines or ?????

We were surprised to see that they allowed pets at this hotel...especially large dogs.

On the up side....the staff overall were very nice. Had some wonderful conversations with one of the ladies who was doing the...

We wanted a wonderful night out with our two children so this was a planned family overnight trip to enjoy the pool, swimming, hot tub and just some quality time. Sadly upon checking into our room we saw stains on the outer blanket top on both beds, hair in the bathtub and the fridge still had items in it from whoever stayed in it previous to us which I thought was very strange. It is like the housekeeper forgot to do multiple things on her checklist prior to our check in. We were supposed to get a room with two queen beds and instead we were given a room with two double beds it seemed. We have queen beds at home and the beds we slept in were def not queen beds OR maybe hotel queen beds are smaller than traditional queen beds at home. It was very strange that the beds were smaller. The beds were very uncomfortable and all four of us woke up with aches and pains. It really was not a comfortable relaxing overnight stay. We wanted to use the pool and hot tub the next morning since checkout was to be at 11am but when we got ready and all went down to the pool the next morning there was caution tape surrounding the hot tub and we were told we could not use it. That was def a huge bummer for all four of us because it was one of the main reasons that we got a hotel for a night out was to enjoy the pool and hot tub as much as possible. If we would have known that the hot tub was going to be closed we would have probably rented a different hotel in St Cloud since that was so important to us.

The good about the hotel is the location right off an I-94 exit so the ease of getting on and off the freeway was excellent. The distance into the actual town of St Cloud was about a 10min drive to shops and into the center of town. The hotel is located right across the street from the Pilot truck stop, McDonalds and Subway restaurant so it was very easy to grab a bite to eat before we checked in and after we checked out. The morning breakfast at the hotel was absolutely spectacular. They had a full buffet style breakfast. Going from right to left on the counter was an amazing pancake machine, hot fresh cinnamon rolls, toast, muffins, fresh hot biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, veggie and egg omelette, sausage links, turkey sausage patties, juices, milks,...