Holiday Inn Express Rochester - University Area — Hotel in Town of Brighton

My friends and I were visiting Rochester this past weekend for the first time and we stayed at this Holiday Inn Express. Check-in was a fairly easy process. Unfortunately, the hotel was double booked as the Holiday Inn Express downtown shut down last minute without notice. You could tell that the two ladies who were checking-in us in were stressed, but they handled it well. These ladies were friendly and quick during this process.

Hotel rooms come with a standard shower, mini-fridge, microwave, dresser, bed, safe, television and office table. I find that the mini-fridges are never cold enough in any hotel, so don’t plan on utilizing this. Upon further inspection of the room, the office table and shelf/desk between our two queen beds were dusty and not cleaned properly. We brought our own Lysol wipes to clean this down.

Air conditioning works extremely well. Water pressure and temperature was good in the shower. The sink faucet dispenses hot water, but you need to let it run for quite some time. Bathrooms come with complementary soap, shampoo, conditioner, and lotion which is a nice touch. I’m not sure if housekeeping is good or not as we always went down and asked for more bath towels.

The pool was heated e and breakfast started at 6:00 am and finished at 9:30 am. I recommend that you go earlier as the food is the most fresh at that time and it tends to get busier the later you go. There’s not enough seating for everyone to sit down and enjoy their breakfast (assuming that everyone goes at the same time).

The food was your typical continental American breakfast; egg and cheese omelettes, pancakes, oatmeal, cereal, muffins, yogurt, bagels, cinnamon buns, pork sausages, and turkey sausages. The cinnamon buns were so good. Grab yourself some before they run out. For juices, they had orange and apple juice; unfortunately, no cranberry. They also have coffee; both caffeinated and decaf in addition to tea available all day long. However, they don’t refill the coffee or hot water for the tea throughout the entire day, so definitely go in the morning and early afternoon (do not wait until the evening) as there will be nothing there.

The building has two elevators and they operate quickly. Each floor comes with an ice-machine and the hotel has an indoor gym and business area as you walk into the hotel towards your left. Parking is good (probably around 50 spots or more). The hotel is close to Walmart and Costco. There’s also plenty of places to purchase food i.e. restaurants nearby that are less than 15 minutes away.

Our stay overall was a fairly...

DO NOT VISIT IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN! Before arrival I was charged an extra $100 of top of my hotel booking cost even though it said I could pay at the hotel. When I got to the hotel they refunded and then recharged my same card even though I wanted to use a different form of payment but that was not possible. We arrived at 4pm (check in was as early as 3) and just traveled 6 hours with a 1 year old & 6 year old. We got up to our room and at first glance thought the room wasn’t so bad. Within seconds my 1 year old found chewed up gummies on the floor all near the edge of the second bed. We let it go because if that was the worst then we could handle that. But then I had requested a crib which during booking I was offered a crib and declined because I was going to bring my play N play for our son to sleep in but we didn’t. When I went down to the front desk to request the crib I was only greeted by a very helpful and nice maintenance guy and he had to pull the front desk staff from outside. He came in very annoyed to have had his conversation interrupted and when I asked for the crib he quickly responded “we don’t put cribs in double rooms” and turned away from me and answered a phone call which from a guest did not sound like an emergency call he needed to stop his job for. The maintenance guy proceeded to try and solve my crib issue and I said I would be okay with putting blankets down on the floor if I could have some extras and he was willing to do either the crib or the blankets. The front desk guy comes back to the conversation while looking at his phone and says I could get blankets. Doesn’t ask what room number and never got the blankets but we were given the crib. The next morning my 1 year old finds trash filling behind the entertainment desk (video provided). But it did not stop there, when giving my children baths I noticed the faucet was not properly secured and the water took minutes to get even room temperature causing issues with my child wanting to even bathe because it would not warm up. Breakfast was not great, bananas were brown and old, watery eggs, dry and brunt sausage. To finalize things, I woke up with a bug...

I’ll start with the good first. The General Manager came through at the end having been out on a medical issue. He came to work and what he found was a straight up disaster area. Ultimately, I cut my stay short because it was going to take Mr. Vazquez days to clean up and unravel the mess left by his staff. I appreciated Mr. Vazquez’s attention and openness to hear constructive criticism and acknowledge the mess his staff had created with his absence. Thank you. However, it started from the moment I walked in. The front desk vacant for 15 minutes. Finally, employee comes out (disheveled), does not acknowledge my Spire Elite status, does not offer a welcome amenity and when I ask about an upgrade; her response was “I don’t know anything about that”, and continues to give me my key and moves on. I’ll chalk that up to lack of training - in my head. Following day, in the late evening my next door neighbor goes on a tirade and I am unsure if he is beating someone up or whatnot. I call front desk and report and the response was “oh ok”. It got to the point that the Police needed to show up. Was there any follow-up from the front desk: no. Next day in the morning, I requested that the room be cleaned and the clog in the bathtub be unclogged. I asked @ 0730, 0830, and 0930. Came back from work @ 1800, and nothing. Nothing was done and to top it off the front desk clerk was outside having a great time smoking and laughing it up with another guest (more to come on the guest). When I asked about the room not being cleaned, the front desk employee (while smoking) blamed me for not requesting in the morning. Anyhow, I decided to leave the next morning. In the meantime, the guest that was all laughs and cigarettes with the front desk clerk was the same guest who that night had a full blown lovers quarrel on the 4th floor hallway and necessitated several guests to step out and tell them to shut up. Did the front desk do anything about this: no.

Ok, enough. I spoke to the manager in the morning and now the ball is...