Holiday Inn Express & Suites Syracuse North - Airport Area by IHG — Hotel in Town of Cicero

Very average experience. Arrived on a late flight and the clerk was friendly. It's a "non-smoking" property but the front desk smelled heavily cigarettes. The room was ok, but the placement of everything suggested the person who designed the rooms has never slept in one. For starters, one side of the bed has a nightstand and the other has a weird low wall about six inches from the bed. If you slept on the left with a partner, you'd have to crawl to the end of the bed to get up or risk smacking yourself in the face on this unnecessary "feature." The lights by the bed are controlled by the switch next to the door, on the opposite end of the long narrow room. Why? If you need to get up in the night, you will need a flashlight (I used my smart watch). Can't use your phone if it's charging because there is no available outlet next to the bed. Closest is the desk but again, that light is controlled by a switch near the door. Oddly, the lights in the middle of the room are independent of the door switch, and they have outlets in the base, but they are 6 feet from the bed. Getting into bed meant clambering through the darkness then almost tripping over an ottoman inexplicably placed 1 to 2 feet from the only accessible side of the bed. It's like the room was designed with no actual human occupants in mind. The people upstairs either checked in or checked out at 3:30 am. How do I know? Because I could hear every footstep for over an hour despite having the fan on high and a white noise machine running. Breakfast was mediocre. The woman stocking the buffet was working very hard. But at 8:30 there was no orange juice and no apple juice (just post-its stating the dispenser was empty) and minimal options for dietary restrictions such as vegan/vegetarian and gluten-free, as is often the case. This one lacked even the usual bowl of bananas and apples. My room (303) is next to the housekeeping closet so it's been incredibly noisy since about 7 am. Also, the hotel is a 10-minute drive from the airport if that matters to you. There are hotels all around the airport, and this is not one of them, despite the "airport area" description. I slept terribly and will definitely stay elsewhere on my...

There's a lot to "unpack" here, so let's start from the beginning. Check-in was fine. No issues. I'd payed in advance via Priceline, and everything was as it should be. Due to the snow, I asked about parking (as I didn't want to be in the way of any plows/snow removal) and they informed me that there was parking on the other end of the hotel, or in the Gander Mountain RV parking lot. Thankfully I was able to find some by the other side of the hotel near a side door. Our room was clean, tidy, and bedbug free. A mini-fridge, coffee maker, and microwave were the only appliances in the room. That night between 10pm-1am there was incessant running, stomping, and yelling/laughing in the hallway outside our door. I was exhausted from driving and only heard another patron confront someone once before I passed out. My wife however was unable to go back to sleep and continued to hear these unattended children continue to make a nuisance of themselves for hours before they finally returned to their rooms. The following morning, we considered going to a different hotel and forfeiting the second night, but ultimately we had to deal with it due to budget constraints. We left for the day, and by the time we had come back (around 8pm) our original parking space was gone, and we had to park in the Gander Mountain parking lot. As we tried to enter our room, our key-cards were not working, so we had to go back to the front desk to get them reactivated (which isn't an issue, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place). That night, again there were kids running up and down the hallway, thankfully they were stopped before we had to intervene ourselves. Checking out the following morning was fine. No issues.

Pros: Free WiFi I guess? Maybe proximity to the airport. Cons: Parking is a joke (Many of those cars had been parked there for a while judging on the accumulation of snow on them). Snow removal was sub-par at best.

Final thoughts: We probably won't be back. We'll try another hotel in the...

I’m going to be honest I never stayed here. But my disabled brother did work. And I say did because he was let go due to the fact he supposedly worked too slow and didn’t do the work up to the location’s standards . The same brother who work Disney for 12 years without an issue and had no only co-workers and mangers sorry to see him go but the guest who came regularly. So obviously he does not have poor work ethic because Disney is the stature most employers hold their employees to. The breath not only amazing customer service but above and beyond work ethic. And let’s face it this hotel does not even come close to the amount of business that Disney does. Don’t worry he will be okay, but I will not recommend this location to work or stay. I really don’t care what excuses you guys might have but I know my brother and his work ethic as long as he shown and taught. He didn’t want to sit home and collect disability but work even though he’s disabled. And with all of the greatness that came from Disney the opposite came from working at this establishment. Thank you for tearing my brother down. I hope your future employees will not have to face this discrimination. Added to the fact of my brothers six months there they have been through three executive housekeeper‘s, rotation after a rotation of housekeepers, and two front desk managers but you’re right it’s probably my brothers work ethic. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, it could potentially be the general manager, but you know I really don’t know anything it’s not like I spent four years working at a front desk of a hotel or anything. But keep trucking through Holiday Inn. I’m sure one of these days you’ll get a staff that’s gonna stay for example front desk managers, executive house, keepers, laundry attendant, housekeepers, front desk...