Holiday Inn Express & Suites Vandalia by IHG — Hotel in Vandalia

CAUTION...the new GM here...... HE NEEDS TO BE RE TRAINED AND THE MAINTENANCE MAN AGGRESSIVELY STEPPED UP TO ME BECAUSE I ASKED TO SEE WHAT HE WAS PUTTING IN THE TEST VILE OF POOL WATER. I HAVE AN ALMOST TWENTY MINUTE VIDEO OF IT ALL RECORDED! THE MAINTENANCE GUY WAS SO AGGRESSIVE TOWARD ME WITH THE GM AT HIS SIDE, THAT HE LITERALLY SNAPPED HIS KEY OFF IN THE MAINTENANCE ROOM OF THE POOL AREA 👀👀😵‍💫💯💯💯 WE WERE POISONED HERE AND THE HAVE THE AUDACITY TO ACT LIKE I JUST WANTED A FREE STAY 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 JUST WATCH THE VIDEO OF US IN THE POOL AREA, YOU CAN SEE OUR DAUGHTER GET OUT AND RUN TO GET A TOWEL TO HELP HER EYES. YOU CANT EVEN STAND IN THERE WITHOUT YOUR EYES AND THROAT BURNING. 😭😭😭😭 OUR BABIES WERE SO SICK. HOW DARE YOU!! IF I COULD GIVE THIS PLACE A ZERO I WOULD! DEFINITELY NOT STAYING AT HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS EVER AGAIN. YUP HILTON HONORS HERE 💯💯 THIS PLACE IS JANKY. We are staying here now, on a 3,000 Mile journey. My 7&5 yr old children and myself have been chlorine poisoned at this pool. Yesterday evening I decided to take our children for a swim in the indoor pool. It wasn't ten minutes went by before we started coughing, sneezing, runny nose, burning eyes, nausea, and burning throats. It took me a minute to realize we were being poisoned by the pool. We couldn't even stay in the pool area because it was so humid with chlorine in there you can't really breath. We had to run out soaking wet to get a breath of fresh air 😥. It's hours later and the kids are coughing in their sleep and I'm up with burning eyes and cramping stomach. The front desk attendants Wes and Brian were extremely unhelpful. They wouldn't help me get any containers for water so we could flush out our systems, or anything. Told me I couldn't use a container from the breakfast areas because they were going to be using that..... Ummmmmm, my family, my children have been poisoned by your pool, the only thing we can do is flush and you won't help us. The nurses advice line told me to go to the emergency room. However, the folks here taking " care " of their customers could care less about that. On top of that, our bathroom is dirty, the tub doesn't drain, the sink doesn't drain, the tv is all static, and just dang 😞 I'm so tired 😩 and now have to try to put more drops in my eyes to stop the burning so that i might get back to sleep. Listening to my children coughing in their sleep because I took them swimming and didn't take them out of that pool quick enough is breaking my heart 😥😥 I feel like I should have protected them from that, but had no idea it was going to happen. We put trust in these places when we pay for these rooms, in these ppl. However, it shows that these ppl don't care about anything but the money. To my children, I'm sorry I didn't protect you from this. I hope you feel better soon. I have pictures of the dirtiness and flooded bath and sink, just no where to put them. With that said, the room has potential. Big room, very spacious, great location, Hot water sucks tho. Next to auto zone, Walmart, and Sonic is about four miles away. Y'all way DROPPED THE BALL. CAUTION TO ANYONE...

This hotel is a mixed bag. First and foremost, I have to commend the maintenance lady that works here. She went above and beyond to try and correct some of the shortcomings of this hotel. She was amazing and really should be the one running this place. Especially in place of the GM who was there during the day.

We checked in in the evening and had reserved an ADA handicap-accessible room for my mother who is 80 yrs old and on an oxygen machine. The room was what you would expect, however upon looking in the shower, there was no showering bench. I managed to run into the maintenance lady who promptly located one and brought it to us.

When pulling down the bed, we saw what appeared to be blood on the sheet. A very small spot. Regardless, we needed the sheets replaced. Again, the maintenance lady went out of her way and corrected the issue.

At about 10pm we I went back into the bathroom and stepped into a puddle of water. I found that water was leaking from the ceiling and was causing the drywall to come apart as well.

I contacted the front desk clerk and the guy froze. His response was to ask me what I wanted him to do. I told him he needed to come up and look at the leak and go to the room above to make sure there wasn't anything continuously leaking.He finally came to our room, and didn't even have the sense to grab a trash can to place under the running leak to catch the water. I asked him if he went to the room above and he said he called the room and they didn't answer. Again I had to explain to him that he needed to make sure there wasn't a serious leak and to go to the room upstairs. He then decided to call back the poor maintenance lady to have her look at it.

After all was said and done, I had to clean the mess myself, and contain the leak in our bathroom. The maintenance lady offered us another ADA room but stated it wasn't cleaned yet and that she would have to clean the room before we could move. By that time, it was 11pm, we are all unpacked and I was not moving rooms with an 80 yr old who was tired from traveling and also in a wheelchair.

The straw that broke the camels back was the following morning. When I informed the GM who was there on the dayshift, he credited 30% off the room (which made it the same price as one of their standard rooms). I walked out with receipt in hand and after thinking about it, realized that was unacceptable for the stay we just had. I went back in to discuss it with the GM who decided to argue with me that his 20 years of hotel experience told him the spot on the sheet was rust, not blood. (Not sure how he could tell that unless he was a hotel forensics specialist). He then escalated his tone and became condescending with me and asked, "well what would you like from me?". I told him to comp the room as that would be appropriate after all that just went on. He did so and we left.

IF he has been in the hospitality industry for 20 years, he either has become far too complacent or he was never really good at his job in the...

I'm surprised there's so many stars for this place. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Wheeling, WV and it was wonderful, gorgeous, etc. So we decided to stay with IHG again in Vandalia, but this location was such a let down.

When we got to the room, you could hear loud talking from outside and smell smoke from people smoking right outside the main entrance. I was surprised I could hear through the walls. I have two young children, and that wasn't going to fly. I went to check out the window, and it was cracked open!!! Like wtf. I didn't know you could still open windows in hotels. I was bugged out at this point. The shampoo dispenser was broken. The coffee maker wouldn't turn on at all. I tried to unplug and try again and nothing. There were only 3 towels, they were stringy and tattered and barely folded. They did NOT enforce the 10pm quiet policy. There were a few drunk, loud men next to us carrying on well past 11:30pm....I just wanted to sleep and move on.

The next morning, I promised my kids a swim. We were in there early morning at 7am, an hour after it opened, and there were clumps of dirt on the bottom, and a dirty bandaid right by the pool. Sweet, so they don't clean it when they close it up or open it. There were NO towels in the room at all (luckily we brought our own but others who came in did not). A man had come in and opened the maintenance door, rummage around and then just stood there watching us. With my young kids, I was unnerved about it and the clientele made me feel like I needed to be on guard. I said something to my husband and then the man left. Later I found he must have been the manager. I'm curious as to how he thought that pool was clean enough to open, and that he didn't tell us about the door to the pool room being broken or the towels being out.

So, the door to the pool room was broken, which I didn't know until another young lady tried to leave and she couldn't open it from the inside. I had to slam my weight into it to open it and then we had to use a trash can to prop it open..... again the man in there before worked there. Didn't alert us to any of it.

We finished up and checked out and that's when I met the man who was in the pool room before. I did tell him about the door and a few other things, and him and the concierge just nodded like, "Oh yeah that's common."

Ugh, I was just very happy to be out of there. While the front desk ladies were kind, that was just an awfully managed...