Holiday Inn Denver Downtown
Holiday Inn Express Denver Downtown
What is your Priority Club status?
Ambassador Diamond
Were you (or for multi-stayers are you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?
Not so much.
I had a meeting in downtown Denver and wanted to stay somewhere close to the Convention Center and the meeting venue. The Holiday Inn Express fit the bill as the Kimpton was much more expensive and the Indigo a bit further away.
I took a Lyft from the airport as my flight had landed delayed at midnight. Thus, I arrived at the hotel at 01:30 am. Entrance is locked, and you had to ring the bell. It took a few minutes till the agent on duty let me in.
The agent was nevertheless friendly. She retrieved the reservation from the system, check my ID and explained that breakfast would be served from 06:30 to 09:30 on weekdays and 07:00 till 10:00 on weekends. Not mentioning any upgrades but thanking me for my loyalty.
As I was not asked about my choice of amenity, I assumed it was set to points.
The lobby is very small. The restaurant offered large windows to 17th street and a variety of different seating options. It could also be used during the day as space to work / wait and coffee was available throughout the day.
There are only two elevators. This alone are not that much but as one broke Friday Evening the waiting time the next days was substantial and up to 10 minutes. And it for sure did not help that there were people taking if from the first floor to the second floor ignoring the stairs. Stairs were not an option from the higher floors.
The hotel offers a fitness center on the fifth floor and meeting rooms on the second floor.
The fitness room is narrow but offers a surprisingly great variety of different machines.
The hotel is also connected to the Brown Palace Hotel by a covered walkway. Parking would have been Valet only for 50 USD (I did not have a car with me).
Breakfast is the usual Holiday In Express affair with burgers, scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, fruit, yoghurt, bagels. Plastic Cutlery and paper plates.
Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
I had booked a room with two kings on points using the discount for elite members in September. Cash night for my four-night stay would have been 169 USD including taxes.
How are the rooms?
The room is average sized. It was located on the 8th floor (of 22) and thus quite low, I had requested a room on a higher floor.
After entering the room, the bathroom was to the left. More of the small side with bath, sink and toilet. Water pressure was very weak, and it took five minutes before the water finally became warm (it never went really hot). There was enough space to store utensils. Shampoo, Lotion, etc were wall mounted and by Dove. Four Towels (small, medium, large) were provided.
Opposite the entrance to the bath was the closet. It also featured a safe, which was locked. It was unlocked on my request by engineering the next morning. The safe is large enough for storing a laptop.
The room consists of two beds, a large TV with a small sideboard and a desk under the desk. It could be pulled out. A desk lamp with two international power outlets was also nice to have. Three other power outlets were available as well.
An armchair was left of the desk and a fridge and microwave to the right.
Mattress was very soft.
Air condition / heating was not existent. As much as I like that there was a cover over the air outlet which could adjusted that there was no drought, the setting was either on or off. The temperature set to 68°F could not adjusted. I turned it off, as the room was okay and heated up as the sun was shining in the room. It became cold during the night given the weak isolation and the cold outside temperature of 43 to 50°F during the night. I could live with this as I prefer a colder room during the night. But if was even then a bit chilly if you had do work in the early morning and attend a video conference at 03:00 am.
The design of the room was not the typical Holiday Inn Express design. It would have been actually quite nice. If it would have been in better conditions. The lamp on the bedside table was broken and the parts loose. The light above the bed could be dimmed and the standing lamp was nice. Also, the color scheme using warm colors was nice.
Sound proofing on the other side was not the best (not uncommon in the US).
Housekeeping is not the best. Items (coffee capsules were replaced but towels were only partly restocked and in general cleaning was very careless. I tipped 5 USD / night. Make a green choice is available (I used it for the first night) and the third night, but points never posted.
How is the exec. lounge?
N/A
What was good and what was bad?
Good
Location
Good connection to public transport
Many sockets
Staff is usually friendly and helpful
in-room safe
Neutral
Number of elevators
Design of the room
Bad
Quality of breakfast
Soundproofing
Air Condition / heating
water pressure and water temperature
housekeeping
Condition of room
Value for $ or Priority Club Points? Would you return?
The location is good. Staff is (mostly) friendly.
It could be a nice hotel if there were not a larger number of small problems like air condition, that the rooms are in not so good condition (not to say run down), the water pressure and the long wait for warm water. Only two elevator means longer wait, only one elevator caused long waits. The rates were not that low to justify staying there again.
Holiday Inn Express Denver Downtown / Building
Holiday Inn Express Denver Downtown / Bathroom
Holiday Inn Express Denver Downtown / Bathroom
Holiday Inn Express Denver Downtown / Room
Holiday Inn Express Denver Downtown / Room
Holiday Inn Express Denver Downtown / Room
Holiday Inn Express Denver Downtown / Details of broken lamp
Holiday Inn Express Denver Downtown / Breakfast area