alamedaguy

This site makes it out to be some sort of playland. The threads that come up when I search Holidome seem to use it as a brand name, as in "the Holidome is a dump, stay at the Four Points instead." When I look for a room at the Holiday Inn @ The Pyramids in Indianapolis, one of the rates is "2 DBL BEDS W HOLIDOME ACCESS NONSMOKING." Other hotels claim to have Holidome, but do not offer such rates. Is this one just particularly, ummm, nice?

Aisle Seat H

Well, under the world Holidome on that link are the words "indoor recreation centre", and there is also a blurb explaining it as featuring "...a swimming pool or indoor water adventure as well as a variety of other activities sure to please (such as ping-pong, mini-golf, shuffleboard, and more)", with all the photos being of kids in pools.

So I think we can guess what a Holidome might be, don't you think ?!?

If you are not going there with young kids, I doubt very much it will be of any interest to you.

alamedaguy

Thanks. I actually found this thread I somehow overlooked the first time where someone asked the same question and got a couple of responses.

Shareholder

I came across this rather arcane term when booking a short family trip to the Detroit area. Stayed at one of these properties, and the Holidome was a large indoor space with various recreation activities provided...mainly aimed at children, but also a likely spot for business groups to hold socials in.

GoingAway

There was a holiday inn built where I grew up that we called a Holidome - it had a huge atrium in the center of the building with the rooms and hallways around the edges ... the outside inside was the idea.

I don't recall if there was a pool in that lobby area, but recall bars and other eating areas that gave off a garden feel. It was cool in the 70/early 80s but these days would likely not be too impressive.

mia

Holidome is simply an indoor swimming pool with adjacent recreational area.


You may wish to read the brief history of Holiday Inn here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holiday_Inn

At the outset Holiday Inns were roadside motels. In my childhood (late 1950s, early 1960s) they were clearly superior to other brands, and from a child's perspective the best feature was that each and every one had a swimming pool, typically outdoors. (I do not know if this was literally true, only that we never stayed at one without a pool.) We considered a trip successful if we could persuade our parents to stay at a Holiday Inn. It was all about the pool, and a great disappointment if the pool was closed for the season or due to weather. I don't recall encountering an indoor pool until later, but this is probably because we travelled in summer when school was out of session. By the way, we stayed at the original Holiday Inn in Memphis one summer .

dennis

xinerevelle

As a kid I spent LOTS O' TIME in Holidomes since my brother played travel hockey and we were on the road at least 2 weekends a month from October to April. This was from the time I was 11 until I was 17.

We tried to stay in Holidomes as often as we could since there were 14-18 families each with at least 1 boy aged 10+ as well as all the other siblings. We always tried to book a block of rooms together so that we didn't bother people as much (yeah, right) and the parents were usually successful at getting a "hospitality" room so that they could stay up later than the kids... otherwise they just sat in the halls after lights out.

These days the Holidome concepts seems to be similar to almost every hotel I stay in anymore, regardless of chain. They all seem to have an atrium, some sort of water feature, lucious greenery, and glass elevators. The Holidome did have the indoor pool and hot tub, and sometimes a few mini-golf holes.

Imagine the points we could've gotten if loyalty programs were pushed harder in those days! (early 1980s)

underpressure

From my perspective....

The holidome was a pretty slick way for Holiday Inn to compete against the onslaught of competition in the 70's.

Holiday Inn had all of these old hotels withoutside entrances. The built a roof that enclosed half of the rooms and were able to charge more for the Holidome side. They already had the pools in place. Slap in a ton of greenery and some arcade games and you have a holidome.

It never worked, consumers were just too smart.

PhlyingRPh

When I was little and we used to come to the U.S. for holidays, we would always stay at a number of HI's as we drove around this mammoth of a country. Definitely a late 70's - early 80's thing.

MikeMargolis

as everyone has mentioned, the Holidome is an indoor court with a pool, hot tub and small coffee shop.

Since I was there on business, and didn't really want a room with a balcony overlooking screaming children all day and night, I reserved a non-holidome room for less money.

Then I was comp upgraded to a corner suite, and that was a very nice room indeed.

My other suggestion for this hotel in particular is that you tell them to keep you far away from any entrance to the water park, or you'll be graced with even more screaming children in your aisle.

All in all, a very nice facility.