Holiday Inn Express Durham

This hotel gets a 5 for value and service, but I would go higher if I could. The front desk manager was super helpful on the phone in booking a last minute room on Labor Day weekend that accommodated our dog. My travel style is more luxury than budget, but the room was clean and modern, the free breakfast was great, and I have never met a front-​desk manager who had as much patience as the Manager on duty. The rest of the staff was super helpful. There was a refrigerator and microwave in the room and I parked right outside the door.

It’s alright, getting close to needing a pretty thorough renovation though.
It’s a safe, pretty clean place to get some sleep. The parking lot is semi-​shared with a row of apartments, the front desk will tell you the right place to park in case you can’t read signs. Breakfast in the morning was the standard Holiday Inn fare, the trash was overflowing though and that sort of was a turn off. Holiday Inn Express of Durham will work, but it’s not a place to make a destination of by itself.

Spent two nights here while attending a wedding in town.
Large, clean room with a refrigerator and microwave.
Breakfast buffet had omlettes, pancakes and the rest of the usual breakfast staples.
Fitness center only has four machines (two treadmills, a recumbent bike and an elliptical).
Free wifi.
Only one computer in business center.

This place gets the job done. Clean rooms, shampoo, conditioner, soap, kleenex, 4 hangers, two beds, one desk, one dresser, a tv, and a pear tree. The heater/​air conditioner is tricky — has some kind of energy saver setting which means that when you get in there and need to turn the system on, you need to press stuff, then wait 2 minutes to see if what you did was effective. Same deal with the TV. Might need to turn everything on and off a few times before you get the cable box and the tv on at the same time and communicating properly. Be patient, and everything works.
The breakfast was adequate — always providing cereal options, oatmeal packages, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, bagels, croissants, pancakes (via automated machine), and muffins. There are also some hot items — bacon and some kind of ham omelette one day, the other day bacon and scrambled eggs. Coffee and tea are also provided. The dining room is big enough for the 68 rooms they have, assuming an average occupancy rate of about 30%.
The hotel is located a few blocks from UNH, and has free parking (though you must get a printout from the desk to leave on the dash to avoid being towed). Folks who work here are really friendly, and there were always cookies at the front desk that were freely available to guests. Very close proximity to delicious food at Ffrost tavern down the block and downtown Durham. Would definitely stay here again. Rate was somewhat reasonable for the walkability to town and the university, $ 99/​night.

This is probably the worst hotel I’ve ever stayed in, and it’s not even that the rooms and/​or location were that terrible.
The staff here is absolutely the rudest bunch of employees I have ever had the displeasure of coming in contact with. We’re not talking regular rude, we’re talking spit-​in-​your-​food-​slamming-​the-​door-​on-​you kind of rude.
Let’s start with our check in. Our rooms had been paid for 8 months in advance for a wedding. Someone else’s name was on our booked room (fine) but I called earlier to make sure we didn’t have to do anything special when we checked in. «Nope, just list the name on the room» Sue said. Well, we get there after driving 4 hours and they won’t let us check in — just as I expected. Luckily the party our room was listed under just arrived. The staff continued to be tart and short with all four of us. Completely uninterested and not helpful they shooed us up to our rooms without even telling us where they were.
Fast forward and we arrive back at the hotel around 1:30 am. I see a sign for «parking passes required or you will be towed». Funny, we NEVER GOT A PARKING PASS. I went in and argued with another «manager» at the front desk for a pass. He kept telling me he gave us one and he didn’t. See comment above about other party listed on our reservation. SHE didn’t get a parking pass and neither did we. Rudest man I’ve ever encountered, EVER. Obviously, the hotel (and it’s staff) are in cahoots with the towing company.
Of course I wake up the next morning and Skippy’s Towing, whatever the name of it, has towed our car across the street. It’s $ 120.00 to bail our car out from ACROSS THE STREET because the man at the counter NEVER GAVE US A PARKING PASS and then REFUSED TO GIVE ME ONE THAT NIGHT.
We won’t even pay too much attention to the fact that our family stayed in the room next door and they could never tell them how to get the messages of their machine. Or how the hotel staff was swearing a big stream of expletives throughout the hallway one morning, or how we asked «what is fun to do around here» and were given the cold shoulder.
Sue, the «manager» stands out in my mind as one of the worst, nastiest, rudest employees/​human being I have ever encountered. How rude of a hotel that had so many rooms blocked off for our special event to treat us so poorly.
Holiday Inn, you should be ashamed of yourselves. I won’t be supporting you in the future.

Not sure if all the rooms are huge but ended up with a suite on the third floor (room 322). Hotel was in nice shape, cookies, fruit, and hot cider available on check in. Reasonably priced. Heater/​AC units are a little noisier than is normal and cardio room could use some weights along with daily replenishing of the towels and water cooler. Staff was super nice. Wi-​fi was solid. I’d certainly stay here again.