Holiday Inn Express & Suites Suffolk

This one was perfectly adequate as far as the basics. The room was clean, amenities were mostly okay, and I was able to get my rest. So I wouldn’t throw a fit if I had to come back.
But there was weirdness. Wifi was slow — below the advertised speeds, to the point that I’d recommend not saying you have it if this is what you mean by wifi. And for some reason, the thermostat on the wall in the room is connected to nothing at all. It meant an extra visit or two with the front desk to get the (loud, squeaky) A/​C system working: The secret is to ignore the thermostat entirely and fiddle with the wall unit. (And even that took awhile, since the only employee onsite had urgent personal business in the parking lot and didn’t notice me for a bit.)
I ignored Holiday Inn as an option for many years based on some bad experiences, but I was pleasantly surprised with their operation in Dayton. This is more what I was used to back in the day, so I’ll look elsewhere next time.

As a nationally recognized franchise I expect much more from this brand. Although the rooms were clean and the staff was friendly, they were completely unwilling to do anything about the massive party in one of the rooms at 1am. Loud music, yelling and tons of foot traffic surely received more complaints than just mine. I don’t know what more to say.

I don’t understand the hate for this property. It’s a Holiday Inn Express, not a Crown Plaza. I’ve now stayed at this hotel a handful of times and it’s been a pleasant experience each time. The hotel is new and furnished well. I stayed in a spacious king room that had a seating area with a couch and a table. The breakfast wasn’t bad– your typical continental type breakfast. The selection was nice — sausage, eggs, a pancake machine, waffles, bagels, etc. They even had Chobani Greek yogurt if that’s your thing. The hotel is in what appears to be a new section of Suffolk, away from the downtown area. Food options are decent in the direct vicinity, but it’s just about a 5 – 10 minute drive to the downtown area where there are a ton of options.

First, the good:
The place is pretty clean. It’s a newer property, so it doesn’t look worn out, nor does it have «funny» smells. If you can manage to book a room, get that room, and have minimal interaction with day shift employees/​management, then you’ll probably be satisfied.
The bad:
Oh, gosh! Where to start! The regular employees seem to be fine. The desk manager and the general manager, however, aren’t great. Specifically, the front desk manager was consistently rude to me because I arrived early and, from what I understood later, the general manager is the person that directed her bias. The chip on her shoulder was so heavy, that she forgot the make any pleasantries (if you consider «hi» to be a pleasantry, that was also omitted), didn’t acknowledge that I’m in the very top tier of their loyalty program, didn’t mention the upgrade that I received because of that program… Normally, I just wouldn’t go back. However, I left a necklace there, so I had to make contact. I called, the desk manager was short with me, again (maybe because I complained to the general manager about my treatment before I realized that it stemmed from him). I figured that the necklace was a lost cause, since she didn’t offer any suggestions (not even to look), so I called corporate just so that they’d have the complaint logged. If it did miraculously show up, I’d like for them to know to whom it belonged. The woman from corporate was appalled when I gave her the details of my 4-​hour stay there (yes, only 4 hours met with such distasteful treatment). She promised me an apology from the hotel. The necklace was found (yay!), but no apology. No worries, I don’t care for insincere apologies and I’ll never go back, anyway.
Fast forward a month or so and my husband inadvertently made a one-​night reservation there. He didn’t realize that it was the very same hotel with which I’d had those issues. Anyway, it was too late to cancel. I called the hotel to speak with him, and they informed me that he hadn’t shown up for his reservation, yet. Fine. About an hour later, he arrived to find out that they didn’t have a room for him. Furthermore, they had no intention of «walking» him to a different hotel. It’s a good thing we’re local… It’s a good thing he had a car… I just shudder to think that someone from out of town that had taxied there would be stuck like that. Based on the poor service and poor/​confused management practices, I have to give this clean hotel only one star. If I gave it more than one star, someone might wind up stranded and frustrated without recourse. At it’s core, a hotel should provide safe overhead. In this, it has failed me 1.5 times out of 2.

I’ve been here for about a week now. The rooms are clean and the décor modern. My room came with a fridge and microwave, sofa and coffee table, and a nice flat screen TV that had HBO. Everything in the bathroom worked. Shower nozzle was nice and there was plenty of hot water and pressure.
Pros:
Friendly and helpful staff.
Hard working, hands on, manager.
Better than average free morning breakfast buffet and hot cookies in the afternoon.
Clean outdoor pool
Modern laundry facilities
Sauna in the fitness room
Comfortable beds (important) and pillows
Close to many kinds of restaurants
Cons:
2 treadmills and a stationary bike in the fitness room. No weights or other strength machines.
Internet was sketchy at times dropping off all together, and not fast enough for streaming video (Skype, Netflix, YouTube)
No hot tub in the pool area.
I know, first world problems, but it’s all I could really come up with.
Heard there was a shortage of towels, when I checked in, but haven’t had a problem. Clean towels every morning.
Overall a great stay and I would recommend a stay here.

Spent one night at this property. Upon checking in cookies and fruit were available. Room was spacious and clean. My biggest complaint was the bathroom. We were given a handicap accessible room so shower was huge. However, there was a virtually no water pressure and most of the water outlets in the shower head seemed to be clogged. A handheld option was available since it was handicap accessible. It did not work. There also seemed to be an issue with hot water as I had to keep dialing up the hot to keep the water at a comfortable temperature. The complimentary breakfast was standard fare for places like this. I don’t think I would go back to this property.