I booked this hotel in spite of reading not so flattering reviews online. The reviews for this hotel seemed to be slightly better than some of the other hotels in the area. I felt like I had a choice of staying in Tampa and fighting the traffic to work daily or staying near my place of work and taking a chance that this hotel would not be too bad. This hotel is in a convenient location since it is just off of I-75 and very near to several restaurants.
The parking lot seemed to be getting new pavement in one place or another each day of my stay so parking was a little strange as there seemed to be several large trucks that were hard to get around with the limited parking. The outside of the hotel looked ok and the lobby didn't seem bad. The front desk clerk was very nice and she smiled and had me on my way to my room quickly.
The first weird thing I noticed was that the wood look plastic coating on the elevator door was peeling off. Each time the elevator opened the plastic coating would get caught and make a noise and peel back a little more. This makes it seem like the management doesn't care if the hotel looks to be in disrepair. The ice machine on my floor was not plugged in so I don't know if it was out of order or just unplugged.
I noticed that the floor my room was on was very warm in the hallway and the hallway had a musty smoky odor. When I entered my room the smell seemed to get worse and my room was very warm. I turned the air conditioner on the high cool setting but it didn't seem to be putting out a lot of cool air. I went out for a couple of hours and when I came back to my room it was nice and cool. My room ended up getting so cool that I had to turn the air conditioner on the low cool setting. Running the air conditioner did seem to help the smell in the room a bit.
The room just didn't seem as clean as I would like. There was dust in the corners. I found hair in the bathroom sink, hair in the bath tub and hair on the bed covers. The curtains looked dingy. The carpet didn't seem really clean either. I did have a microwave and a little fridge in my room which I find to be really convenient.
The breakfast bar was disappointing. The juice was so watered down that it didn't have much of a juice taste. The waffle maker was 'out of order.' The hot items looked like they had been sitting under the lights for some time and I did see a guy come into the breakfast bar and wipe off the counters and stir the hot items but he did not replace them so I suppose they stayed out until they are gone no matter how long they had been under the heat lamps. I did toast a bagel and the bagel was so hard that I could barely bite it and it wasn't that I toasted it too long since I only let it get a little warm. There was no fresh fruit until I saw the attendant out out some very ripe bananas. There was coffee,yogurt, and a few bread selections.
This isn't one of the nice and new Holiday Inn Express hotels. It seems old and worn. It was an OK place to stay since I was only there for two nights but I don't know if I would stay at this hotel again and I will definitely check out some other hotels in the area before I stay here again.
Holiday Inn Express
27615 STATE ROAD 54
Phone 813-907-1379
No comments:
Post a Comment