Holiday Inn Hotel Review - 10 Laura Blvd, Norwich Connecticut

This past weekend, in the middle of a snow storm, my boyfriend and I went for an overnight getaway. This was a surprise that he had planned for me and it was great! We had a wonderful time and he got a really great rate on the room through Priceline.com. I have used this service previously and have had some great results.

LOBBY

The lobby was very spacious, bright and clean. There was a nice oversized leather couch and two leather chairs that faced a gas fireplace with a flat panel TV above that. Very nice atmosphere for sitting and relaxing. There were two function rooms off of the lobby, which appeared to be nice rooms.

CHECK-IN

Check-in was very quick. My boyfriend went in to check-in, due to the weather being bad. He was out within minutes. We parked and were in the room within 20 minutes. There was a slight issue with the parking lot, with a truck plowing but not doing the best job.

THE ROOM

Two queen beds, a desk, comfortable chair, wireless internet and playstation games. The room was decorated nicely. There was a motif throughout the hotel of palm trees and jungle. There were nice bed spreads with tan and green, nice green curtains, and palm themed lamps.

THE BATHROOM & SHOWER

The bathroom was functional...nothing wonderful, but served the purpose. The shower had decent water pressure, which is sometimes unusual at hotels. There was a hairdryer in the bathroom, which I have found is pretty much a standard now.

FITNESS CENTER

We did not have time to use this service, but there was a small fitness center on the second level. There were three machines and a bathroom with shower in the fitness center.

SWIMMING POOL

We did not get a chance to use the pool either, but there was an indoor pool The pool was a decent size and had a nice area surrounding the pool for relaxing, too.

RESTAURANT AND BAR

We were there on a Friday night, arriving at about 5:30. My boyfriend and I both took quick showers and went down to the Restaurant to have dinner. It was about 6:30 when we got down there and no one was at the reception area for the Restaurant. We were both pretty hungry and anxious to have something to eat. We had noticed that the bar had a happy hour and saw that there was food being served in there.

My boyfriend went up to order us drinks and ask if there was someone in the restaurant to seat us. The bartender was not very helpful and actually made some remarks and mimicked my boyfriend. Needless to say, he was not happy. She had given him menus and we were just starting to look at them and she came over to take our order. She had not even given us 2 minutes to look at the menus. This just made the situation worse.

So we ended up ordering...my boyfriend was looking forward to have a steak, which he ordered. When the dinners came, we were playing songs on the jukebox. When we got back to the table, he realized she had made a mistake and he got the steak tips on rice.

The head waitress came over and told us we were not getting charged for the steak meal, as they had made a mistake. This was a good thing...and the meals were good.

All in all the hotel and restaurant were good and we had a great getaway! "Snow storm" and all J