Holiday Inn Review in Muskegon, Michigan

While one can imagine that this was the busiest week of the entire year for hotel staff, as the Miss Michigan and Miss Michigan Teen contestants rolled in one by one, until lobbies, lounges and elevators were packed to overflowing, preparations for their arrival seemed lax, at the least. A sign on the counter greeted guests, "We are sorry for the inconvenience, but the hot tub will be closed for refurbishing until Sunday."

This visitors trip planning began several months prior to our actual arrival at the hotel. Speaking with hotel staff by phone, on three separate occasions I was told that reservation forms would be sent via email. When the forms did not arrive after a week or two, another phone call would be made, requesting them again. After my third request I was told that the problem was with my email address. I provided the staff with a different address, and finally received the forms, which I promptly filled out and emailed back. During a later phone call to the hotel, to confirm the reservation, I was told that the hotel did not have one on file. I again made the reservations, and was assured by staff that the problem had been taken care of. Upon arrival at the hotel, I discovered there were 2 reservations in my name, one of which needed to be canceled.

Our room was on the 2nd floor, close to vending machines, the hotel pool, sauna, and gym. The room was quite spacious, and nicely decorated, in typical Holiday Inn style. We were furnished with 2 double beds, which were clean and comfortable, as well as the basic room items; television, 2 telephones, 2 lamps a dresser, desk and small table. There was no overhead lighting. Of the items in the room one lamp, and one telephone did not work. Over the course of our stay the one working telephone was consistently "off the hook". We notified the front desk, and a maintenance person discovered that there was an unnecessary piece on the phone, which was keeping it from hanging up properly. He corrected the problem.

During our first night at the Holiday Inn, Muskegon, one of our guests saw a mouse in our room. This was reported to the front desk staff.

On the morning of the second day we discovered that there was no water coming into the room. We again phoned the front desk, who checked with maintenance, and phoned us back to say that the water should be back on, and asked us to leave it running for ten minutes. When we turned the water back on we were greeted with dark brown goo, rather than anything resembling clean water. We let the water for several minutes, until it ran clear for about 5 minutes. We then turned it off, and upon turning it on again, the goo had returned. After about 45 minutes the water was finally clear, but now it had turned ice cold. Our guest took a cold shower, and again we talked to someone at the front desk.

I write on line for a living. I had planned to continue working throughout the week of our stay. The hotel staff assured us that there were working computers in the business center, prior to our trip. When my publishing deadline rolled around, also on the second day of our stay, I asked to be let into the business center, so that I could post my material. I was very disappointed to discover that, of the 2 computers in the hotel, one computer had a sign that said "We are sorry for the inconvenience, but this computer will be out of service for the next 2 days." Worse, the second computer would not access the Internet.

I informed the staff that the computer was off line, and asked to please be notified when it came back on line, because I needed to meet my deadline. It was at that time that I noticed the sign which had originally stated that the hot tub would be ready on Sunday, now had been extended to Wednesday.

As I went to get onto the elevator, to return to our 2nd floor room, with the stress of missing my deadline and losing a lot of money hanging over my head, I was greeted by a flow of water in the elevator itself. I pointed out to the desk person that the elevator was flooded. Taking the other elevator back upstairs, to my room, all I could hope was that nothing else would go wrong.

I got into bed on the second night of our stay, and was just about asleep when my son shouted "It's right by your foot!" I jumped out from under the covers, screaming, but thankfully the mouse was not in my bed. Instead it had been spotted next to my other son's foot, in the middle of the room.

As I write this review I am actually in tears. Our family spent $1700.00 in order for my daughter to be able to compete in the Miss Michigan Outstanding Teen pageant. I took my two sons and my daughters 25 year old friend with us, to watch her compete, as well as to enjoy the week at the Holiday Inn. What should have been one of the best weeks of our lives turned out to be the worst week of my entire life, and my daughters as well. I am not a person who needlessly complains, yet I found myself in a position where I was treated by hotel staff as if I was just a nagging customer. As one thing after another went wrong, from the computers being continuously off line, to the cappuccino machine being broken, from the hot tub being out of service, to the mouse getting into our food, each time I needed to point out a problem to the staff, I was treated more and more poorly, as if these things were my fault, or I was just looking for things to complain about. All of the problems with our room, and with the hotel itself, combined with the attitude of many of the staff people (not ALL of them, there were some friendly staff, mainly the housekeeping staff, some of the restaurant staff, and a couple of front desk staff) caused more frustration than I can really even put into words.

My daughter and her 25 year old friend were kicked out of the business center, not because they were doing anything wrong, but because one staff person assumed that they were both under 18. My daughter had already had a very difficult day, and just wanted to be able to talk to friends back home for a bit. When the staff came in and told them to get out of the room, my daughters friend tried to say that she was 25 years old. The staff person completely ignored her, and instead rudely told her to get out of the business center. She could have even showed him her ID. Later when I found out what had happened, I admit that I was very angry. I asked how the hotel employees determine how old someone is, do they card people, before allowing them on the computer? My daughters friend would have been happy to show someone her ID, but she was not even given the chance. Again staff at the hotel just shrugged, and treated US as if we were the problem. I also must comment that this happened during one of only 2 times when we checked the business center, and found the one "working" computer both open, and functioning properly. The entire rest of the week the computer was not working, or in use.

To her credit, Melissa, whose official title I am not sure of, but was the person assigned to "handle my complaints" did reprimand the employee mentioned above. She arranged for 2 dinners for us in the restaurant, as well, which I gave to my sons. They had stuck it out for the week with no hot tub (like I had told them there would be) no in room movies (I had also told them before we left, that we would be able to rent movies while we were at the hotel, but a credit card mix up prevented that from happening also) and, to their credit they had put up with a whole lot of "girly" stuff going on all week long.

On the positive side my sons said the food in the dining room was excellent, and they, at least, were somewhat appeased by a good meal.

Admittedly I am not Miss America. I am not the CEO of the Miss America Organization, nor am I a former Miss America. I was just another hotel guest. Yet, I paid a lot of money, drove a long way, and had a lot of high hopes regarding what our trip would be like. My daughter was supposed to have the best week of her life, and this really was supposed to be HER week to be treated like Miss America, even if she never wins that title. Instead, though, we were treated by a majority of the staff like we were "nobodies." The disappointment we feel today, upon our arrival home, cannot be fully described. There were many little conveniences that we paid for, that we did not receive. There were also many big inconveniences; mice in our room, water problems, faulty computers, etc...
I would not recommend this hotel to anyone considering staying in the Muskegon area.