April 13th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Richfield, OH. Although I spent points for a normal room for two nights, they upgraded us to a “suite,” which is a room-and-a-half.
The two queen beds were new yet soft, and I felt a little comfortable sleeping on the edge of the mattress as a Dad has to do sometimes. 
Both beds featured firm and soft pillows. The additional space allowed for a couch, a full computer desk, another writing table, and three chairs.
The desk had plenty of space and a good chair. Three outlets were available, and there were options for wire and wireless internet. I initially had trouble with the networking, because their system doesn’t tell web browsers when an address is bad. Wireless networking was also only 3/5 bars at the end of the floor. Wired worked great. There was a 30-second login page where an ad displayed. Tech note: turn off proxies.
The bathroom had decent space and good shelf space management. The floor had a pretty cool feature: in a checkerboard pattern, half of the tiles were absorbent marble while half were gloss. This gave the advantage of easy clean-up for half the spots and a safe non-slick surface for the other half. One bad note: the shower bar had looked like someone hung on it and pulled it down. Water pressure was good, and hot water was immediate.
The half-height refrigerator and the space saver microwave worked fine. There is a sink outside the bathroom, but it didn’t have a stopper. The water coming out of that tap actually tasted worse than what came out of the bathroom tap.
The air conditioner took a while to come on after dropping the thermostat, but worked after that. The heater also worked fine.
We didn’t get to test the laundry facilities. The fitness room had an elliptical and a treadmill, but I didn’t get to try them out. The heated indoor pool was pretty spacious. The hot tub was very hot, and the surface looked a little slimy. We didn’t go in.
The TV was pretty big, about 38″ diagonally. I didn’t get to see how many channels. The TV’s next-to-silent volume setting was still appreciably loud, but it didn’t wake the kids.
The HIE standard buffet got hit pretty hard the first morning, and biscuits and gravy were the “local specialty.” The fruit was exhausted, so I ended up going with a bagel and a couple of muffins. We ordered food from local restaurants Memories and Zeppe’s. Both were pretty good and gave us plenty.
Hotel access is simple once you navigate around the junction of I-77 and the I-80 turnpike. There is plenty of parking, but one particular concrete slab across a strategic island could have benefited from a wheelchair ramp.
The staff was very friendly, helping us out when there were no towels at the pool and recommending good local fare. Housekeeping was working the rooms early and let us eat breakfast before cleaning the room.
The Holiday Inn web site starts this hotel at $90 a night, and that’s fairly reasonable. This hotel is a credit to brand consistency, and if there weren’t so many hotels in the area to try out, we’d consider coming back.
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