August 2023 by Hillary P.
As a frequent guest of IHG properties, Holiday Inn Express is typically one of my go to locations. This particular Holiday Inn express is conveniently located near downtown Des Moines, offering complementary parking and even provided shuttle service to the state capital for transfers to the Iowa State Fair. We were pleasantly greeted and quickly received our room assignment. The room was a more contemporary design with plenty of space for luggage, work area, and a small kitchenette with a small refrigerator, microwave, and coffee maker.This particular hotel has been previously recognized as one of the top IHG properties, which is why I was so surprised to find many of the public areas dirty, being used for towel laundry sorts in the lobby entrance, and just not regularly policed for debris. At breakfast, we watched some of the hotel employees help themselves to food, which I don't really have a problem with, however they did not use utensils provided, and simply stuck their hands into the food buffet to retrieve food for themselves. Our room was clean, however, simple things such as black mold in our shower could've easily been addressed with some appropriate cleaner. We did observe housekeeping using lint rollers to clean hallway carpets rather than vacuums, which was a little surprising as well.At breakfast, we enjoyed a fire alarm, which apparently went off throughout the entire hotel. Front desk personnel told folks not to worry despite the fact that the alarm sounded continuously for more than 10 minutes and they did not know the source of the problem. Fire department did show up and remove some thing from some room that contributed to this issue, but it seemed a little , disappointing that employees we're not properly trained to understand evacuation procedures.
