Holiday Inn Express & Suites North Kansas City by IHG

The desk staff were friendly enough, and we didn’t have anything happen to us, but the setup didn’t inspire confidence. The check-in counter is behind a huge sheet of glass, like a gas station that’s been robbed too many times. The hallways smelled so strongly of smoke they felt like a bar, though our room didn’t smell that way and was cleaner than I expected. We checked for bed bugs and found mold. It was close enough to where we needed to go, so I gave the location two stars. Hotwire lists this as a three-star hotel, and I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea. It’s nowhere near that. The people at the counter weren’t at fault for the hotel being in shambles.

The staff at American Inn were kind and helpful, and I’m so grateful they found a way to give me a room. After driving four hours to Kansas City, I arrived at the hotel I’d booked four days earlier, with a confirmation checked at 3 p.m. before I left. They couldn’t find the booking and said they couldn’t do anything. Crying in my car, I called the first hotel ChatGPT recommended. A nice woman answered and first said they were full, then checked with someone and offered to clean a room after a guest checked out early. I told her she didn’t have to, but she insisted. The two women working when I arrived were wonderful. They deserve raises. One kind act goes a long way. My only complaint is unrelated to them. Around 4:30 a.m., someone down the hall banged on another guest’s door, yelling and threatening to beat them up for about 45 minutes. I wondered where security was and why nobody had come up. Still, it was a great stay.

I went to check in and was told there were no rooms. I stepped outside for two minutes, and when I came back, the woman at the desk had thrown my food away. I’ve dealt with her several times, and her attitude is just terrible. This was by far my worst experience there.

We had planned to stay another four nights, but after this treatment we’ll look elsewhere. A man was loudly talking on his phone in the lobby while we checked in, then turned out to be in the room next to ours. We hadn’t touched anything, so we politely asked to move. The receptionist said she’d already planned to ask him to quiet down, but I worried he’d know it was because of us, so I asked again to be moved. She acted as if we’d been asking favors all day and warned she wouldn’t move us a second time. It was way over the top. We’re quiet, polite, reasonable people and hadn’t asked much of her. The new room was beside the main exit. Each time the door slammed, it shook the wall and headboard. The hotel didn’t seem full, and it would have been easy to make us comfortable. There were dirty towels, and our car was vandalized with white paint in the parking lot. Why have someone like that at reception?