Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites South Portland by IHG

The area was a highlight for me: a quiet business park, green and peaceful. I liked sitting outside on the bench listening to Maine wildlife, which is quite different from Colorado. The gentleman who checked me in was sociable and had useful suggestions about the area, including good fishing advice. The room was very clean and comfortable.

The suites were spacious for a Holiday Inn Express, but getting our rooms together was a bad experience. They were booked together yet assigned neither to the same room grouping nor even the same floor. The representative seemed to do everything she could to avoid being hospitable. She blamed us for not calling separately to request rooms together, instead of trying to help. We knew rooms were available on our floor because friends who booked separately were placed there. We also watched several rooms on the floor we wanted get cleaned and become available, but it felt like she deliberately wasn’t helping. The manager was supposedly unavailable and did nothing to resolve it.

We had a good stay overall and would come back for a great deal. The location felt safe and quiet, away from the city’s bustle, check-in was easy, and our room was clean with no odd smells. Breakfast had plenty of choices to get us through the day, though it ended too early at 9:30 am. I’d prefer it ran until at least 10:30. We stayed two nights for shopping, drawn by the good price and our generally positive experiences with IHG. A few things need improvement: the sofa bed mattress was very old and sagged in the middle, with springs pressing into your back. The bathroom was cramped, dark, and dated, and the shower pressure was weak.

The pullout bed didn’t look clean, and there was no bedding for it. The pool wasn’t heated, and towels there were never replaced. The bathrooms were small, with water damage on the ceiling. Breakfast was supposed to include waffles according to the website, but there was only a pancake machine, and it was out of service.