Holiday Inn Express & Suites Raleigh SW NC State, an IHG Hotel

Cory Walker

I’ll start by saying that my stay was pretty much excellent. However, everyone said that service here was the selling point. That was not my experience. Called the front desk in the morning and was left ringing for several minutes. Decided to walk down to get some assistance, but there was no staff at the front desk while breakfast service was in full swing. After asking around, I finally discovered Victoria hiding behind the partition saying “ I didn’t see anyone here” all while continuing to ignore other phone calls being made to the front. She did, of course, assist me once another staff member got her attention. I left and came back around lunch time to process my late check out, only to find my room key no longer worked. No worries, I just headed to the front desk to…again find nobody there. She had “stepped out” and so I patiently waited ~10 minutes for her to mosey her way back. Not to say that she shouldn’t be allowed to go to the bathroom, just that I didn’t sense much urgency to assist the customer. The experience otherwise was fantastic. Good food, excellent cleanliness and room standards, etc. 10/10. Victoria was consistently polite in all my encounters; I don’t seek to malign her. But the service wasn’t exactly as stellar as other reviews state; got a real “just chillin at my summer job” vibe from the receptionist that wasn’t exactly concordant with the aforementioned reviews. In the grand scheme it’s not the most dire complaint, perhaps one not worth even making. But seeing as the GM is reportedly running a tight ship, I thought it prudent that she know my experience.

JM Sanderson

I don't usually give five stars but in this case it is well deserved. The hotel is very clean and the staff is extremely accommodating. Breakfast offers perhaps the healthiest options that you will find along with your usual eggs, sausage, pancakes and biscuits fare. The rooms are very clean. They don't give you worn out pillows. I have stayed in hotels where the pillows were thin enough to read a newspaper through. These were nice and thick and they were happy enough to give us extras. I forgot to bring shaving cream and a razor and they were kind enough to provide that free of charge. The front desk also who is very patient in working out the discounts associated with our conference status. Highly recommended!

Sam Towns

Our stay here was overall good. It's a good location not far from town. We could get anywhere in less than 15 minutes it seemed. Parking was always available and was easy and free. Breakfast was free although not much availability. Employees were hit or miss. Some were very friendly (both when we checked in and out), but there were also some who ignored us when we said hi, so that was odd. The room was nice and we liked that the window could be cracked for fresh air. The bed was a very uncomfortable mattress so I'm glad I brought my heating pad for my aching body from a chronic health condition. I feel like hotels used to have cloud like beds and they all switched to rock hard beds. Pillows were still cloud like and very nice. The bathroom was fine but had no vent fan, and we had no tissues the whole week even though we had maids clean daily. Once I figured out the shower head it was enjoyable, but we started with a direct jet stream that was frustrating. The outlets on the lamp next to the beds were not working so we couldn't charge up our phones while using them. Instead they had to charge across the room. Seems like a first world problem but after being gone all day we had dead phones and wanted to be able to wind down with them while charging up. My heating pad wouldn't work on those outlets either so I had to pull the bed side table away so I could plug it in the back, but I could only do it by unplugging the lamp or alarm clock. If you don't want this possible annoyance, bring a power strip or 3 way adapter. None of the maids spoke English. And I mean not even a word. I went back and forth with one maid trying to explain we would be leaving in 5 minutes and she absolutely did not understand. We ended up getting the word across through hand signs. But I felt embarrassed for neglecting my Duolingo. I was about to pull out my Google translate if the hand signs hadn't worked! One last thing is this is the first hotel we've stayed at that didn't have cribs. We requested on multiple days and they seemed so confused by that. If we had driven we would have brought a pack n play but we flew so we were hoping for a crib. Our infant and toddler slept in bed with us instead. The good thing is, despite the cons, the hotel seemed pretty chill and quiet and we had no serious problems. Just inconveniences. This would be a good stay for people who don't need much more than just a place to sleep and free breakfast.

Dennis s

Convenient location to NC State and a quick hop to get to the sports complexes. A note about the location. When you get off the interstate, it's on the right after you turn, but hidden behind another hotel. There is only a small 18x24 inch plastic sign saying Holiday Inn Express. We drove by it twice before we got it. We had a queen suite and it was roomy with comfy beds and lots of towels. It looks like the bath was recently upgraded and while the room furniture was in decent shape, it was older and there wasn't one USB port to be found. The outlets on the bedside lamps were so worn, the plugs wouldn't make good contact so we plugged our devices into a wall outlet near the dining table. The staff was friendly, but the breakfast tables weren't wiped down between seatings. Granted, we were there during peak hour and folks were waiting to sit but....