hotels

I stayed for a week at the Holiday Inn Express at West Road and Beltway 8 in Houston.

The room was cramped to start with, and the two double beds made it nearly impossible to get any sit-ups done. The beds were sufficiently firm, with the standard choice of firm and soft pillows. The desk had plenty of outlets to power laptops and charge accessories. Internet access was inconvenient; several days I had to log in with the provided password more than once to get a connection.

The fitness room had an elliptical, two treadmills, a recumbent bike, and a small nautilus. The elliptical functioned, but there was no place to set an iPod or phone. A good flat-screen TV was mounted on the wall. The TV had a good channel selection.

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For the past week I stayed at the Holiday Inn Houston-Westchase in Houston, TX.

My room had good space, but it was somewhat squandered by a two-level desk?/table? and a corner couch with an ottoman. A smaller desk and a normal couch/hide-a-bed would have given more room for working.  The floor sounded like it might have carried some foot noise to other rooms, but nobody complained.

The bed was high but very soft, almost uncomfortably so. Standard firm and soft pillows were provided. The CFL light bulbs in the lamps were only halfway obscured by the lampshades and hard to look at. The air conditioner functioned very well.

Television provided plenty of variety, loaded with ESPN channels, HBO, and several Spanish stations. A small microwave and half-height refrigerator were available.

Six outlets are available at the desk: two in the desk lamp and four in the wall. The outlets in the wall were misaligned with the hardware behind it, necessitating significant force to plug something in. Internet service was free on both wire and wireless.  Wire speed was terrific, but the wireless was very slow. The hotel would ask for the password upon every reconnect, which was annoying.

The bathroom was quite large, big enough so that the mirror never fogged from the shower. The toilet handle had to be mashed down in order to function properly. The sink was well designed. The faucet quietly emptied into a bowl that rose several inches above the rest of the counter top.

I didn’t get a chance to check out laundry service or their restaurant, but I did visit their fitness room, which contained a recombinant bike, an elliptical, and two treadmills.  The bike and elliptical had their own mini-TV, and the treadmills shared a larger one.  There were no weights or nautilus.

Entrance and egress out of the hotel were a bit tricky, as it rested at the intersection of two divided streets.

HAL gets $99 a night here, which is a little pricier than their deal with the Hilton-Westchase property. The hotel is fairly new, but I will likely not come back to this one.

I stayed four nights at the Days Inn in Medicine Hat, AB.

The Days Inn has no fitness room. When I stayed there about 10 years ago, they instead had arranged for free usage of the YMCA for its customers. I didn’t get a chance to verify if that was still the case. The indoor pool had a two-story tall spiral water slide.

The room had good space, and the bed was pleasantly firm. Six pillows topped the king-size bed. Heating was adequately handled by a window unit. Only two outlets were available at the desk, and no outlets were available at the bedside table. The desk was good, on the large side. The bathroom had good space as well, and the water had good heat and pressure.

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I returned to the Ramada Inn Downtown in Calgary, AB, for a couple of days. The original report can be found here.

Internet access has significantly improved: there are more wireless access points, and the signal is better.

I did get to use the fitness room this time. The number and type of equipment were the same, and I can report that the ellipticals were in fine working order.

I was thankful not to have any water hammer in the steam heating this time. The water in the bathroom is still dangerously hot.

The bed was still too soft. It was way too easy to get in the wrong position and have my neck regret it in the morning.

iHotel on 67 was a Holiday Inn when I booked it, but it left the International Hotels Group and is undergoing a remodel. They still honored my Priority Club status, but due to not being in the IHG they were unable to give me points.

Hotel room space was ample but strangely arranged. The desk was against the wall opposite the foot of the bed, giving only about 2.5″ of space between the bed and the desk, making it a little difficult to get around. There was good room in front of the couch for working out, but I had to put my laptop on the bed to see it while it played DVDs. The bed itself was very comfortable, but one could see an impression where I assume most people slept. Two soft pillows and two firm pillows were available. (more…)

I stayed at the Holiday Inn in Grande Prairie, AB, for two weeks. This hotel had some very good things and some things not so good.

Space in the room was good for it not being a suite. I had enough room for workouts, though on the fourth floor I could hear my footfalls even when they were soft, and I wondered if other people could hear them too. The bed was very comfortable, and the two soft and two firm pillows were a nice selection.

A small refrigerator and microwave were provided, but I didn’t use them.

Outlets were a little sparse, with only three within reach at the desk and no open outlets near the bed. Wireless internet worked well. Both wire and wireless internet required a password entry after a day; I thought this was excessive for wire.

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