Holiday Inn Express Big Rapids by IHG

The property is run down, needs repairs, is kind of dirty.

The outside of the hotel is not well maintained at all.
My first red flag should have been the false advertisement.
They advertise having a bar inside the hotel, they certainly do not.. it has been closed down. This is the only reason we choose this hotel over better and less pricey rooms in the city.
Did you catch that? (There are BETTER.. LESS pricey hotels in Big Rapids)
Next: checking in to my $165 dollar room that I already booked online through booking.com, only to be told no it’s actually $195 because of a $30 deposit fee and it’s to late for me to cancel and go elsewhere.
Now get this: we got this hotel room just to get ready for a wedding and sleep after the reception. We walked into the hotel with the clothes we had on and our wedding clothes on hangers (a small makeup bag also).. zero luggage. We left that same way the next morning.
I woke up on Monday to a $50 charge from the hotel, I called just told be told that I had stolen a blanket from the room and was being charged for it.
I laughed and asked them to pull up the cameras of us leaving because we passed right by the check in desk and the lady behind it said “have a great day”. We obviously didn’t have luggage to stuff a blanket in, and we didn’t carry anything but our clothes on hangers out the door. The response I got from the guy on the phone was, “maybe you accidentally took it, everyone makes mistakes”.

Now to be clear.. this is not about the money. $50 can be made everyday along with the $30 “deposit” that they never returned. This is about questioning my integrity and calling us thieves, when clearly there is proof on camera to prove the opposite on some computer in that hotel.
More worrisome should be: How many innocent people have they stolen money from? Ones that don’t notice when a $50 charge hits their account.
Now to play devils advocate here and see both sides of the coin.. what if a blanket was really not inventoried in the room after being cleaned?

Our room was not clean the bathroom had a smell the floor was sticky and hair on floor in several places

Can’t think of anything. No issues

The place is really run down. there were no doors on the closet. The shower door was disgusting. The TV was impossible to operate. The room overall was run down. The view out the window was terrible, looked out at all the trash on the roof of the pool. Would not recommend to anyone.

All though they are updating the rooms there are still some old features- sound proofing can be a problem

It’s outdated and seems rundown which makes it look dirty

The pool still was not ready.

The king room description said it had a hot tub, it did not in fact have one( maybe fix that description on the website "booking.com"). The toilet did not work properly, we had to take the back of the toilet lid off to be able to make sure it flushed. The shower head was clogged with calcium and not properly taken care of. I paid 175$ for a Standard king room that was below standard. The room seemed cleaned, but for the price I paid did not meet expectations. The hotel room was very run down.

The pool and hot tub are under renovation until 3/14/26 or possibly later knowing how construction can go. Booking.com did not tell us that until after it was too late to cancel. Not holiday inn's fault.

The first room they tried to put us into had stains on the walls, noisy appliances. It was a disgrace. The second room was better, but the hallway had tons of stains, missing ceiling tiles, just a mess. The hotel pool area was out of operation (one of the reason we booked there so we could relax in the hot tub). We had a great view of a garbage dump on the roof, garbage everywhere below us. The property is in shambles, looks like an old restaurant that is boarded up. Really embarrassing. The funny part is this place is own by a company near where we live in Bloomfield Hills, so one would expect better care and maintenance. I have always tried to use Holiday Inn Expresses for shorter trips around the country, but this one near my childrens' college should be torn down and rebuilt. Shameful.

The keys didn’t work. The walls are paper thin. The shower was disgusting and barely clean.

I get there were renovations being done but the floor we were on had an open ceiling. Our room on the ceiling looked like there was water damage. We weren't there long but we stayed at other holiday in expresses which have always been the best for us but this one was the least presentable one we have been too . Maybe they are transitioning to a newer look?