We travelled through California and stayed one night there with my husband and 2 year old.
We rented a suite.The rooms were clean, comfortable, and well equiped.
The location is very central and safe, and close to BART (walking distance), which made it very convinient for us.
All in all, this hotel is everything we were expecting from a Holiday Inn, but we would like to give a special thanks to the staff (Nasser especially and Amrita) who was really helpful, nice and accomodating.
We do recommend this place.

I had to take some time to decide what rating to give this hotel, and here is why...

GOOD: The hotel and the rooms is very clean, it looks like many of the features are newly installed. The staff is helpful and amiable. Especially the day front desk manager who is a very nice lady and takes the time to talk to people and ask them how things are going and make a personal connection. Breakfast is your average fair, although more fruits (usually there were only old bananas) would be welcome, and since it was California that should not be too expensive, but as it is free I suppose it's good. The free wifi is good, but at night VERY slow, so if you have to do any work, keep that in mind. There is free parking and you are within walking distance to BART (20 min), although after 9pm the streets are empty so it would be best if you had a car, drove it to BART and parked there (~$1 per day for parking), if you need to go to San Francisco.

BAD: Here is where I had a problem. The AC/heating system in the rooms is a window/wall unit and you can only control it by settings such as hot-cold-high-low. This means if you set the heater to low-hot it will blow warm/hot air into the room with a slow fan... continuously! So, I turned on the heater and went to sleep and woke up to a stifling room in the middle of the night and had to get up and shut it down and after a few hours woke up from the cold and had to restart the heater! Not a big deal? It is when you have a big meeting in the morning and you need to get enough sleep and no headache! And thus the lower rating for the hotel.

So, I would say this place is great for vacation but not so good for business, unless your threshold of comfort for temperatures is really wide!

This HI Express is pretty much the usual deal. I went with my daughter for the CALSO event at Cal, so I booked an "apartment" room so each of us had our own space. The room was unexpectedly large, with a full kitchen with all appliances, a sitting area which shared two queen beds plus a separate bedroom with another king bed. Both rooms had plasma TV's with Direct TV, with many channels including HBO and HD stations. The room is a good value! Breakfast buffet, again...the usual. I read an earlier comment that there was nothing healthy to eat, yet they have fresh fruit, yogurt, juices, and oatmeal, so I don't get that.

The downside is the area around the hotel. Berkeley itself is pretty much retro 60's, but the hotel's surroundings are pretty drab. There are a lot of unsavory types loitering around a burger place next door, and on the surrounding streets, although the hotel is gated and fenced, so the grounds feel secure. What was really unsettling was that we were there on a Friday night, and all the nearby restaurants, which seem to all be ethnic, were empty. Waiters sitting at the bars watching TV or talking with each other. There is more activity the closer you get to the campus which is a few miles from this hotel, but this location is for those who wish to just stay at their hotel, or drive somewhere.

All in all, not a bad deal.

For this hotel you better have a car, but if you're driving the location is great

Pros
+ you pay less than in any hotel in SF, parking is for free and it's 15 min away from the city
+ it's in a really quite neighborhood, not like most hotels
+ very close to the University
+ they have a laundry on-site
+ spacious rooms (ours even had a kitchen)
+ if you're using your IHG points, it's really a great value

Cons
- breakfast is standard Express breakfast: with no healthy options (even the pancake comes from a machine)
- the common area could use some fresh paint
- the neighborhood can feel a bit sketchy at night