I have enjoyed several of the Holiday Inn Express (HIX) hotels in California over the past few years, and maybe I've raised my expectations, but I was just not as satisfied with this property as I wanted to be. It's not that I wouldn't stay here again, but with the greater number of hotels nearby, I might just see what the competition is doing. But that would be for my information; you as a traveler interested in this property want to know about it.

The HIX brand is apparently only a few years old, and so these properties are all nearly brand, spanking new, yet old enough to have the bugs worked out. The physical appearance is neat, clean, and attractive. The rooms are large, well-lit, clean, and comfortable. My king bed was firm but not hard, and I slept very well - and I don't always sleep well, even in my own bed. I popped on the flat-screen TV (over 40" I'm guessing now), but never actually selected anything to watch. The desk chair and easy chair were both comfortable.

My quibbles with the room were the desk being a little too high for laptop use, and the wi-fi was pitifully slow. (The front desk clerk said they're "working on it," but corporate is not supportive.) The faucet in the bathroom was very hard to adjust between scalding and cool water; just one little spot where good, warm water would come. And my pet peeve about hotel showers is use of a single control for both temperature and pressure. I thought some of the other HIX properties (Hesperia) were using a dual control.

Breakfast is good, especially if you can get the pancake maker to work. (The manufacturer really needs to work the bugs out of their machine. I haven't seen one yet that doesn't malfunction frequently.) And there are many other choices, with the hot entrees - eggs, meat, etc - changing from day to day for variety. There should be something appealing for every member of your family (unless you crave eggs benedict), and those of us on a see-food diet can easily end up with a 5-course breakfast.

I would definitely come back to this hotel, but I think I realized that the brand is low-end comfort but not luxury. The quality is high because it's still new, but the staff needs to work just a little harder to make the guest feel valuable. The company does its part (a bowl of snacks in the room, a bag of gifts for Priority Club members), but the well-trained employees need to feel it themselves - show they really care and aren't just following a policy. The price point seems to appeal to younger families that aren't on a penny-pinching budget but don't want to pay for a suite of amenities that only get minimal use. I estimated the breakfast added about $25/night to my cost, which is high for the menu but the value includes the convenience of not having to find and drive somewhere else.

By the way, my GPS wanted to direct me to what is the 1400 block of East Roseville Parkway, on the east side of Sunrise Ave. Because of the divided-highway barriers, that meant a U-turn and a trip around the block. Google Maps is accurate, so it may just be a Magellan thing. And by the way again, the hotel is located in a very nice area. There's a nice view on the north side.