We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express HOUSTON HWY 59S/HILLCROFT, for a Thursday & Friday night. I called the hotel & the price they offered was more than their online reservations (which was also cheaper than the so-called “low price” services such as expedia, hotwire, etc.). So, I made the reservation online. Their website said the “king suite” had a pull-out sofa-bed, and that’s what we needed, so I reserved that room with my credit card. The next day, I checked the reservation & found that it had just given us a king room, not a king suite. So, I called the hotel and they changed the reservation after confirming that the king suite room did have the pull-out sofa-bed. We were also told that our room had already been set aside for us, and were given the room number.

The next night when we arrived, we were given a different room. No big deal, we figured it was the same as we had reserved – king suite with pull-out sofa-bed. When we got up to the room, the first thing we did was check to confirm that the sofa pulled-out to a bed. It did not. I went back down to the front desk & was told that none of the rooms have the pull-out sofa-bed. I was also told that the room we had been promised already had someone else in it. I bit my tongue because this clerk had nothing to do with the cluster-mess they had caused us. We have 5 yr old twins (blow up air beds which we always carry) and a 9 yr old daughter who was supposed to sleep on the pull-out sofa-bed. I explained to the clerk that I expected the hotel to adjust the billing, and he said I’d need to speak with one of the managers the next morning.

The next morning, the manager did offer to reduce the price to their “manager’s special” price, but I declined and told them that if I didn’t get what I was promised, then I expected the lowest price they had online, and showed them what it was. They gave it to me. Of course, that did not make our daughter any more comfortable sleeping on a too-short couch or even on a too-short air bed with one of the twins sleeping (tossing & turning & kicking us) on the king bed between my wife & I.

To make matters worse, the fluorescent light over the wet-bar/kitchenette did not work, the toilet seat was very loose, the toilet made a very loud flushing noise that was nothing I’d ever ever heard before, and the coffee maker had no carafe. I had given that list to the night clerk, and again to the manager that first morning, before we left to sight-see for the day. When we got back that evening, the light had been fixed, but nothing else. Since I really prefer to make coffee in the room and drink it while getting the kids (& myself) dressed, I went back down and asked for a carafe, which I was immediately given. The next morning, the light again failed to work & required some turning of the bulb (there was no cover on it) to get it to come on. They never did fix the loose toilet seat, and I fear the next “guest” would fall in.

On the plus side, the staff was nice, and the free breakfast included hot scrambled eggs (probably frozen & re-thawed in the microwave), biscuits, gravy, sausage on Friday morning & bacon on Saturday morning, and fresh pancakes, made by a machine (I prefer the make-them-yourself waffles, but that’s no big deal), and frozen French toast & waffles, along with yogurt, bananas, milk, oj & apple juice – all in all it was not a bad spread, but not enough to make up for the two restless nights because of the lack of the advertised & promised pull-out sofa-bed.

We won’t stay here again. They lied about the sofa-bed, the website was not up-to-date. The hotel claimed that the “newly renovated” rooms did not have the sofa-beds, but our room was far from “newly” renovated, unless they apparently meant sometime last century.