Staybridge Suites Wichita Falls By Ihg

“A good stay at a good place. Recommended as they are what I expect”

I stopped in this place based on price, prior successful stays with the brand, amenities, and my IHG points. I am a huge fan of Kemmons Wilson and how he built the Holiday Inn brand into the power house it has become. Checking in provided me with a very professional staff, and an appealing lobby/… more

I stopped in this place based on price, prior successful stays with the brand, amenities, and my IHG points. I am a huge fan of Kemmons Wilson and how he built the Holiday Inn brand into the power house it has become. Checking in provided me with a very professional staff, and an appealing lobby/entry and overall appearance. When I got to my sleeping room everything was in order. They offer what I call semi-suite rooms, which amounts to a big sleeping room with a kitchenette which offers a range top, a percolator with coffee, full-sized dishwasher, big microwave oven, full sized refrigerator/freezer, real dishes and cutlery, and a sink and food waste disposer, but no conventional oven or ability to bake. All of that stuff was in good working order as was the HVAC unit. It has a heat pump, and I don’t like how slow they are but it did provide adequate heat after a while. The flooring, bedding, towels, and other things that are supposed to be in the room are of good quality, and kept in good condition. The furniture shows no wear, scratches, marks, or abuse, and was everything expected from a quality lodging brand. It was very nice to find a complimentary bag of microwave popcorn for the guest’s enjoyment. The swimming pool is an outdoor variety, 5 feet deep which is rare today, and was completely empty/full of fallen leaves. I’m sure it’s a nice space in warmer weather. The architect specified professional grade landscape lighting around the pool, but someone has decided they needed to add a string of those solar battery powered plastic cheap, tacky LED pathway lights especially designed to fizzle out in 2 years and fill our landfills with plastic that never degrades. The architect had it right, and those tacky lights need to find their way to the dust bin. It has a separate dressing area from the tub/shower toilet area, with good lighting, extra clean, and all fixtures working well. The only serious aggravation is a shelving unit affixed to a wall, directly in the pathway from the entry to the bed. Those should be moved out of the traffic pathway, as I’ve walked into this thing accidentally no less than 5 times in 12 hours. The reason it’s there is questionable, and even so it’s in the wrong place. I’ve had a little trouble with their access cards in that the secondary entries just don’t open at times. Re-writing the cards seemed to improve things a little bit, but I do believe they need to replace some entry door card readers. The competitor uses a system that’s lots less frustrating, and also sends a key card to my phone, allowing me to bypass waiting to check in. IHG needs to match them on access control. I do wish IHG hotels would get up to speed with in-room safes as other brands are doing. Today’s traveler is almost forced to carry some kind of valuable electronics, and the safe behind the front desk is a pain to access. Since no lodging brand will be responsible for anything left in the room, those properties offering me a safe in the room definitely get preference. Breakfast on weekends starts an hour later than work days, and they advertise 7:30, but it was a lot closer to 8:00 before they got the food out. They had those pre-fabricated micro-omelets, sausage, all kinds of toasted things, and self-service waffles, but they didn’t have one of those automated pancake makers common to HI Express locations. They had plenty cold breakfast items such as fruit, cereal, yogurt, oatmeal, toppings, and on and on. It was beautifully presented, in a sparkling clean serving area. They just need to be more mindful that being late affects other folks and airlines don’t care what your excuse is they don’t wait. I did have a little bit of concern with the authoritative person checking me in and their REQIREMENTS to gather personally identifiable information not relevant to a lodging stay. Additionally I’m a frequent guest and they already have all that information if they would just look in their own records it’s already there, and they are already paid. Were I in the neighborhood I’d use this place again, and I would recommend them to others. The criticisms I have for the property are only intended as suggestions what I wish were a little better, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with what I got/saw when I checked in. As required by state law, they have a posted max room rate of $399. In my wildest dreams I can’t imagine a time when this property would be worth that much. The overall appearance of the whole place is very pretty, cared for, and what an IHG hotel should be.

less