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Ok, I intended to write a review as soon we returned but I've been extremely busy up to this point...

We Stayed at the Holiday Inn suites, located on the boardwalk at 18th st. the week of July 4th. This was are second time staying at this hotel, the first was last year for Memorial day weekend. - Obviously one years time can make a BIG difference... Now don't get me wrong it wasn't a horrible experience, or anything, but on the same note it lost a step from the previous year.

First off, we made our reservations the very first week in January. Now I know they don't promise you specific rooms or anything, but we did put in a "request' for 6th floor or above. we checked in at 1:30 (normal check in is 3) only to find that we are staying on the 2nd floor!?!? ok I'll just let it go I thought, till I got in there stepped out onto the balcony, only to have a perfect view of the metal arch, that divides the 2 pool areas. So now at this point I'm not really happy at all with the room, and to make matters worse when we flushed the toilet it overflowed with soap suds all over the bathroom! They came up and unclogged it, and said someone before us must have flushed a bar of soap down the toilet. My question is, didn't the maid flush it when she cleaned the bathroom??? oh! I almost forgot! After they unclogged it, they called down to house keeping to send someone up to clean it - when they came to the door my kids answered it, the guy hands them some towels and walks away! So I ran down the hall and told that guy that if WE had to clean this bathroom, we were checking out! He pleaded ignorance to the overflowed toilet and said he just got a call for more towels. Needless to say him and another person came back and cleaned it... The screen door was also ripped, and the remote for the t.v. was broken too. now if I were staying at The Santa Maria and paying $150 a nite this could be overlooked, but this is The Holiday Inn Suites and these rooms go for $425.00 a nite - completely unexceptable! I went to the front desk and asked to be move to a room with a view, and a toilet without issues. They said they we could move the next day. That sounds simpler than it is - our new room wasn't ready till 2:30 that next day so basically we sat at the pool all day waiting for them to get our new room. I even asked if we put all of our stuff on a couple of carts if maybe they could transfer it for us. "No you would need to be here to check in and check out" & "They won't move you" the girl at the desk told us.

So after we get into the other room things went a little better, although there were only 3 towels in that room, went to call down to the front desk, and the phone was disconected from the wall. This room also needed some upgrades done to the bathroom, the finish was worn of the toilet bowl from being snaked so many times + the toilet seat did not fit the bowl in this room or the other. Not that I'm trying to be difficult but stuff like this REALLY bothers me - like I said $425 a nite - take a fraction of that money from one nites stay and go down to Home Depot and buy a new toilet for crying out loud!:mad:

my only other complaints were the fact that housekeeping didn't get to our room till about 4:00 everyday, and the waitresses at the pool, were very slow and at times seemed to have gotten lost altogether. (no they were NOT that busy)

So after we got all that garbage out of the way the rest of the stay was good. The kids really enjoyed the pool. Inspite of the way the trip started out we were having such a good time at the end of the week we decided to stay an extra nite. We did however have to change rooms once more to make this happen, but this time we dealt with a guy named Chad who works the evenings, he was very helpful, got us moved the next day first thing in the morning, no problems at all ! If they had one more of him, they could fire the 2 girls who work the day shift because IMO they were worthless.

So I guess to sum it all up - if you have kids they will love the pool at this place, and in all fairness the pools and hot tub and the location will probably bring me & my family back too, even though (IMO) the rooms are way overpriced for the condition they are in.