Holiday Inn Express & Suites Los Angeles Downtown West

Holiday Inn Express is actually pretty decent, but this location… Goodness. There are a lot of people out on the streets, homeless people, pawn shops, sketchy 99 cent stores, etc. If you could stay here and not look outside, you’d be good. I wouldn’t stay here for a vacation or anything, I stayed here for work. The beds are comfortable, room is clean, air conditioning/​heating unit works, and there’s a mini fridge. There’s also free wifi. There are outdoor and indoor parking spaces. You need to scan your card key to use the elevator.
There’s complimentary self-​serve breakfast that has cereal, oatmeal, pastries, eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, cinnamon rolls, yogurt, apples, bananas, and juice. Nothing special, but does the job. There’s a Starbucks within driving distance.

Paper thin walls, I could hear everything the person said and did.
Random hairs all over the room (not mine)
Only one elevator that was out of service for over 24 hours on a two night stay.

This isn’t a 5 star hotel just because of the location. However the Hotel is not really disrupted by its surroundings. Front desk people were nice… breakfast had a variety of tasty food, beds are also clean feeling and comfy. Never really had to use my car once parked (which was an easy task) because I just used the shuttle most of the time. Overall great experience.

After reading the diverse reviews, I began second guessing my already made reservation here. However, when I arrived I found it to be contrary to all the negative things I read. Parking was ample and fine. Elevator clean and quick. The front desk crew at midnight were phenomenal and friendly. We were even offered tea and coffee from their lounge before heading up to our 2 Queen bed room. Upon entering the room, we found a decent sized clean room with comfortable beds, a nice flat screen television with all the necessary channels, a nice fridge to store our drinks and an AC by the window that was easy to use. Very minimal distractions and comfortable environment. The bathroom was well done as well with a bath/​shower and nice smelling soaps/​lotions. I honestly had zero problems and I’m quite the detailed person with standards. I highly recommend.

Hotel is in the middle of a horrible neighborhood. For what they are charging for a room you would think it would be in a much nicer area. Also they advertise an outdoor pool, however, it’s just an oversized hot tub.

Part 2-​weekend 2
My company has 20+ rooms for two weekends in a row so this review is for the second weekend. I called to change my reservation because 1 of the people in our 20+rooms was hit by a van while crossing in a crosswalk and couldn’t make it on the original date and we had to find someone to take her job but for 2 less days.
When I called, I was placed on hold and then transferred to
. WHAT! I have no idea how I got here. So I had to hang up and call back. Lauren at Holiday Inn answered the phone and began arguing with me that that’s who I booked with-​NO I DIDN’T! I’m not talking about talking over me or using a tone, she straight up was rude and told me that she didn’t know why I was calling, she couldn’t help me and that I shouldn’t be arguing with her.
I’m floored that HOLIDAY INN doesn’t actual believe in customer service. We book all over the country and always in multiple rooms. I will NEVER stay at a HOLIDAY INN again!
Great job LAUREN

we showed up prior to our event hoping to check in quickly and be on our way only to be informed our reservation has been canceled and that they’re all booked up leaving us with no where to stay. given it was a pretty big event all the hotels in the surrounding cities were booked up as well. instead of enjoying our weekend as planned we were now panicking trying to find a place to sleep for the night.
the hotel did not inform us prior to this that our reservation had been canceled giving the excuse that they had no way to contact us. if im not mistaken, booking a room requires your full name address phone number and email address? after all we did receive a confirmation email.
the woman at the front desk was rude and unapologetic. she refused to let us speak with the manager. to prevent any unfavorable surprises and ruined weekends i would advise you to avoid staying here.

My sister had her graduation this past May and we needed to find a place to stay. She went to a Catholic college and unlike my other sister, they had their baccalaureate mass and graduation on the same day 5 hours apart.
If you stay in hotels a lot, I definitely recommend joining their rewards club. The Holiday Inn Express in LA Downtown West was the closest hotel to the Shrine Auditorium. When I first found out the hotel was a few blocks from MacArthur Park, I came to Unilocal to read the reviews. Thanks to all the people who reviewed before me for the help on making my decision. People did mention it was a sketchy neighborhood and not walk around at night. A lot of reviews mentioned that the parking was gated and watched, so that gave me relief.
Driving to this part of LA, I knew what kind of neighborhood it would be in, so even during the day time it was sketchy. But its a recently renovated Holiday Inn. There are a few levels of underground parking, and you take the elevator up to the lobby. The lobby is a little small, but the business office is right in front of the check in desk. When I got off the floor my suite was on, I noticed Additional bathrooms in the hallway, which is convenient, but you do have to have a key card to access the bathroom.
I was very pleased and surprised at the suite. It was huge and very well renovated. Two double beds, a wet bar, a dining table and a good sized sitting area with a sofa bed. Even for hotel standards, the bathroom was huge. They do have a complimentary breakfast that I ended up missing. And their «pool» is more of like a soaking pool. It’s tiny!
I had a great experience during my stay. You’re not in the greatest part of LA, but because of the location it makes it a good place to stay. And once you’re resting in your room, you forget that MacArthur park is right down the street. Just don’t look out the window. Lol.

The rooms were nice and the staff was friendly. Free breakfast was a plus. Pool was really small (more like a giant hot tub). The neighborhood was somewhat iffy.

Very fair price, clean, new furniture, i loved my stay. Thanks to the nice people of staff.

Ok, so when we found out we were going to be staying at this Holiday Inn Express on a recent LA trip, Erik L. decided to check them out on Unilocal.He reported back that the place had a 1-​star rating on Unilocal.What? A 1-​star overall rating? I was scared. (Note: he was WRONG. I have no idea where he got that idea)
This place isn’t all that bad.
PROS:
— The price! The main reason why we were housed here was because it is AFFORDABLE. It’s a cheap option that isn’t super sketch.
— Free wi-​fi. Score!
— Free brekky in the morning. It’s not a gourmet breakfast, but it does the job. Although eggs from a carton are bleh. Patries are good though! Breakfast goes until 10am
— Shuttle service! I’ve only taken the free shuttle service to two locations– LA Live and the Westin Bonaventure, but I would presume that it can also take you other places as well.
CONS:
— The pool… is not really a pool. I would describe it as a rather large hot tub. There is no way you can even attempt to do laps of any sort in it.
— The paper thin floors/​walls. This is unfortunately one of those hotels where you can hear every little thing. I don’t know about you, but I am not really a fan of waking up to the sound of a little kid (at least I presume it was a little kid…) running around upstairs. It could also have been a stampeding wildebeest. I wouldn’t know.
— The location isn’t the best. We did manage to walk to a bomb pupusas place though, if that counts for anything (Los Mulcajetes).
Ok, so to counter Erik L.‘s point about the «stupid key cards,» Erik was part of a trio of guys who all had problems with their key cards. I was in a room of three girls and NONE of us had problems with their cards. On my differential, I have as possible explanations:
— The issue is because of the rooms
— The issue is because of the boys
I have no answer for this mystery.
tl;dr: Overall, a pretty solid hotel. It’s not the best, but it is definitely by no means the worst place I’ve every stayed in. It’s clean and cheap and really, everything else is just extra.

Good:
–Clean, comfortable
–Abundance of power outlets, enough for 4 people toting tons of devices to all recharge up at the same time. Very useful
–Free wifi
–Free, passable breakfast
–Great water pressure, sooo nice
Bad:
–The location didn’t bother me at all, but I can see how some people might see it as sketchy or unsafe. If you think you’ll feel uncomfortable in this area, then I can tell you that you probably will
–THE STUPID KEY CARDS. Our room keys kept getting demagnetized, they were only effectively good for a single use entries. This was as annoying at 3 am as it was at noon. Their solution was to give us a deck of like 10 cards, several can be seen in the attached picture. I ended up carrying several on me everytime I left the room.

Juan the shuttle driver makes an awesome first impression when he’s picked me up at Union Station in the hotel shuttle van. What a great guy! The rest of the staff is great also. Pretty good breakfast. Seems to be a bad neighborhood at night but it’s ok in the daylight. I’m an old white guy and walking to the subway station for the Red Line in the morning was fine. If you’re coming in on the train at Union Station, they’ll come pick you up.
Rooms are fine. But the people are just great.

We stayed here 1 night to go to the Kings/​Bruins game at the Staples Center so we didn’t have to drive back to San Diego after the game. We checked in around 4 and the front desk staff was friendly and helpful. I didn’t get her name but she remembered that I had called the night before to confirm my reservation (since the 1-​night stay was a gift). She made us feel welcome.
The neighborhood is more of a barrio –might seem sketchy to some, but there were shops and people out and about. The free parking and free shuttle made our night stress free.
The room was clean and the tv, shower, fridge all worked as expected. We got a good night’s sleep and free coffee & cinnamon rolls before our drive home.
I’d recommend the place for exactly how we used it: for an event in downtown LA. It met our needs well.

For the price it is a good value.
It is clean. WiFi a little slow.
Decent sized frig for that class of hotel.
Pool is meh.
Should have more modern TVs :(

WHERES THE HOT WATER?
I normally don’t like to say something negative unless I feel like I got screwed and not in a good way.
I could over look old tv with no control and horrible picture. I could also over look that half the light fixtures don’t work. I do believe you get what you pay for but we were going to a concert down the street so the location was convenient .
If you are still reading my ranting and you love hot showers, do yourself a favor and go else where.
Picture yourself in a third world country with NO HOT WATER IN LA
Thank you

5 of us stayed in 1 room– 3 adults and 2 small wee children for 3 nights. the price was totally worth it. We stayed here because of the close proximity to the Fashion District. it was only a 5 min drive away.
**THE ROOM**
CLEAN and NEW! no funky carpet smells. décor was modern and clean.
**FREE BREAKFAST**
nothing to write about. If you want to be healthy, I would just get the Silk Soymilk, banana, and cereal. Maybe have some eggs too. they also had a machine that churned out pancakes from a conveyer belt. the kids loved that.
**FREE PARKING**
it was fine. nothing happened to my car. I did put a club on it and parked by the elevators.
**THE AREA**
It was a bit ghetto i have to admit. but not as ghetto as the TENDERLOIN in SF. I would say it was more like a mash of the inner mission and civic center of San Francisco. For sure, I would not walk around the neighborhood at night. I did drive to the Thai Express to get some dinner and realized they had a bunch of drive-​thru places around the area. It was a bit sketchy but I grew up in San Francisco, so I’m pretty used to this sort of stuff.
All in all, I think it was well worth it for the price. everyone was happy in the camp.

Sketchy. Don’t recommend. Plus, my car was moved in their parking lot.
The area is sketchy, which is probably why their deal of a suite of 2 queen beds for $ 175 was cheap.
I also parked my car in their lot and when I got back it was parked diagonally. I had my keys in my bag in the room while I was gone so it was possible someone had gone through my things. There wasn’t anything damaged or stolen, but the fact that my privacy was invaded pissed me off. The manager on duty wasn’t of any help. The manager after him told me to call the general manager on Monday and I’d have to file a police report so they can access the surveillance tapes. They really couldn’t check the tapes to ensure their customer feels like they’re being taken cared of?
I don’t trust Holiday Inn especially this one. Don’t go here.

Although the area is pretty ghetto. we needed something closeby to the Park Plaza.
The hotel itself is not bad… in fact, I rather enjoyed the room minus the smoke. We were too lazy to trade rooms so we didn’t.
They even have the modern hotel doors where you just wave the key in front instead of sliding it in. Cool!
I did enjoy immensely the free wifi and the breakfast. In fact, while everybody else was asleep. I wandered downstairs. Pancakes, eggs, coffee, toast, cereal, yogurt… everything you might want!
And the price was just right for all of us in the room. Would recommend. but when are you ever in this area, right?

Expedia this place out before booking on their website. Might be cheaper. Located in a shady looking neighborhood, however is the best hotel you can find that’s near park plaza hotel for an event.
Location neighborhood: Westlake, LA
The boyfriend found this place to stay for us and our friend to stay for our one day event at the Park Plaza Hotel (
beautiful)
Room — Got the Kings non-​smoking room for $ 120 a night. I know it’s a bit pricey, however, it’s worth it than other hotels near by. Sadly, when we arrived to your room, it was not cleaned up yet. Negative… We already told them we still wanted a room at the same floor where our friends were staying so they apologized and offered us another room which had two queen size beds. We were alright with that.
$ 120 for two queen beds? Accepted.
Things included in the room…
–fridge
— coffee maker (includes coffee & tea, or if you’re creative like us, bring some cup noodles to save your hunger: P)
— office table
— many outlet plugs on the bottom of the lamps
— LCD tv
— iron board + iron
— a safe (should be free to use, if not, ask front desk)
— mirrors at the closet, bathroom and near the office desk (muaha ladies can get ready in all places)
— free wifi!
What also included in purchasing a night stay is FREE breakfast from 8am-​10am :D I drank at least 3 small cartons of soy silken milk. :)
There’s pancakes, toasts, yogurt, pancake looking sausages, soy milk, and oj! What more can we ask when we’re having a hangover, right?
Despite the shadiness. there’s free parking and free breakfast before leaving. This place is just alright.