Holiday Inn Express & Suites St. Cloud

Friendly Staff, Terrible Housekeeping!
TL;DR — Look elsewhere for accommodations, unless you don’t mind dirty bedding.
The Good: We met here for a family gathering. The front desk staff was great and the breakfast staff was delightful. The pool area was nice and the family suites had a great, functional layout.
The Bad: Housekeeping. Everything was pretty dirty. We had three suites and there were problems in them all.
Suite 1: Stinky, musty water with a malfunctioning tub faucet. The pull-​out bed was made with dirty linens and things felt generally grimy.
Suite 2: Dirty clothes were left in the drawers from a previous guest.
Suite 3: Dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and dirty linens on the bed. It seems no one had changed the linens and there were dried rose petals at the foot.
The Ugly: As if that weren’t repulsive enough, there we stains and smudges, including a greasy face-​print in the elevator, on a good portion of the walls. The interaction with the housekeeping staff showed a marked apathy toward these situations and remedies.
Takeaway: The front desk staff seemed aware of the housekeeping issues and were apologetic. They seemed to be stuck, hands-​tied, and said they would file another report. I got the feeling this was an ongoing issue. The breakfast staff was simply delightful, and they offered a very nice selection of foods and beverages as well as a comfortable eating atmosphere.
The pool was noisy, but nice. Ample sitting spaces and clean water. Although I didn’t use the exercise room, it looked adequate.
None of those things can overcome the yuck of the housekeeping issues, however, and I would not likely book another stay.

My friend and I stayed here on a spur of the moment — we were supposed to be staying with friends, and when an unexpected situation arose, we needed to find a hotel. Since we were on the road, we quickly searched online and made some calls. This hotel was the 3^rd place we called (the first 2 were entirely booked) — and the woman at the front desk let us know she had 1 room left (phew!) which just happened to be a double queen (phew!) and — best yet — she managed to get us in the room immediately (we were about 10 minutes out). We were extremely grateful as we had just driven about 6 hours and were in need of freshening up before we were to attend a friend’s performance in town.
The room was clean, the beds comfy. It was just what we needed for the night.

Had a great stay here on a cross country trip from CA to MI. Plenty of parking for our truck w trailer, dog friendly, clean and decent prices. All I could ask for…

I can’t say that I enjoyed my stay here. Though the rooms were clean, the in room facilities were not to my liking. I had room 118 on the ground floor, which is the first room on the right immediately after you pass the lobby. I don’t know about the other rooms, but DO NOT STAY IN THIS ROOM.
1. The shower wasn’t working properly. It was really rinky-​dink. I pulled the lever up on the tub faucet to start the shower, and there was very little water pressure. The water trickled out of the shower head instead of coming out in a stream. Ok, not the end the world but a little inconvenient.
2. The room has no blackout curtains. Just the translucent curtain that allows sunlight in, but doesn’t give you 100% privacy, especially if its dark out and you have the lights on inside.
3. There is a flood light directly outside the room that keeps turning off and on all night long. Not a big deal, but since there are no blackout curtains, the light comes into the room. Quite annoying when it constantly flips on and off. I was already settled in when I discovered this and had an early morning. I didn’t want to take the trouble to change rooms and get all worked up and not be able to get back into sleep mode. So, I ripped off a pillow case to use as an eye shade.
The only good thing that came out of my experience was the complimentary breakfast.

Not a bad lower-​end hotel. The price was right and practically my husband’s entire family — aunts, uncles, cousins, and all — were staying here for the weekend of Grandma’s 90^th birthday party. The rooms are OK, not overly luxurious (due to my husband’s mass accumulation of Hilton and Marriott points, I have gotten spoiled by higher-​end accomodations on our vacations.) However the beds were pretty comfortable and came with plenty of pillows. All rooms had slightly-​larger-​than-​mini-​fridges with separate freezers but no microwaves. Front desk help was nice. We asked them to assign us the adjoining room with my brother-​in-​law and they were able. Housekeeping was a bunch of young white girls who cleaned a room faster than I’ve ever seen it done and the place looked great when they left. The only downside was they started EARLY. Free wi-​fi in your room, log on info from the front desk. Breakfast was substandard but free. The woman who worked in the breakfast room was a little cranky on Friday (I asked nicely for some less-​green bananas of which she had a whole mountain of while only three really green ones were out on the counter, and she fought with me about how green or yellow they were) but she was lovely on Saturday and Sunday. I meant to tell my husband to leave her a tip Sunday but I forgot and now I feel like an ass. I am sure she never sees tips since the food is all free. Coffee and tea are available in the lobby all day. The pool area is pretty nice — regular pool, kiddie pool, and hot tub, plus nice big area with tables and chairs and a ping pong table. Pool area is open until 11 pm and our family closed it down every night — we gathered there not only to swim but just mingle and catch up with everyone, order in some pizzas, and drink.