Upon arrival we had to wait about 15 minutes before being checked in. No big deal, and they gave us a gift bag to compensate us for our wait, which I thought was a nice touch.

We made reservations through the Holiday Inn website and requested a no-smoking room. When we checked in we were told none were available, but the room had a balcony so we could open the door. Naturally, the room stunk of stale smoke to the point it gave me a headache even after we attempted to air it out. Our neighbors were not very neighborly in that they decided that 2:30 in the morning was an entirely appropriate time to begin their party. Insulation between the rooms is apparently non-existent because it sounded as though they were in our room. And we were wearing earplugs!

The next morning my husband requested a room change. This was when he found out that if the hotel is booked (with walk-ins) and no non-smoking rooms are available, Holiday Inn will bump guests with reservations (even those made through their own website) to smoking rooms. Bad customer service! Fortunately they did have a non-smoking available so we were able to move.

The hotel is definitely in need of updating. It looks as if nothing has been done to in since it was built, which was probably in the early 80s.

I taught some Traffic School classes in the function rooms and also stayed at this hotel many times over 2005 and so far in 2006. The seasoned senior as well as most of the staff are generally efficient but afew of the younger staff were sadly impolite and just plain didn't know stuff like where nearby good shopping is etc. Rooms were good and they let us stay on the ground level with our dogs--very cool. Pool is nice too.
Sharon Gilbert Traffic School Instructor
Middletown CA

Stayed at this hotel for 3 nights in July (6-9) based on previous reviews and popularity index compared to other hotels in Santa Rosa. At best, this hotel is just okay! Even though I had booked the room through Holiday Inn's web site and called several days prior to arrival requesting a upstairs room overlooking the pool if possible, when we arrived we were assigned a bottom floor room. After expressing my displeasure to the staff, he was finally able to find a room upstairs (no pool view) for our 3 night stay, but only after threating to cancel my reservations and look for another hotel. The rooms we were assigned was good size and had some extras, such as a refrigerator and microwave, but showed some major signs of wear (in fact the whole hotel seemed very old and in bad need of repair). The room had a strong musty smell when we firsted arrived, but after leaving the balcony door open for several hours, the odor did go away. The a/c was very noisey, even on "low", which we needed due to the 95 degree temperature outside. The breakfast buffet was the highlight of the stay, complete with biscuits and gravy. The buffet was well presented and constantly attended by a friendly staff member. The one thing that did bother me though was the cost of the room. On Thursday, the cost was $86 - which seems reasonable, but for Friday/Saturday the rate went up to $126 per night. I understand this is normal practice in "touristy" places, but didn't really seem justifed in Santa Rosa. We will not stay at this hotel again when visiting the area. One word of advice that we found out after the fact - search out hotels in surrounding towns. There were 4 or 5 small towns connecting to Santa Rosa in various directions that had brand new or upscale hotels that wouldn't show up under "Santa Rosa Hotels" due to their location. But these towns are only several miles away and connected by freeway.

Were there for several nights. The front desk kept redoing our room key code. Could not figure out why until the last day when we returned in the evening and the balcony door was open, the tolit seat was wet and the towels were put away ready to use, but wet. We tore out of there! The front desk did not seem concerned. I wonder who was in our room, it was alful. The door didn't close that well, there was a deadbolt and stupid chain. The rooms were very hot, the air conditioners very loud, and down comforters in summer, not a good idea.