Holiday Inn Express Hotels in Manhattan

The hotel is modern and new, with clean and comfortable rooms, and a convenient location adjacent to shopping, dining, a magnificent holiday lights display, and not too far from KSU. The pool and hot tub were plenty fine (and a delight to my two nephews and one niece staying in another room). The fitness center was spacious with good, well-maintained equipment. Normally, for these sort of ”cookie cutter” hotels, I'm happy to award 4 stars if they ”check all the boxes” (and 5 if they go ”above and beyond”). However, in a few areas, most notably the breakfast service, this hotel came up a tad short. I stayed two nights and had the complimentary breakfast on both mornings. I showed up for breakfast about 45 minutes after it opened (i.e., not 5 minutes before close), and experienced the following: (1) oatmeal almost empty one morning (I scraped the last bits out of it); totally empty the next morning (2) cinnamon rolls cold one morning; out the next morning (3) scrambled eggs down to a few unappetizing ”crumbs” one morning and the next morning were replaced by some pre-fab ”omelets” (both egg serving trays were allocated to ”omelets” that morning) (4) pancake machine out of batter one morning. HI Express's cinnamon rolls are an emblem of their brand; the breakfast area attendant should be monitoring them and replenishing when necessary. And it was not like it was especially busy; the breakfast area seats were perhaps 25-30% occupied. ALSO: they ran out of pool towels. And, it seemed like every time I walked past the front lobby, the front desk was unattended. I know desk attendants might need to leave the desk now and then, but it seems like a hotel should strive to keep the desk staffed except during the wee hours. I am fairly loyal to the HI Express brand. One reason for that loyalty is that its complimentary breakfasts are a cut above those of their competitors in the mid-tier lodging category; it's an area of differentiation in a category where differentiation is difficult to achieve. I would therefore suggest that all HI Express locations try to be diligent in keeping their breakfast experience positive. Yeah, once in a while, one item will run out or run low. But it should not be almost every warm item.