Salem Hotels with Bars

I booked a stay at the holiday inn in Salem nh Friday may 19 to sat may 20 for me and my boyfriend to stay after attending a wedding in the area. I booked the 2 double bed room about 2 weeks ago with no problem. I received a few emails leading up to my stay reassuring me that this hotel would provide exceptional service and comfort. Since I was part of the wedding party my boyfriend was the one to arrive and check in. He did so around 4 pm on Friday may 19. Check in went smoothly, we got assigned room 318 and he made his way to the room. No problem with the room everything was fine and he got dressed and left some of his belongings in the room, and headed to the venue. We got back later that night to the hotel around 12:45am to a fire alarm going off. We waited and about 20 mins later it turned off and we made our way to the room. Once we got to the door my boyfriend used to the key he was given and tried to open the door, it was latched from the inside with all the lights off. We thought it was weird and maybe we got the wrong room. Tried one more time then attempted to unlock the door next to it thinking we got the rooms mixed up, no luck. He tried the door one more time, and a mans voice comes out the dark room and he shuts the door and we head to the front lobby. I gave my name and asked what room we had been assigned. I was told 318, I told the guy at the desk there was a man in my room. Confused he called our room and sure enough a man answered, he had been on a reservation for that night but not for that room number, he was suppose to be in 310 with a roommate but somehow ended up in our room. After some time I was told he was part of corporate and normally travels with a roommate, but still no explanation how he got into our room when my boyfriend had already gone thru check in and was assigned and given a key. No help and no explanation of how someone could be given a key to my assigned room with no record of that man being assigned that room . There are a lot of what if scenarios that could have happened that night with a strange man being in a room under a Womens reservation. What if I was alone in that room when that strange man made his was in.. A man I’m assuming was their janitor or maybe security guard went up to the room with my boyfriend to get my his personal belongings that were still in the room. Once up there the man answered the door and my boyfriend said he was dirty and the room smelled really bad. The janitor/security man he was with said something along of the lines of that man didn’t seem right . To add to this wonderful experience, we were told there were no other rooms available that night since they were fully booked. Mind you it is close to 2 am at this point. We got told they could try to find us somewhere else to stay. But as annoyed as we were we decided we rather drive the hour home. When asked what was going to happen with the guy I was told nothing: they werent going to kick him out because what was the

Pros: Beautiful new(ish) hotel with a beautiful pool area. There was a DJ by the pool who played a decent variety of music. The bar cart is available for drinks and food orders. The attendants/bartenders were extremely pleasant and accommodating. The shops were very nice (mostly known storefronts). I found some great deals at the J. Crew outlet! Both the cafe and Italian restaurant were very good. Cons: We had to battle to get lounge chairs at the pool. There seemed to be chairs with used towels for hours, without an appearance from those who left them there. Perhaps staff should be collecting them, assuming the chairs are unattended. When we checked in, I was asked if we wanted cookies. I thought how nice! The cookies never came. Then we wanted to shower, there were only 2 towels for the 3 of us. We were told there were no more, and that they didn't know when we would be able to get them. One of us ended up running down to the pool and grabbed some there. My Elite Platinum status was not recognized, although when I told the front desk about the perks, she did hand me 2-$10 vouchers towards breakfast. I was not offered an upgrade. Being a hotel and food snob, I must say this is definitely one of the better hotels I've been to. I can forgive the mishaps. Perhaps they are still working out the kinks. If not for the blunders, I would have given them a 5 star rating.