Holiday Inn Express & Suites Chicago-Libertyville by IHG

Wonderful place to stay if you have a graduating recruit. If you family member is graduating from Navy Bootcamp this is a perfect place to stay. It is a straight shot to the Base. The people working here are great and happy to help anyway possible. The breakfast was okay. One thing I can say is they did not mind your recruit eating breakfast with you. The beds and pillows are so comfortable.

Great stay We came for our sailors bootcamp graduation. The staff was friendly. They were accommodating to any of our needs. The rooms were clean and exactly what we needed. There was a shuttled offered for PIR. It was located only 10 min from base! Breakfast was wonderful! It was a great stay and I would recommend it for anyone coming to town!

Would Not Recommend This Location We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express - Libertyville hotel for our son’s Navy boot camp graduation, and I would stay away if you have other options. We had a couple situations that occurred with the staff during our visit that is the reason I am writing this review. The first occurred on the evening of 08/29/24 (around 8pm) I was trying to book another additional room at the front desk after waiting my turn in line and in the middle of the process another customer walked in to check in and I was asked by staff to step aside so they could pause with me and check them in. I had no problem, but I thought it was weird because we were almost done, then while he was checking in the other customer, 2 more customers walked in, so I just told him to forget about it and that I would do it myself online. I will also add the attendant was enjoying a beer and reading a book on the bench in the lobby when I walked up, I get the book, but they allow their employees to drink alcohol as well? The second issue occurred the following morning on 08/30/24 (around 8:30am) I was making up 1 plate of breakfast food to take up to my wife and toddler to eat as they would not have been ready in time to make it to breakfast before it stopped being served. The front desk attendant literally ran over to me and told me I was not allowed to take back food to my room in front of everyone that was eating. I have NEVER heard of such a rule in all my years of staying at hotels including many Holiday Inn Express hotels in general and there were no posted signs saying this. I asked him why, and he said because people have a tendency to waste it and not eat it, I assure him it would get eaten and even offered to walk my trash back down to the lobby, but he made me throw it away (which was ironic because he was literally wasting the food) again all of this was in front of everyone that was eating, it was probably one of the most embarrassing situations I have experienced. I would also mention that I saw others leaving the breakfast area with food and the staff member had no issue with them taking food back to their room, so I don’t know if it was a discrimination issue or what made them single me out. There were more smaller annoyances, but those wouldn’t even have been a thought if it weren’t for the embarrassment/discrimination I suffered at the hands of their staff.

I would NEVER stay here again We travel several times a year to the Chicago area and have been staying at this Holiday Inn (Libertyville) for the past several years. Generally our stays have been fine. This time we returned from being out all day on 4/1/24 to find our hotel room door not only unlocked but visibly open. Anyone could have walked down the hall and easily seen that it was open. This was in the early evening and we had left at 9 AM so the room could have been open all day. I went and spoke with desk about this. Short conversation. He said he would make a note and get it to the manager. In the morning when we left I again spoke with man (different guy) at the front desk. He seemed to know about report from night before and said he would make sure manager got the message. I asked for a call from the manager. There has been no follow up from anyone. No phone call. No email. Nothing. I understand that leaving the door open could have been a mistake (though a serious one) by the housekeeping staff. But no follow up of any kind from management is beyond mistake. Its a total lack of concern and a lack of semblance of customer service. We already had reservations for later this month at this same Holiday Inn which have now been cancelled. And we will not stay there but will instead find somewhere else to stay during our trips to the area. Both of the conversations I had with front desk personnel were short, fairly pleasant. The fault is in no way with them. They took the message. They did their jobs. Whoever is the manager did not.

I won't be staying here again. Try the Sonesta in Libertyville or literally any other hotel. I travel extensively for work and events and I come to the Libertyville area at least twice a year. I usually only leave reviews when I am super happy with a hotel or restaurant, or if I am super disappointed. This one was all disappointment. A colleague talked me into booking this room because they were staying here the same week. This was my first time staying at this hotel. It will also be my last. Here's the good and bad. Check-in was relatively quick and easy and the woman was very pleasant. The lobby was clean and bright so it was a relatively good first impression. My room was on the ground floor, thank goodness. I found the room itself to be small, tight, strangely laid out, and with a strong unpleasant chemical type odor throughout my stay, almost like one of those pungent room deodorizer cannisters. The bathroom had a faint odor of mildew and the whole room felt oddly damp. The closet was tiny with very little room to hang my clothes for the week but if you are staying only one or two nights, it should be adequate. My colleagues reported back that the elevator was broken and they had to lug their suitcases up to the third floor and the manager was rude to them when they talked to him about trying to change rooms to a lower level. They were not able to change rooms and had to use the stairs. The water pressure in the bathroom was a dribble and there was no hot water. It was just enough past room temperature to be called vaguely warm. Showers were extremely dissatisfying. You won't linger. There was no sound-proofing to speak of. People had loud conversations in the hallway outside my room constantly throughout the week. There was (I assume) a small child in the room above me for the week who was running back and forth endlessly every morning and for hours every evening from around 5 pm until midnight some nights. I wish I had that child's energy. It was boundless, but super annoying to listen to for a week. I kept the tv on low to try to drown out some of the noise but still found it difficult to work or sleep. People were also running in the hallways on the ground floor and the floor above me. The bed was not comfortable at all. I ended up with a kink in my neck and shoulder blade from the bed and pillows. It was clean with clean linens so that was a positive. Too bad it wasn't comfortable. I honestly can't say if my lack of sleep that week was from the bed, the child running up and down the floor upstairs, the loud conversations and running in the halls, or the tv that I kept on low to try to drown everything else out. Maybe all of the above but it was a horrible week with zero rest. After day one there was no more coffee in my room. I asked for more at the front desk. They gave me two pods and then told me they were out of coffee pods for the room coffee pots after that. I asked if the hotel provided coffee in the lobby and they told me they only make it available after 2 pm??? I don't understand why they don't have coffee available between breakfast and 2 pm. So I spent my days in a brain fog from lack of sleep and lack of coffee trying to work in my noisy room. Thank goodness for the Starbucks next door. The internet was also a constant issue and dropped often. I spent at least an hour each day trying to get my laptop to connect or reconnect when it dropped. It was an exercise in futility. Between the lack of sleep, the noisy environment, and the inconsistent wifi, I got very little work done that week. The driveway coming into the hotel and the second driveway between the hotel and the starbucks plaza parking lot next door are both extremely steep grades and were sheets of ice while I was there. The entire parking lot was a sheet of ice and I felt like I was skating just trying to walk to my car in the flat lot. It was very dangerous and should have been cleared and salted properly. The two driveways were too steep and icy to be walkable so I had to wade through snowdrifts to walk to the starbucks next door. The side walks were not shoveled at all. Very poor management of the premises. There was also garbage in the hotel parking lot that wasn't picked up the entire week I was there. Breakfast was lackluster. Again, thank goodness for Starbucks being right next door so I could get something to eat in the morning. There were no decent restaurants for dinner near the hotel so I had to drive around to find something for dinner each evening. Some of the staff did not seem to have a good grasp on English and froze like a deer in the headlights when I asked them questions. I just had to go to the front desk for anything I needed and generally they were not helpful but at least could tell me they had no answers for me. I much prefer leaving five start reviews for hotels and saying what I really love about them but that is not going to happen for this place. Absolute disappointment and I won't be returning here. It was enough of a disappointment to make me question booking ANY IHG property going forward. I much prefer Marriott properties. Since there isn't one close enough to Libertyville, I usually stay at the Sonesta. I am supremely sorry i did not do that this time. Pros: There is a Starbucks next door. I didn't see any bugs. Cons: Literally everything else. I will never stay here again.