Review of Holiday Inn Austin North, an IHG Hotel 3*

Ever hear the saying 'don't judge a book by it's cover'? Well that's the case in regards to this hotel-it's new, it's nice on the outside and in the lobby when you enter, but I stayed there two nights ago, and was extremely disapppointed. After traveling 3 1/2 hours to get there, we just wanted to get in, relax, get in the hottub, and maybe have a drink at the bar. We got in the room and the pictures were missing from the walls which I thought was strange. I saw numerous gnats in the bathroom and apparently they were coming from the sink drain which was covered in mold. We decided to go to the pool/hottub area and the first thing I noticed was the used towel bin was overflowing onto the floor as if they hadn't picked them up in days, but it got much worse-there were bandaids, globs of toilet paper, chewed gum, and other garbage surrounding the pool. The water in the pool was way too hot for an indoor pool and sort of cloudy looking. The worst part was the hottub didn't even work! Neither looked like they were maintained. Later that night we decided to go get a drink at the bar which was WAY overpriced-$25 for two beers and two shots. You could of went and picked up a case at the Rudy's nearby for that price, which we should've. I checked my account that night and discovered that I had been charged $129, not the $77 that I booked online, and after calling the front desk to find out why, they told me they charge a $50 'incidental fee' as well as your room charge and you may not get it back for 3-5 days! And the guy says, "they should've told you when you checked in". I've never experienced that before, no one told me of this when we checked in, and it's total BS to charge for damage that hasn't occured yet. I will NOT be staying here again-EVER.