Jackson Miller

Sabrina and I stayed at the Hotel Indogo for our anniversary. Since this is a new hotel and I am somewhat of a hotel expert* I am thinking it may be of some value for me to share my thoughts.

First impressions are very important for hotels; the first impression sets the mood for the stay. The Hotel Indigo is difficult to get to (no place for cars to pull in when checking in, difficult entrance, etc). Once you make it up in the door and find the front desk (which you can’t see from the entrance) you can tell that ICH Hotel Group has designed this hotel to be very hip. Unfortunately, the front desk staff seemed to think they were a little too hip to be wasting their time checking me in. While they were checking me in it felt like the man and woman behind the front desk were laughing at some inside joke that I wasn’t privy too.

After checking in I made my way to the elevators. Hopefully they just haven’t gotten around to renovating the elevators. They were definitely not “boutique”. Maybe it was because they were small or maybe it was because the painters didn’t care to clean the paint smudges from the buttons and floors.

When we got to our floor things started to look promising. Never mind the fact that the signs indicated our room number didn’t exist. The halls were great and we had plenty of time to enjoy them as we looked for the elusive room number.

The room itself was nice. I have stayed in nicer rooms this month, but the wood floors were nice. Like most decent hotels built/renovated since 2005, our room had a flat panel TV and modern looking dark-wood furniture. The bathroom was nice, but the shower-without-a-door is a little cliche for a boutique hotel. One really surprising thing was that there were no power outlets at the desk. After following the cord from the lamp I learned that there were desk-level outlets, they were just hidden behind two levels of drapes.

As for little extras, there were none. Even Hampton Inn provides a bottle of water or two. At hotel Indigo there was nothing, not even a mini bar. The bath products (though made by Aveda) were the bare minimum. They really spared every expense.

This was my first time staying at a Hotel Indigo. I am not stranger to ICH Hotels (Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn); I have the highest level of frequent traveller status with them. I was expecting Hotel Indigo to be one of their nicer brands, but if you ask me, Hotel Indigo is a budget-boutique hotel brand. Sure, it looks fancy, but it is not.

For those that are curious, Sabrina and I had a great time celebrating our anniversary. It was great to have a night out without kids and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band was great.

* I have spent more nights in hotels in 2007 than I have in my own house. I am going to assume that makes me a hotel expert, at least from the perspective of a guest.