PA Pittsburgh Hoilday Inn Airport

[ng89]

This is one of the best Holiday Inns I've ever been in. Clean, spacious room, with very nice decor. The pool and hottub were clean and had a lifeguard on duty at all times.

This hotel is in the 2.5 star category on Priceline, but I would call it more like a mid to high 3-star. Great bargain at $27 per night on Priceline.

We did not eat the food there, so I can't comment on that. There are, however, plenty of cheap restaurants nearby, in addition to a couple of bars and some rather run-down strip malls.

Downtown was probably about a 20 minute drive or so, and it was easy to get to.

My only complaint was the front desk staff. A couple of the ladies were rather rude. I asked once for directions to downtown. The lady, without saying a single word, walked to the other end of the counter, grabbed a directions sheet, came back and slapped it down in front of me and walked away. It didn't bother me much, I got the directions I needed, but she could have been a little more cheerful.

[mcgervey]

I agree with most of this reviewer's comments.

First off, important to some of us and myself, this hotel does have free high speed internet in the rooms if you have a laptop. It is a network wired connection. If you take the cord under the desk you can barely get it onto your bed to lounge and suft and watch tv at the same time. When you're worn out from a football or baseball game, or river cruise or trip to the aviary, conservatory, or zoo or all of the above, face it, it's time to flop on the bed!

From my experiences I think I have ALWAYS, in 6 out of 6 or 7 our of 7 priceline attempts, got the Holiday Inn AIRPORT for a $30 bid, which is $42 after tax and fees.

The front desk staff is give and take. I have stayed at this hotel many times now. They can be very nice and accomadating at times as well. I find when I have the children with me they are much more pleasant, surprisingly, and hand out Clark bars (formerlly a Pittsburgh product) to the kids.

THIS IS A BETTER HOTEL FOR KIDS, in my opinion, due to the LARGE POOL and pool area, many lounge chairs and tables in the pool area, and they usually have a life guard on duty during all open pool hours. One is an old retired guy who is VERY ATTENTATIVE (he'll make your kids stop running and diving), and the other a sweet younger girl who pays attention, but lets the kids kinda get a little crazy, but not too much.

If you want to try to get in with fewer kids for a swim, go right when the pool opens at 10am.

If you want a smaller hotel with somewhat nicer rooms, and still a pool and hot tub, try a $35 bid to get the Courtyard Marriot, which is one exit before the Holiday Inn University Ave exit. They have a very nice pool, although it's pretty small. Better hot tub facility. But you can be overrun with children sometimes in their pool area because it's fairly small. If you've got kids, fine. If you want a night off from the kids, its hit or miss in this hotel. At the Holiday Inn, at least the size somewhat drowns out the numbers and noise sometimes.

They have usually accomadated our requests as far as airport view, usually on the 6th or 7th floor. While it's farther from the pool and whirlpool (also important to the kids and adults), the children enjoy watching the planes. Twice I asked for rooms close to the pool and once got a dismal view of sort of the top of the pool building (which you could almost see into but the windows were DIRTY and steamed up), and another time got a room with a dismal view of a small outdoor corridor and service steps right outside the window. Ask for an airport view or room on a higher floor. Much more pleasant. And the kids enjoy the elevators.

The food is pretty decent. Good hotel fare with some regional influence in the naming of things. I wouldn't highly recommend it, but if you don't want to go anywhere you probably won't be sorry you ate there either.

You do have Denny's basically right across the street to the right out of the hotel, and Wendys right next to that. If you turn left, just up over the hill you can find several decent pizza joints, Kmart, a grocery store and some other misc. shopping. A few of the pizza joints are open pretty late.

This holiday inn I believe is pet friendly as well. I don't recall if I've ever taken mine on the holiday inn trips, because I'm usually going to a Pirate or Steeler game when I do the low bid airport thing. Check the Holiday Inn website on the pet rules, but I think they are welcome.

Forgot one thing. If you like to shop at IKEA, or like to shop, you want the Airport area... Robinson Town Center and Mall (one of the largest shopping areas in PA), is about 5 minutes from these hotels. IKEA is there, as is your other typical sprawl (Sams Club, Walmart, the mall stores, and TONS of good restaurants)...

If you've never been to an IKEA, go there first! It's my favorite store, and I look forward to stopping there any time I'm staying at the airport.

If you're coming from Pittsburgh or from the South, you'll go right through the Robinson stores on 60 on your way to the airport. Right after you pass the 22/30 cut off exit, the first exit after 22/30 is Robinson IKEA and Town Center to the right, Walmart/Sams and related stores to the left.