Holiday Inn El Monte – Los Angeles Review

Booking & Stay Details

My IHG status just changed to Platinum as the qualification year ended and I didn’t accumulate enough nights or points last year to renew it. However, IHG sent me an invite to requalify for Diamond status with only 8 stays in March 2023. I spent my first three nights at the Holiday Inn Express Seattle-Sea-Tac Airport and looked now for an IHG hotel near the office I had to travel to for work in Los Angeles and found the Holiday Inn El Monte – Los Angeles. I also remembered just in time to book through Rakuten to earn additional American Express Membership Rewards points. There was only a 3% cash back for IHG reservations during the time of booking. Hey, better than nothing.

Location

The Holiday Inn El Monte is located in the city of El Monte. The city lies east of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley. It is located close to the 1o Freeway which makes it easy to get around. Well, considering the heavy traffic in the greater Los Angeles area. There is nothing special about the location. As mentioned, my main reason was a stay at an IHG property and this one was closest to work.

Parking

There are plenty of parking spots all around the hotel building. Parking at the Holiday Inn El Monte – Los Angeles is complimentary. Surprisingly, the hotel has 16 EV charging stations right in front of the hotel. 

Unfortunately, these spots are often used up by people who park their regular car there as the spots are closer to the entrance.

Shuttle Service

This hotel doesn’t provide any shuttle service.

Check-In

The check-in experience wasn’t as pleasant as I hoped it to be. I arrived late at night, after 10 p.m., and I was the only guest to check in at that point. Unfortunately, the front desk agent was on the phone, sometimes even at two phones at the same time and trying to figure something out. Since he spoke Spanish, I wasn’t sure what was going on.

It took quite a long time for him to settle that phone call and start my check-in process. During this he had to text back the person who he was just on the phone with, I assume. I apologized for the delay and checked me in. I received my room keys, and he gave me the basic information about the hotel. He also pointed me to the elevators, which are located right behind the front desk, you need to walk around on either side to get to them.

Check-In: 3 p.m.
Check-Out: 12 p.m.

1 King Bed Standard Sofa Bed Room (Room 332)

I was surprised at how spacious this room was. It is really large with a ton of space. It might be due to the reason that it is a handicap-accessible room. 

The entryway of the room comes with a closet to the right and some additional storage space next to the door. Inside the closet is a small safe. The other side of the entranceway leads into the large bathroom. Inside is a vanity with a single sink and wall-mounted mirror. Besides that, there is also a roll-in shower. There is so much space in the bathroom. It is wasted space, as it is not really usable but if you are in a wheelchair, you will surely appreciate the extra space. I didn’t book a handicapped room but got that room assigned during check-in. 

The entryway and bathroom have a tiled floor while the rest of the room has a carpeted floor. Just past the entryway is the living area. This section of the room comes with a sofa bed on one side of the room and a desk with a TV on top of it across from it. Next to the desk is a small closet that houses a mid-size fridge, coffee machine, and microwave.

As we continue further into the room, we have the bedroom area. On the same side as the sofa bed is now a king bed with a nightstand on either side. The lights on top of the nightstand have additional power outlets if needed but there are also power outlets and USB ports in the headboard on either side. Next to the bed, in the corner is a sofa chair. 

Across the room is an office desk which is mounted to another mid-sized closet. On top of the closet is another TV. You have two TVs in the room, almost sitting side by side and if you use the remote and aim directly at one of the two TVs, both will turn on. But then you have weird echoes from two TVs displaying the same program. If you only have one on and try to turn it off at night and are not careful, you turn one off and the other one on. You need to point the remote away so it can only get one TV to react to the signals. That was an interesting experience.

The controller for the air conditioning is mounted on the wall next to the sofa bed. For whatever reason, if you set the mode to “Cool” the lowest temperature you can set the AC is 70° F. If you set the AC to “Auto” you can go down as far as 67° F. Strange. It took me a second to figure this out. The window allowed a partial view of the pool area and the parking lot of the hotel. Not noteworthy.

Public Areas & Amenities

Lobby

The lobby is also very spacious and nicely decorated. Beautiful lights and chandeliers on the ceiling and many seating options all over the place. A security guard is sitting next to the main entrance door at night. 

Business Center

The business center is to the left of the front desk. It consists of two workstations and a printer. I needed to print a couple of pages but had to get more paper from the front desk to restock the printer. Usage is complimentary for hotel guests.

Fitness Center

The Fitness center is located down the wide hallway at the elevator lobby. It is on your right side as you walk down. It has a good selection of workout equipment, but the weight machine was down as one person “inadvertently” took the pin to lock the weights. You need your room key to enter the fitness center.

Hours: 5 a.m. – 10 p.m.

Pool

Yes, the pool situation is also weird here. When I tried to check out the pool, they had a chain wrapped multiple times around the door so you can’t open it. I asked the front desk before I headed out for work if the pool was closed for maintenance, but they weren’t sure at all what was going on. I told them that there is a chain around the gate, and they were surprised and told me that they will have maintenance check it out. When I got back from work in the afternoon the chain was gone but was back on there the next morning. Both times I checked were within official pool hours. It’s funny that nobody at the hotel really knows what’s going on.

Guest Laundry

The hotel’s guest laundry comes with two washers and two dryer units. All units only accept credit cards and are $4 each. No possibility to use coins at all here. If I remember correctly, this is the first time I have seen that, usually it’s just coins and sometimes you can do coins and credit cards.

Housekeeping

There is no daily housekeeping at the hotel. You can request a small service every day, but a regular service will be done only every fifth night of your stay.

Dining

Breakfast

The hotel’s website shows the restaurant open from 7 a.m. – 10 a.m. for breakfast. When I tried to have breakfast Tuesday morning, I got told that breakfast is not served on Mondays and Tuesdays but all other days. 

So, I went for breakfast at the restaurant and that was an experience too. Even though there is a big ballroom attached to the restaurant, the main dining area is small and only has very few dining tables. You had better get there early to get a spot. There is also no waiter to greet you. Only one guy was taking care of the orders and everything inside the restaurant, besides the cooks. He had his hands full running back and forward. You don’t even get seated first and get a menu; you get asked to look at the menu near the cashier’s desk. The server took my order and offered me the second to last table available. The breakfast was good even though the scrambled eggs weren’t fully scrambled. They also don’t bring you the check, you have to walk up to the guy and tell him. At least that’s what I did. To his defense, he was very busy running back and forth serving food, taking orders, and cleaning tables. 

For whatever reason you can do room charge during breakfast hours. But it’s not what you think it would be from other hotel restaurants. You don’t get a check where you can put down the tip. He just notes your room number and last name on a piece of paper and most likely hands it over to the front desk. 

Restaurant

The same restaurant which serves breakfast also serves lunch and dinner. However, it is not listed on the hotel’s website as being open for dinner. I called the front desk, and they didn’t know whether it was open or not and told me to come down and check, even though they can see it straight from the front desk. The restaurant, GV Yummy as it is called on the receipt, is not associated with the hotel and you can’t do a room charge. Unfortunately, I couldn’t ask the people working in the restaurant either, as they only spoke enough English to tell you how much the food is. 

The restaurant serves an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. It’s like a mini–Panda Express and the food was actually really good. The service is not so good. I had to walk up to get the check, but I am not sure if this is customary practice for Chinese restaurants. While the restaurant is open, you can see the opening hours on the TV outside the door. Once they close, they also turn off the TV. It’s counterproductive as people can’t figure out when they can come over to the restaurant to eat.

Market

A small market is located next to the front desk where you can buy snacks and beverages as well as some over-the-counter medicine.

Conclusion

My stay at the Holiday Inn El Monte – Los Angeles was okay. But I made some interesting discoveries. Not that they had any direct impact on my stay, but maybe on someone else’s. I checked the hotel website about breakfast hours. For me, they are too late, and I wouldn’t be able to get breakfast at the hotel, which I accepted and booked the hotel either way. Just come to learn that there is no breakfast offered on Mondays & Tuesdays which is nowhere noted. Also, the longer-than-normal check-in process was not my favorite part of the stay after a long day of travel. But if you travel, you have to just deal with this small issue.

More interesting is that the hotel website declares the pool as an “indoor pool”. You can even see in the picture on the hotel’s website that this isn’t true. I was okay staying here as I wanted to complete the required 8 nights to qualify for IHG Diamond status.

It seems like no one at the hotel knows what’s going on. The front desk staff doesn’t know about the restaurant hours, the restaurant is not part of the hotel. I have never seen a Holiday Inn with an attached restaurant that is not part of the hotel. By part of the hotel, I mean you can do a room charge. It’s so strange how everything is handled here. It’s like they are running a hotel for the first time. It wasn’t a super negative experience for me. However, not at all what you expect and not streamlined at all. Not even for the hotel itself. 

Overall, I wasn’t very impressed with the hotel and service itself and will mind that location in the future.