Our road trip from Nebraska back to Florida saw us drive over 1500 miles in just 2 days again. We tried this strategy on our way to Nebraska and seemed to work well, so we did it again on the way back. We wanted to make it back to Clarksville, TN for our overnight stay but our 3 year old daughter Courtney had enough of the van for the day. Using our strategy of iPhone apps to find hotel availability and pricing, we choose the Holiday Inn Express outside Metropolis, IL right along the Ohio River on the Illinois and Kentucky state line.
We found the Holiday Inn Express off Interstate 24 fairly easy to access via the access road. The access road took us by a few restaurants and gas stations, which we took advantage of to get some foods for the kids as well as coffee drinks for us before checking in.
Holiday Inn Express hotels seem to be my preferred hotel as most of them are fairly new with very nice rooms and offer free breakfast. Most of their hotels also seem to have been built recently and are fairly new, but this Holiday Inn Express at Metropolis looked like an older hotel. I could tell from the entrance way it had glass doors you had to manually open (unlike the automatic sliding doors as most hotels) as well as how worn the wooden doors were when entering the room. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but this was by far the oldest Holiday Inn Express I’ve ever stayed in.
Through phone calls ahead of time, we were able to get the last room with a king size bed for the evening. As if felt we were the last people to arrive at the hotel, the somewhat small parking lot in front was very full with not many spots to be found. Side parking was available, however. We didn’t get a chance to check in until around 10:00 PM, so the indoor pool was closed for the evening. We let the kids jump around the bedroom for the night, though, to get some of their energy out.
We found the room decently sized with a desk and chair with footrest. Free WiFi was also provided so we could check emails and kids could use iPads. A small fridge was also available and seems to have become a necessity for us as we like to keep our kids drinks cool, especially Courtney’s almond milk.
Breakfast was available at 6:00 AM and I found several tables already full. Cereals, bagels, juice, and coffee were available as well as hot biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, and ham, all of which were very delicious. A waffle maker and pancake maker were also available, but I kept to the gravy!
We’re always partial to Holiday Inn Express. They seem to be everywhere along the interstates we travel when we make our Florida to Nebraska trips. We’ll continue to keep them at the top of our list of preferred hotels and the Metropolis location, while a bit older than most of the locations we’ve stayed at, will be among those we’ll keep in mind for our future trips!
Leave a Reply