Holiday Inn Hotels in Manahawkin

The Management and hotel staff need a lot of education on respect, privacy, courteous behavior, empathy, and taking responsibility when wrong doing is involved. I wrote a review and it was sent back to me saying for legal reasons they could not post. Very confusing. I went there for my birthday with my mom and sister. It was also a last hurrah before starting chemotherapy. Here were the issues: 1. Musty smell in the rooms 2. Large alive BUG near TV 3. Staff walking in our room without knocking or announcing themselves 4. The rugs are extremely old and fraying and dirty 5. The bottom of the curtains were filthy. When I tried to address it with the staff they become defensive saying it was because we had concerns about the room and they came to check instead of apologizing and saying who they were. Went to the front desk to complain about staff just coming into our room while I was lying down and thought it was my sister and mom coming in the room and when I opened my eyes it was a strange man. It was frightening and disconcerting and I got off of the bed and asked what happened to knocking. The man told me that he thought the room was empty since my mom and sister were at the front desk addressing the concerns. I explained that we were registered as three. I was told by the front desk staff that it was the manager who was concerned, so he entered our room. Nobody seemed to get that no matter what the reason, one should knock and announce yourself before opening the door to a patron's room. It only takes a few seconds to do that. There was no apology for the invasion of privacy. That is my biggest complaint. They just seemed to feel like it was ok to just not knock or announce themselves. In fairness, the beds were comfortable and bathroom clean. The restaurant and bar area was nice. However, it was hard to enjoy these things while the other issues were present. We were provided with a different room. But that one still was smelly, but at least no bugs.