After spending a month in South Dakota, it was time to head to the 35th state on our 50 state road trip – Minnesota. Due to some work trips and the high cost of hotels during the summer elsewhere in Minnesota during the summer, we decided to focus most of our time in the state in the Minneapolis/St Paul area.
It was a long drive from Deadwood, SD to Orr, MN (where Shae was doing a bear photography experience), so we decided to stop a couple of places along the way. We spent one night in Bismarck, ND and then three nights at the Holiday Inn Detroit Lakes-Lakefront, MN.
The Holiday Inn ended up being a great stay. It’s right on Detroit Lake, with rooms facing the water. We got a little unlucky with our timing as we stayed just before the hotel started offering kayak rentals on the lake, but I enjoyed our time there so much I’d like to return.
Here’s a full review of our stay at the Holiday Inn Detroit Lakes-Lakefront.
Check-In
It was an uneventful drive from Bismarck to Detroit Lakes and we arrived at about 4:30pm.
The hotel was in the middle of some renovations, so their front desk was just a makeshift setup. They were in the process of putting in the new front desk the day we left.
The front desk agent was friendly, although there was a little confusion about the free breakfast we were eligible for. I have Diamond status with IHG and when checking in you can choose free breakfast for every day of your stay as your welcome amenity. I mentioned that I wanted to pick free breakfast, but the front desk agent thought we were only eligible for that for one morning rather than every morning. Anyway, she checked with her manager and got it confirmed that we were indeed eligible for free breakfast every day, so it wasn’t a big deal.
We were assigned room 117, so we headed down there with our stuff in tow.
Bedroom
We’d booked with points and there weren’t any king bed options available when booking, so we ended up in a room with two queen beds.
The beds were very comfortable. IHG offers both firm and soft pillows, so you can pick which one to use based on your preferences which is nice. The room’s blackout curtains also worked well.
On the opposite side of the room was a desk, TV, mini fridge, microwave and small drawer. The desk was on rollers, so it could be moved elsewhere in the room if we’d wanted, although the layout of the room meant there wasn’t really anywhere else it could go. To the left of the desk (not pictured below) was a luggage rack.
Back by the bathroom was an open closet with an iron and ironing board, a cubby hole and a little more storage space beneath that.
Next to the door was a wall-mounted unit with several hooks. We had mostly nice weather while we were there, but it was handy to have nonetheless as it meant we could hang our dog’s leash and harness on there out the way.
Hanging on the back of our door was a Greener Stay hanger. This gives you the opportunity to earn 500 bonus IHG One Rewards points per day for declining housekeeping. Shae and I always decline housekeeping anyway, so we took advantage of this to get some free points. In past years, hotels weren’t always great about actually awarding the points. However, at both this property and the one we stayed at recently in Sioux Falls, they did award the points automatically.
Something that we loved about the hotel is that our room was very quiet. That might not end up being the case if you visit in the middle of summer when the hotel’s presumably much busier, but it was nice that we couldn’t hear anyone above our room or in adjacent rooms.
Bathroom
The bathroom had a long countertop along one wall which provided plenty of space for toiletries.
There was a bathtub with a shower. I didn’t make any notes about the shower, so the water pressure must’ve been fine.
There were small bottles of Dove toiletries and bars of soap.
Patio
Perhaps the best feature of our room at the Holiday Inn Detroit Lakes-Lakefront wasn’t in our room. At the far side of the bedroom was another door.
This led out to a patio area with a couple of chairs and a table. If you stay on the second, third or fourth floors, you have a balcony instead.
Having the patio was a lovely feature as it looks out over Detroit Lake, hence the ‘lakefront’ in the hotel’s full name. There was a narrow grassy area, then a sandy beach along the shore. Seeing as we visited in May though, it was too cold to enjoy the water. Still, having the lake so close to our room was awesome as it meant we could hear the waves lapping against the shore at night.
Breakfast
Breakfast at the Holiday Inn Detroit Lakes-Lakefront is served from 6:30am-11am during the week and 6:30am-11:30am at the weekend. I loved that for a couple of reasons. I’m not – in an ideal world – an early riser, so it was nice not having to get up for a breakfast that ends at 9am. Having a later, filling breakfast also meant we could skip lunch and just have dinner later on.
Here’s the breakfast menu:
We tried a few different breakfast options. On the first morning I had their corned beef hash which was pretty good…
…while Shae had their traditional French toast with a side of scrambled eggs which she enjoyed too.
I think another morning Shae got their Innjoyable breakfast, but I don’t have a photo of that. I meanwhile got their steak and eggs which was decent and very filling as it also comes with hash browns and a couple of slices of toast.
Shae realized the error of her ways by not ordering that too, so we both got that on our final morning. Despite being the most expensive entrée option on the menu at $22, the steak and eggs was included as part of our free breakfast benefit from having IHG Diamond status.
Other Dining
All day Saturday the hotel’s bar offers $4 mimosas and Bloody Marys. Then from 1pm-7pm Sunday-Friday they run a Happy Hour, which is more like a Many Happy Hours given the six hour time period. You can get Buy One Get One Free drinks which includes 16oz domestic tap beer, house wines and “rail drinks” which is apparently basic spirits and cocktails. You can mix and match drinks, so Shae and I took advantage of that one afternoon – she had a glass of red wine while I had whiskey.
A couple of nights we ate dinner at the hotel’s restaurant. In 2022, IHG revamped their loyalty program and introduced Milestone Rewards where you get to choose different benefits and perks for every 10 nights you stay with them starting at 20 nights. I had a few rewards I still needed to pick during our stay, so I opted for some of their $20 food & beverage credits which come in packages of two or five depending on which Milestone Rewards level(s) you hit. Redeeming those credits offset most of the cost of our dinners and drinks which was great – I wrote more about that process over on Frequent Miler.
Here’s the dinner menu:
We arrived on Monday night and they were offering something like $4 off burgers. I think that might be a weekly promotion, but don’t quote me on that. I wanted to have their salad bar for dinner, but we both ended up ordering burgers and I added the unlimited salad bar for $4.95 because that still worked out cheaper (thanks to the discount) than paying for a standalone salad bar! I couldn’t eat much of the burger due to filling myself up at the salad bar, so I took that back to our room for dinner the next night.
On our final night I just had their salad bar. There was a decent enough selection of salad items, plus they had a potato and bacon soup, bread rolls and BBQ meatballs that were all included. n.b. the soup is self-serve, so the messy bowl is my fault rather than it being served like that.
That final night Shae ordered the alfredo fettuccini and added chicken.
We also got a brownie sundae, but they sadly only had vanilla ice cream (Shae’s a chocolate ice cream fiend).
Something I wanted to highlight here is how awesome our server was who we had both times we ate in the restaurant. I didn’t catch her name, but I’m guessing she was in her late teens. She was excellent – very friendly and personable, always made sure we had drink refills and checked on us frequently enough to make sure everything was OK, but not so frequently that it felt intrusive.
Amenities
The Holiday Inn Detroit Lakes-Lakefront has a bunch of great amenities. They have an indoor swimming pool that’s very warm. There’s a splash area for smaller children, as well as a whirlpool.
There’s also a sauna.
For younger children there’s a playground next to the beach.
Speaking of the beach, there’s 700′ of beach which runs the stretch of the hotel and is presumably only open to hotel guests. There are lots of picnic benches and sun loungers along the beach and grassy area too.
If the pool, playground and beach aren’t enough to keep your kids entertained, there’s also an arcade game area. It’s not very extensive, but I doubt that’ll matter to most kids.
Opposite the arcade games are some vending machines with drinks and snacks.
There’s a fitness room with a few pieces of cardio equipment and weights.
If you’d like to get some gentle exercise a little further afield, the hotel has eBikes that you can rent by the hour, half day or full day.
Seeing as the hotel is on Detroit Lake, they provides a number of watersport options – some free and some paid. The hotel offers kayaks, canoes, and paddleboats for free for guests. Shae and I had hoped to go out on a kayak, but we got unlucky as all their watersport options are seasonal and they weren’t starting back up until a few days after we were due to leave.
In terms of paid options, you can rent fishing boats and pontoons – here’s the pricing.
A washing machine and dryer is available for guests to use. The washing machine is $1.50 per load, while the dryer is $1 per load.
If you need to use a computer during your stay, there’s a business center in one of the hotel’s hallways that has a computer and printer.
There are several meeting rooms at the hotel. They were also getting ready to host a wedding the weekend after our stay, so you can do that there too.
Pet Policy
The Holiday Inn Detroit Lakes-Lakefront is a pet-friendly hotel. When booking our stay, the hotel didn’t list a pet fee. I therefore gave them a call as we’d have Truffles with us and they advised the fee was $35 per night. When checking their website just now, I saw that they’re now listing a pet fee of $25 per night. This all ended up being a moot point for us though because they didn’t end up charging us a pet fee, but I wouldn’t always count on being that lucky!
There’s a dedicated pet-walking area on one side of the hotel. There’s also a sidewalk running along out the front of the hotel, so Truffles and I took a couple of walks along there during our stay.
Service
Overall, service was fairly good. The front desk staff seemed a little confused a couple of times when we asked them about a couple of things, but our server in the restaurant was excellent and the server we had at their bar was friendly too.
Wi-Fi
The hotel offers free Wi-Fi for all guests. The speed and connection were very good; I had a Zoom meeting during our stay and there weren’t any issues.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
The check-in time at the Holiday Inn Detroit Lakes-Lakefront is 3pm, while check-out is at 11am.
Location
The hotel is in an excellent location right on Detroit Lake. Downtown Detroit Lakes is a couple of miles away, while there are several restaurants and a Walmart within a 10 minute drive or less.
Parking
The hotel offers free parking for all guests. There were plenty of spaces during our stay, but I imagine the parking lot gets a lot more full in the summer.
Cost
We booked our stay using IHG One Rewards points. IHG Premier, Traveler and Business credit card holders get every 4th night free on award stays. Shae and I were only staying three nights, but took advantage of this benefit to book a stay of four nights for a couple of reasons. First, it would earn me an extra elite night credit towards earning Diamond status again this year. Second, having our room booked for an additional night meant we didn’t have to worry about having to be out by 11am on our final day in case we were running late for some reason.
IHG uses dynamic award pricing which means that the number of points you have to redeem can vary from night to night. When we visited in May 2023, two of our nights cost 19,000 points per night, while the third cost 20,000 points. We’d bought those points when IHG was selling them for 0.5cpp (cents per point), so our cost was effectively $95 per night for two of our nights and $100 for the other night. It gets better than that though; I have the old IHG Select credit card which also gives a 10% points rebate, so our net cost was 17,100 and 18,000 points respectively, or $85.50 and $90 respectively. They were charging $113.75 per night if paying with cash, so this saved us a little money. If we’d actually stayed for that 4th night, the value proposition would’ve been even better.
Final Thoughts
I loved our stay at the Holiday Inn Detroit Lakes-Lakefront in Minnesota. Our room was nice and quiet, it was lovely having a patio area overlooking the lake and there are lots of great amenities.
It was a shame that we missed out on being able to use their free kayaks by a few days, but that was just unfortunate with the dates we’d picked there. I’d love to return in the future for a longer stay, especially because I had to work for our two full days there. I think we could happily spend a week there in early June once it’s kayaking season, but before it gets too hot and buggy.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives this hotel four paws out of four – pawfect! She appreciated our quiet room, the plentiful grassy areas around the hotel, as well as the opportunity to go on longer walks safely thanks to the sidewalk outside the hotel. The fact that they didn’t charge a pet fee made it even better as that means more treats for her đŸ˜‰
Our Rating
Room = 4.2 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.8 / 5
Food = 4.2 / 5
Location = 4.7 / 5
Service = 4.1 / 5
Overall Value = 4.5 / 5
Total = 4.42 / 5
Address
Holiday Inn Detroit Lakes-Lakefront, 1155 US-10, Detroit Lakes, MN 56501
[…] staying a few days in Detroit Lakes, MN, Shae, Truffles and I continued on to Minneapolis via Orr which was a bit of a diversion. […]