Holiday Inn Harbourside Reviews

First of all, to give you the important facts: the event center has new carpeting and does not have that mildew/moldy smell that so many other spaces have. It is separate from the hotel, across the front drive and is a nice looking building. The space is large and up-to-date. It has a back porch facing a pond, and an overflow outdoor area that is adjacent to the pool area. We utilized both for our cocktail hour before the reception.

Barney, the Catering Sales Manager was wonderful to work with for our special day. She has many years of experience in hospitality and she has the skills to work with people well. She has been in this position for a long time and is trusted by her organization to be empowered to make necessary decisions on her own affecting your event, and she was caring, kind and attentive to our desires. She is cool under pressure and has the demeanor of the kind of person you want to work with in event planning (especially if you are inexperienced in event planning). I really can't say enough about Barney. She helped us to be economical as opposed to other venues that want to stick you for every little thing and take advantage to maximize their profits. She made good recommendations and was supportive of our wishes for the reception.
Because we had many out of town guests, we had a welcome event in the outdoor space at Jimmy Guana's Restaurant overlooking the intracoastal on the Friday night before, and it was a good value, as well.
In part, I chose this hotel because the rooms would be less expensive for our guests, as well as not having to pay parking fees (even to attend the event and not stay overnight like some other large hotels in the area). Also, they gave us an adequate block of rooms as needed, again, unlike other large hotel chains in the area.
The only negative is that there were a few rooms with issues that needed to be addressed, but no reflection on our event. It was beautiful, fun, economical, food was great and it was a pleasure working with Barney. From working with us in regard to vendors, planning and especially flexibility and knowledge...believe me, you want to work with someone who is not only knows what they are doing, but cares about the people she works with. Be sure and talk to Barney before you decide.
They have new a/c units in the space. One is recent, the other was replaced the day before our wedding!! Yes, the space can be divided into two, so there are two a/c units. If they needed to, they could have used fans to blow air towards the other half, but they did what it took to replace the unit quickly, since they couldn't repair it. So, if we were dealing with a small local vendor, this might have been a real problem with cash flow and resources to get the job done. These are all things to consider in making your choices, so I am more than happy to share because Barney was so wonderful!