Holiday Inn Express North Bergen – Lincoln Tunnel

Great bargain hotel room. Professionally managed with quality Furnishings.
Great breakfast too. Wished they had indoor pool.
Would definitely recommend it

Great location and clean rooms. There is a shuttle to/​from near Times Square but it is NOT owned or operated by Holiday Inn. Each time I used it the price (cash collected on bus) was different and the pickup and drop off locations kept changing. Even with the inconsistencies it was useful for getting to and from NYC. Also, housekeeping forgot to replenish something in my room each day — towels, coffee bar supplies, shampoo, lotion, tissue, etc. One evening after 5 p.m. someone entered my room unannounced. When I challenged her she said she was with housekeeping.

After a late night of driving I was welcomed to this hotel by a friendly staff. The parking lot as well as the entrance to the hotel ascends so if it is slippery out or is snowing be careful.
Coming up to the check in desk I was greeted with a hello and was told about the included continental breakfast in the morning. After getting my access card I arrived in my room, which was clean and everything well stocked.
In the morning I got up a little bit earlier than usual so that I would be able to take advantage of the included breakfast. I came a couple of minutes before the breakfast time was due to begin and there was juices, milk, and breads, and cereal out, as I was a wee bit early I didn’t mind too much. I was anticipating that at 7:00 am all of the food would be out and that I would be able to choose my preferred breakfast, but I was wrong. It was 7:15 and I had to be out by 7:20. While the bagels, english muffins, other breads, cream cheese, fruit, yogurt, and scrambled eggs were out, I was waiting for the turkey sausage, but I had to leave as it was not out yet by the time that I had to leave. My plans of having a toasted bagel, scrambled egg, and turkey sausage sandwich was curtailed and I had a toasted bagel with cream cheese instead. Some of the other patrons were annoyed and were vocal about it as it was 7:15 and they were waiting for their gravy for their sausage biscuits and gravy as well as another hot item that wasn’t out let.
Check out was simple as is accepted.

The customer service was amazing here ! They bent over backwards making us happy! I would stay here again in a heartbeat!

Based on the location and the rate you receive, what are your expectations going in?! Let’s be realistic here. I have stayed here twice now. Once a few years (3 or 4?) ago and this past June. It is your typical HI Express/​chain hotel, so you know what to expect. Same old breakfast selection. I try to eat on the healthier side and prefer food that is not processed or minimally processed, especially breakfast. I tend to eat yogurt, oatmeal, that type of thing. No bacon, pancakes, sugary cereals. So the fact that I can find yogurt, fruit and plain oatmeal works. They also have pancakes, bacon, eggs, packaged breakfast baked goods. I think that there is something for everyone there.
Parking is limited and the lot is odd in layout and has an incline but it’s fine. Stay in NYC and with most hotels you are going to have to pay an add’l $ 25 to park in a lot elsewhere as they don’t have parking.
There’s a pool outside, which we sat out by and it seemed clean. The patio area was large, which was nice.
Fitness center on-​site. With all of the walking we did in NYC, I didn’t feel the need to visit that. I had planned to run when there but the area appears pretty sketchy, so I passed on heading out solo for a run.
Staff, as others have stated: pretty useless, but thankfully, my interaction was minimal. Just checking in.
This time there was a mild smell that was initially off-​putting but maybe we became accustomed to it? It was not terrible or enough to make me go request a new room.
The room is spacious enough. Especially if I compare it to rooms that I have stayed in, in NYC. There were 3 of us so we had 2 double beds. The room has a flat screen tv, mini fridge and microwave. Toiletries provided in the bathroom, in case you forgot yours or actually use the hotel provided items. There is also a coffee maker in the room. Though, in case you have not read or heard — that is one of the dirtiest things in a hotel room. I suggest hoofing it down to the breakfast area and snagging a cup. As a Starbucks fan, I felt it was weak but I think for your average strength coffee drinkers, it will do the trick. If you’re a Starbucks fan, if possible, sit tight until you get to NYC where there is one on every corner (sense my jealousy?!).
The first time I stayed, the shuttle was free. This time it was not. You have 2 choices. The more costly choice is to walk to the hotel next door and take that shuttle. It will drop you in Times Square and right at the door at night on the way back. The other choice is to walk a few blocks to another hotel (Super 8? or something like that) and take that shuttle. That one drops you at Port Authority and picks up there as well. Jankity shuttle bus with no AC and a bunch of stops picking up locals as well. I honestly didn’t care as long as we got into the city. Getting home is a little confusing. Be sure you get on the correct shuttle. The first day we got on the wrong one, so we had to get off further away and walk quite a distance. It was daytime, so it was fine. Admittedly, if it was dark, I would have been less comfortable.
The area is fairly ghetto but we walked to the shuttles and one night up to Sonic for a late night snack for my roomies. No problems and at no time did I feel unsafe.
Looking for a bargain that is convenient to the city, this is not bad.
As others noted as well, wifi was great. No problems.

Don’t do it… many companies have budgets so they opt for this hotel but no company, no matter how small should EVER make their employees stay along side hookers, drugs and dangerous neighborhoods. This is just a HORRIFIC option for anyone who doesn’t know the area, stay away!!!

My husband & I originally had reservations to stay for Friday & Saturday night. Our plans changed, so we called that Tuesday before our stay & said we wanted to cancel our Friday reservation, but keep our reservation for Saturday. They said that was no problem. We arrive Saturday afternoon to check-​in & the employee proceeds to tell us that our reservation no longer exists, because we were no-​shows the day before… We explained that we called on Tuesday to change our reservation, even showed him the phone log as proof that we called. He was not willing accept responsibility for their mistake. He just kept repeating, «Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do, because you were a no-​show yesterday.» Excuse me– this is NOT our fault. We called well before the 24 hour window to change our reservation & someone on your end didn’t follow through. Now we don’t have a room & the employee continued to call us «no-​shows» when that was not the case at all. Turns out they had a room available for $ 209/​night. Our original reservation was for $ 150/​night. They couldn’t even accommodate us by giving us a room at the same rate we had originally booked for. At no point did this employee take responsibility for the mistake that was made on their end. I’VE NEVER EXPERIENCED SUCH POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE IN MY LIFE. We took the room they had available & were even more dissatisfied when we saw our room… The room was incredibly small with only about 2 feet of walking room between all the furniture that was crammed in the tiny room. Bathroom wasn’t much more impressive. I’ve never been so dissatisfied in my life.

We stayed at the North Bergen HI Express from Sept 2 – 6, 2015. We wanted to spend a few days visiting NYC before getting on our cruise and this hotel worked out very well!
Shuttle — 5 stars
The Golden Eagle shuttle picks you up in front of the hotel and drops you off at Times Square for $ 12 per person, round trip. If you only want to go one way, the cost is $ 7. They run several times a day. We used the 7 am pick up and returned on the 6:30 and 8 pm runs. The Driver even dropped us off at our Cruise Terminal on the day of our cruise, for only an extra $ 20! I am not sure he was supposed to do it but he did and it was very convenient! *************************************************************
Room — 3 stars Bedding — 5 stars
The hotel itself is an older one so that rooms are small. But since there are only 2 of us it worked out fine for us. The room had a Queen size bed, a desk, a bureau and a small cabinet to hang things since our Room 421 did not have a closet due to it’s configuration. I would not recommend this room because it is configured differently due to the elevator being on the other side of the bathroom wall. Unfortunately, the elevator made a loud knocking noise every time it was used. Since most people didn’t use the elevator late at night, the noise was mainly a problem in the early morning. The air conditioner was a little noisy but not overly so, and it worked great! Our room stayed nice and cool even though it was nearly 100 outside! *************************************************************
Complimentary Breakfast — 5 stars
The complimentary breakfast is very good! There was one of those fun pancake machines that cooks a fresh pancake and then flips it onto your plate. Kids especially enjoy this! The omelette was surprisingly good! I wasn’t sure it would be since it was pre-​made but was very cheesy and very tasty! There was also sausage, biscuits and gravy, cereal, oatmeal, yogurt and fresh fruit. It was a very nice selection.
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Pool and Gym — 5 stars
We enjoyed sitting out by the pool in the evening. There are tables and chairs, as well as loungers. The gym was a bit nicer than we expected for an older smaller hotel. *************************************************************
Lido Restaurant — 1 star Meadowlands Hotel Restaurant (next door) — 5 stars
There is a restaurant connected to the hotel called The Lido which was a disappointment. We felt the prices were rather high for the quality of the food we received. I would not recommend it. However, the restaurant on the 12^th floor of the Meadowlands hotel next door was very good! And you get a view!
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Staff — 2 stars
The gentleman that checked us in was not overly friendly but wasn’t nasty or anything like that. He was just not as helpful as he could have been. When I asked him questions, he seemed to ignore me or just give a short one or two word answer. I almost felt as if we were disturbing him but checking into our two rooms! We asked him about a local restaurant we could go to and instead of telling us about the restaurant in the hotel next door, he recommended a restaurant several miles a way. He said they did deliver but there was no menu or anything to order from. We sort of got the impression that he either got a cut from this restaurant or it was a friend of his that owned it! I asked him about the shuttle next day and he gave me a paper on it but he couldn’t tell me what they charged. I would think this would be information he would volunteer to people checking in, instead of our having to ask about it. This was the first time I have even encountered this type of service at a HI Express as most often their hotel staff is very friendly and helpful! Very disappointing! *************************************************************
Internet — 5 stars
The internet is free and very strong! I was even able to use my Ipad out at the pool without any trouble. It is fast enough to be able to upload pictures to Facebook very quickly! *************************************************************
Overall Impression — 4 stars
The location of this hotel is great if you are interested in spending time in NYC. It is very close to the Lincoln Tunnel and you can be in NYC in 10 minutes if there is no traffic! But, if you don’t have a car, there isn’t much around it’s location. We did walk about 2 miles to a grocery store but the neighborhood is more industrial than residential. There is a Taco Bell in walking distance but that is the only fast food place we saw.
Overall, we liked the hotel, even with the grumpy staff! The breakfast is good, the internet is fast and accessible everywhere inside and outside the hotel, the shuttle was great and I liked that there was coffee, tea, ice water and lemonade available in the lobby. We would stay here again if we should visit New York City again.

I have stayed at this location for a couple times for work. I don’t really care about the location, nor the food, because I’m already used to it. What I only care about is if the room is clean and has everything that I need for the days that I’m staying there. But this time, I just wanted to say that I am very disappointed. When I came back to the hotel one day, I wanted to bring my dirty laundry to wash and I realized that the bag was gone. I looked everywhere. Every possible corner, even my coworkers’ luggages. I couldn’t find anything. I checked at least 3 times before I decided to go to the front desk and ask. The first thing they told me was that «ohh, maybe the housekeeper threw it away, because it looked like a bag of garbage». I was like okay? The manager came with me to the room and checked. Couldn’t find anything. She told me that her employees will never steal or take away my clothes since they have worked here for the past 7 years and they are like over 60 years old!” I totally understand that no one would ever want to steal away dirty clothes but the truth is that they are gone. My co workers even remembered that I did put away my dirty clothes in the bag the night before. So I wasn’t being crazy or left my bag in the other hotel. The manager even assumes that I was the one who forgot where I put them. I am like WTF. So the manager told me to go back the second day so they could check the security cameras. The first day she told me was that she couldn’t see anything. And we argued. I got super angry because her attitude was horrible. After Talking to her housekeepers, all they could do for me was a 40 dollars Macy card and her apology. I guess it’s better than nothing.

it is what it is! a place with beds. Pool is the best part, it being out door n all. but the seating area should be accessible all the time, since there’s hardly any room in the lobby. The staff doesn’t allow guest to just sit out during summer, but the staff sit there has a party eat while we sit out on the sidewalk, if it’s close to guests, staff should be staying out of there too. It’s close to everything, but not a great area to be in. Courtesy coffee was served in extra small cups, and coffee is is close while hot water is non existent. Staff has no manners, they yell and scream in the lobby, with supervisor to give them hours and tell the other one to do the job. problems at the hotel and staff shouldn’t be heard by guests! but they don’t care. The doors in the bed rooms that dirty stains, walls too, all they have to do is wipe. But no! Wifi didn’t work, in our room, when talked to the tech support they said the router outside our room is broken. and was not fixed for 2 days!

My family and I stayed at this Holiday Inn Express location while vacationing in New York City. The commute is reasonably short — Midtown area is directly across the Lincoln Tunnel, which connects New Jersey and New York.
The hotel lobby is neat and clean, with an impressive tea bar (they even have lemon juice and honey!) and various types of lemonade. The WiFi is really fast, and the rooms are pretty spacious with comfortable beds. Breakfast is pretty standard as it is complementary — scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits, Chobani Greek yogurt, oatmeal, pastries, etc.
Knocking this location down one star for its shuttle service. There is a shuttle that will take you directly from the hotel to Times Square — ask the front desk for the shuttle schedule. It’s $ 12 round-​trip for each person, which is a great deal; however, the shuttle can be a bit unreliable at times. It is a great convenient option to get to the city though, and picks you up from the same location in Times Square every night.
Overall, a good place to stay if you don’t want to shell out a lot of extra money to stay in the city itself!

Good news: It’s not haunted! But the walls are THIN – you can hear your neighbors
–walking down the hall
–entering/​exiting their rooms
–getting ice from the ice machine (our room was located unfortunately close)
–CHATTING IT UP IN THE HALLWAY AT 3 AM
SERVICE: 2 STARS
The staff was seriously useless, ask but excluding the housekeepers. While the housekeepers speak extremely limited English, we were able to (eventually) communicate that we needed our room cleaned after 12PM after flagging them down while they were cleaning a nearby room. We also left a note with specific requests alongside a tip. They must have given it to someone to translate because we received EVERY single item and then some! Reception staff were less than desirable – the fucking pancake machine in the breakfast area was a thousand times more useful than they were. First off, how do you know absolutely NOTHING about the shuttle service you fucking advertise in your hotel lobby and elevators??? I’m going to have to make Golden Eagle Express a business page and rip them a new one. They also struggle with answering simple questions and tasks like ordering a cab and providing a quote for the average taxi fare to the airport.
CLEANLINESS: 4 STARS
I’m not completely delusional in my expectations, but this place was rather clean, despite its age. However, I always take my usual precautions of wiping down doorknobs, light switches and being the remote in the provided ice bag.
AMENITIES: 3 STARS
I have not stayed at a Holiday Inn before so I can’t vouch for the consistency of the breakfast quality, but I can say that it’s not half bad considering it’s free. It does contain an excessive amount of carbohydrates and sugars, so it’s kind of hard to eat a healthy breakfast, especially if you’re a vegetarian like me. However, they did have a good yogurt selection – Chobani (!!!) and Yoplait. They also have a gym and swimming pool. I didn’t look at the pool, as it was closed, but the gym definitely brings you to a whole new level of claustrophobia you didn’t know you could achieve because it is giving TINY. I think our room’s bathroom was bigger. They do have free passing and free Wi-​Fi.

LOCATION: 1 STAR.
We stayed here thinking we could save some money instead of staying in New York, but DON’T DO IT. It’s much more worth it to stay in NYC. There is nothing decent within walking distance and the area is just ghetto. Taxi service is expensive and you are not located near any public transit system. The suggested shuttle service also sucks ass.
OVERALL: 2 STARS

Extremely inconsiderate management. Hotel was clean and met our standards, considering we spent 190 $ as a group rate. Manager on duty stood in halls outside of our room and became belligerent, threatening to call the police if we were to exit our rooms to smoke a cigarette in the parking lot area. We left the hotel at 1 am, and will never return. I strongly recommend choosing a neighboring hotel.

This place is truly perfect if you don’t want to spend the extra $$ to stay in the city! Really nice hotel! Awesome breakfast! Shuttle for a small price, drops you off in Times Square and picks you up! The staff at the hotel is very friendly! The beds are ridiculously comfortable! Park your car at the hotel and have piece of mind that it’s safe and you don’t have to pay the ridiculous prices to park in the unsafe garages in the city !!

This is the grossest holiday inn I’ve ever stayed in. The area is ghetto, the whole place smells bad and the rooms are tiny and not nice. The oddest thing is the toilets, the bathrooms are so small that the toilet is like an inch away from the wall, so your basically forced to lean against the wall while using it, it’s gross. Stay away!

If you are looking for a place to stay and prefer to be outside of NYC, then this place would do the trick. Just minutes to the Lincoln Tunnel this Holiday Inn Express is a good jump off spot to the city. At half the price of most city hotels you can use your extra cash on other things. This is a good business hotel with clean rooms and breakfast included. This is not a fancy hotel with all the appointments so maybe not the place for a romantic get away. Good desk service and plenty of breakfast options. Comfortable beds with plenty of pillows and easy on-​off to the 495.

Ok, you are staying in an HIE, and you are in New Jersey, you’ve gotten a rate of less than $ 150 and are just about15min outside Manhattan… don’t expect much. I am in general scared of hotels in NYC. I’m a Chicago fan at heart, and think all of NYC is dirty and germ infested, so I was super scared of this place in a sketchy area. But, I was pleasantly surprised. I know HI has gone through re-​branding a bit ago, and this hotel does a decent job at keeping up the branding.
The hallways have a damp cinnamon smell… but were clean. The rooms are quiet, as the walls seem thick. Then again maybe it’s because the AC is loud. We were facing the back parking lot, which overlooks the surprisingly clean pool (the sun shines on it in the AM), and since you are overlooking the lot I felt safe (the windows don’t open anyway), and it’s also on a hill, so from either back or front rooms you have a «view» (it’s just a run down NJ view, but still it’s something interesting).
The lobby was dirty, but all the staff (front desk, housekeeping and breakfast) were very friendly and smiled. The place is bustling with people and on our 2^nd day one of the elevators was down, so… that really sucked and made for 5−10min delay. Not sure if the stairs go to the lobby– didn’t appear so.
The wireless is quick and free. Breakfast was actually good, clean, stocked, had a few to go options, and I in particular enjoyed the clear labels on everything with funny subtitles (on the pancake machine: «you know you wish you had this at home») Bathroom, towels and sheets were clean. Bath products are nice. They give you a ice bucket and clean plastic cups. There’s a luggage rack and nice iron. Microwave and fridge. Really nice TV with a lot of channels. Comfy desk chair. Clean tub, HOT water, and the nice curved shower curtain. (Again, the décor is the branding, and very nice). One touch I liked is pillow cases on the 4 pillows that note «firm» or «soft». Not sure they were on the right pillows, but on our looong road trip this was THE MOST comfy bed we slept on. Well cushioned, firm but soft, Nice blankets…
If we come back to NYC in a group we will $tay here. If hubby and I come on our own it’s swanky, Manhattan or bust. I know that means $ 400+… ugh, the pain.
On a side note, the shuttle to NYC is like ~$ 12RT. It’s on-​time, but… set your expectations LOW. No AC. When we called (required) for a «reservation» the guy hung up on us each time w/​o taking a name or anything. We were dubious, but he came, and it was on-​time. Driving was fine, and he knew some shortcuts to cut traffic. If we stayed here again we would take it again since it’s cheap and efficient. Upon our return we were met in Times Square for the pick-​up, and there was no confusion or stress about them coming and loading us.

Hopefully this review will bump up the score a little. I completely forgot to write this review even though I stayed here 5 years ago but I think its worth mentioning this was one of the best hotel experiences i’ve ever had. I came with my boyfriend at the time and we got a huge room with two double beds and we were so exhausted from all our Manhattan sight seeing that we took the two days we spent here as serious down time. The pool was amazing and as it was raining… we got it all to ourselves! The two crazy Brits in the pool!!!

I knew we were gonna have a problem when we pulled up in late May and they still had Christmas lights up.
~ T H E E X P E R I E N C E
We’ve stayed at many Holiday Inn Express around the country, probably better than 30. I must say this is the oddest location we’ve ever encountered. Everything here is just awkward, starting with the parking lot. Except for the few spaces out front, most of it is severely sloped.
The luggage carts are in bad shape and felt like they were going to come apart as we tried to maneuver them onto the incredibly small elevators. It was an act of sheer determination to get the luggage carts in the elevators in a way that allowed for another human being to ride at the same time.
~ S T A F F
The staff does not seem like hired professionals, but instead more like relatives of the owner just helping out. They were somewhat friendly, but not very welcoming. The front desk didn’t bother to ever greet us when coming into the hotel nor did they immediately respond when we stood right in front of them @ the desk. Most times they weren’t busy, just in conversation with one another. Calling the hotel to ask simple questions prior to booking our room (like shuttle times) was a complete nightmare. I honestly should have considered that a red flag, but having the Holiday Inn Express name caused me to ignored obvious signs I would not enjoy my stay.
They did solve a complaint regarding a sour smell in our room fairly quickly. However, their solution was to send maintenance to put a scent in our air ducts to mask the smell. I couldn’t help but feel a little concerned over why it smelled so sour in the first place. I almost decided to check out, but after reading the reviews of other nearby hotels with bed bugs, we stayed, reluctantly.
They provided a little compensation by giving us a $ 25 voucher to the Lido Restaurant next door, but the food was pretty gross.
ON THE PLUS SIDE… our room was large and the beds were comfortable. Our free breakfast was typical HEI with biscuits, sausage gravy, scrambled eggs, sausage patties and those cinnamon rolls we have come to know so well. Cereals, bagels, juices are also available.
~ F I N A L T H O U G H T S
I will look for a better place to stay on my next visit to NYC. Cheaper than staying in Manhattan, but in this case I think I would rather have paid a little more. We didn’t leave with that warm & fuzzy glow that we normally do after staying @ Holiday Inn Express. I most definitely didn’t feel like their «Stay Smart» slogan was applicable here. I felt pretty stupid actually.
PS — The shuttle to NYC is NOT free. It’s provided by Golden Express and costs about $ 12 round trip per person. They demand you give them a return time or they may not honor the scheduled pick-​up times they have listed on their service sheet. Problem was, we had no idea how much time we would spend looking around since it was our first visit to the city. The money collector guy was terrible with English and kinda rude. He pissed a few people off so badly that they demanded their money back and got off the shuttle before we even left the parking lot.

I came with my family about two weeks ago for an event we had in NYC, excellent service I can’t say how pleased I was with my stay. Mr. Sanchez the front desk agent was such a pleasure, I will be returning because he helped us feel so welcomed and warm. Very positive attitude and friendly demeanor. Thank you for what you did! I loved the room, everything was on points. The only thing I didn’t like we’re the eggs in the morning they taste dry and not fresh.