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Writer's pictureAustin Zachary

A Dog-Gone Hotel Chain, Traveling With Your Pooch


The Intercontinental Hotels, most widely noted for owning Holiday Inn, is pet-friendly. Our family travels with two large breed dogs -- and boy-o-boy do After all that. Roscoe is a 130 lb Rottie/hound mix and Ziggy is an 80 lb purebred Tibetan Chow Chow (larger compared to the Chinese Chow). Both of my babies provide the Holiday Inn chain a four-paw rating.

Intercontinental Hotels provides a "trip advisor" feature on the in-patient internet sites of their various properties where you could find which hotels welcome pets. Type in the city and state where you will soon be staying and provide the dates of your trip. Another screen will pop-up where you could "refine search results." I always check indoor pool and pets allowed and then see what I get. The chain includes the Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn and Suites, Candlewood Suites, and Staybridge Suites.

We four humans along with this canine babies have escaped sweat and grit of Gotham, spending several long weekends at the Staybridge Inn in Mt. Laurel, NJ. It's a good destination for a unwind, while still being plugged in in the event that you wish. The property is a short drive from Philadelphia, Cherry Hill, entreprise radisson and Six Flags Great Adventure. There is a $75 pet fee for stays of anyone to six days and a $150 fee for stays with pets for over seven days. There is also a refundable $150 pet deposit, provided your animal doesn't damage. The suites are in excellent condition. The pool, enclosed in a garden area, is heated, and is beautiful. There is a computer center, a fitness center room, a basketball court, a tiny reading room, and a laundry room. The full complementary buffet breakfast is served daily, along with an afternoon snack. There are many restaurants in your community, a bowling alley, and a mall complex with a cinema. Across the street is a Barnes & Noble in an inferior mall. This really is important if you ask me, since I can't go too much time without a good murder mystery.

Not long ago, we spent a little over a week in Alexandria, VA with both dogs. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites-Historic District. There is a $50 pet fee per animal. We left our dogs in our room without incident. I spot the policy has changed. Now dogs left in rooms must certanly be caged. Even though, I suggest this hotel. Every morning we walked our dogs in Old Town, and then returned to the spacious lobby where we sat in push-upholstered chairs and drank a cup of complementary coffee with this dogs at our feet. After coffee, we brought the dogs around our room and came down for breakfast. Once we swam in their very nice indoor/outdoor pool, we were allowed to tie our dogs nearby on the patio adjacent to the pool where we could see them and they might see us. I do not know if that is standard policy. We're blessed with extremely well mannered animals, so we often have no problem with them in various situations, in spite of their great size. The hotel has a cafe, fitness room, an unstaffed business center, and a laundry room. The full buffet breakfast in included in the room rate. Alexandria is charming. We took our dogs for a long walk down historic streets to the Potomac River. Along with this furry friends, we window shopped on the streets surrounding the causes of the Torpedo Factory Art Center on Union Street. Our preteen daughters sat with this dogs at tables in the Torpedo Factory Outdoor Pavilion. My husband and I went in and ordered lunch from many different ethnic food vendors and brought it back out. Needless to say, we got delish tidbits for Ziggy and Roscoe. On another evening, we returned sans the dogs and had a wonderful seafood dinner in the Union Street Public House.

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