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A Holiday Inn Express The Hotel Detective Has Embraced

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This article is more than 9 years old.

The Hotel Detective would like to dispel the caricature that he’s created: The spoiled hotel brat. Only suites, only views, only beachfront: It’s not true.

Case in point: Where THD stays the night before he flies to New York from Milan Malpensa on American. The flight departs at 10:30am. (Other U.S. carriers also leave in the morning so this tip is relevant to Delta, US Airways, and United flights, too.)

Stay in Milan and you have to get up at 5:30 to make the Malpensa Express train that will leave enough time to check in and get through customs. That’s what THD used to do.

Then he discovered the Holiday Inn Express Malpensa, an exemplar of the hotel as a guest factory. You book online, and arrive after 3pm to find an efficient front desk and the room ready. It’s functional, but also comfortable and handsome, has more amenities than many Italian hotels at this price point, $169 for two on my last trip in September, free airport shuttle included. (The price varies according to demand.) Forget the hotel restaurant and buy a brown-bag dinner at the better-than-it-should-be gourmet/wine shop on the right just as you come into Terminal 1 from the Malpensa Express station.

It’s getting from the Terminal 1 to the hotel that can be foam-at-the-mouth perplexing if you’ve never done it before. The first time THD stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Maplensa, he spent nearly two hours on a mere shuttle ride.

THD won’t bore you with the details—yes he will. There was an hour at a wrong (and desolate) bus stop, courtesy of an airport employee’s directions; taxi drivers who scoffed at taking him to the hotel, although it’s 10 minutes away; one who sent me on a hike through subterranean passageways and to the bus to Terminal 2 (wrong again); and finally, a clement bus driver who got THD to within 50 yards of the place.

So here’s what you need to know: Go out exit 4 at Terminal 1 and over to bus stop four. There, on a very, very, very, very small sign attached to the back of a stanchion, you will see the words “Holiday Inn Express Malpensa.” Wait there.

And here’s a message in a bottle to the CEO of Holiday Inn Express, who isn’t named as far as I can tell on the official website: Why did I have to work so hard to find your hotel, which delivers so well on price, value, and convenience? I’m a fan. Write me back at the hotel detective@gmail.com.