Holiday Inn Express, Saugus, North Boston

We landed in Boston MA at 6.15pm and by the time we made it through passport control and immigration it was getting on for 8pm so I was really pleased we had pre-booked a night (on-line) at the Holiday Inn Express in Saugus / Logan International Airport.

We collected our car and headed for the hotel which after an initial hiccough on our part (as we always manage to take the wrong turning when we drive out of Logan Airport – it has now become a family joke!!) the journey to the hotel was easy and straightforward.

The modern accommodation the Holiday Inn Express in Saugus - which is located close to Boston's Logan International Airport - offers a free shuttle that operates between the hours of 4am and 12:30am - so if you are collecting a car it may be an idea to use the shuttle and collect your car the following day if you're landing late in the evening unless you enjoy driving at night (we've decided we will use the shuttle the next time we land later in the day - it will save us taking a wrong turn (hopefully) and save us the cost of a day's car hire!!)

Our hotel room was very clean and had two double beds - which were extremely comfortable. Also in our room was an ironing board, iron, large TV, coffee / tea making facilities and the obligatory air-conditioning (which was very welcome due to the humidity outside).

The hotel's amenities included: free internet access (great if you have teenagers who want to keep in touch with their friends – why would they want to do that when they’re on holiday??), an outdoor swimming pool (which we didn’t use), a fitness centre (again another amenity we didn’t make use of) and the price also included the hotel's "Express Start" breakfast. The self-service free breakfast included toast, bagels, English muffins, eggs , sausages, cereals, fruit, yogurt, juices, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, milk and of course cinnamon rolls which you could help yourself to as often as you wanted. I think we timed our entrance to the dining room to perfection as there were few people having breakfast by the time we appeared (which was between 8-8.30am).

We were told to park our car on the second floor of the car park next to the hotel – unfortunately the lift wasn’t working and I discovered that the door at the bottom of the staircase was locked. So I ended up walking back up the stairs and down and around the car park to get back to the hotel though this didn’t really trouble me in reference to safety as the car park was very well lit (and no-one else was in the car park ïŠ ) – the only thing that did bother me was the humidity even though it was evening time it was still very hot.

All in all our first experience of the Holiday Inn brand was a very positive one with friendly staff, a clean and comfortable room and a great breakfast to kick start our first full day of our road trip in the USA - it was better than the "good" rating I have given it, I just wish there was a "very good" rating button!