Firstly, this review is about Intercontinental Lusaka, because while I had booked myself at Holiday Inn Lusaka on Expedia, on arrival was "upgraded" to the 5* Intercontinental, in the same complex. However, in the room that I was given:-
a) The TV did not work. When I complained I was informed that the TV system was down in the whole hotel. (more about it later).
b) The shower and the washbasin spewed out scalding hot water, whichever way I turned the knobs.
c) One of the amenity bottles provided in the bathroom (the hand wash), had a non-working pump.
d) The weighing machine in the bathroom was not working.
While c) and d) may be minor issues, when I am staying in a 5* hotel, I would rexpect everything in the room to be in working order.
When the plumber came to check the hot water issue, he diagnosed that the mixer was not working, it required major work which could only happen the next day.
To the credit of the manager, she called me after all of these and got me shifted to another room (a suite), but my point here is that there is obviously no maintenance check happening by the housekeeping team, before a new guest occupies the room, If such a check was done, either all the issues I mentioned would have been rectified before giving me the room, or I would not have been given this room at all.
And oh, did I mention that, in the suite, everything including the TV was working fine, which meant that the information given to me about the TV in the previosu room was wrong!