Ameristar Black Hawk — Attraction in Black Hawk

Utterly disappointed in our stay at Ameristar. We’ve been coming up to Black Hawk for years for special celebrations and to just get away. We’ve have loved the Monarch but realized in all our years we’ve never given Ameristar a shot and now we regret that we did. We are here for our 14th Anniversary, we came early in the week as we like to avoid crowds. The hotel is clean, quiet, and the king room is spacious and clean. No complaints there. We had tried to book on their site on our way up but it glitched out over and over and wouldn’t let us book so we hopped on a 3rd party site to be sure we had a room and got it booked immediately. Being that it was so empty and that it was our anniversary we hoped for an upgrade but were told it wasn’t possible being that we booked through a 3rd party site. We tried to explain why but it didn’t matter to them that their site was not working. We were pleased with the room, good size for a basic room, decent view if you look over the parking garage a couple floors below. The only complaint is the worn and extremely scratched headboard which should definitely be repaired or replaced. They have few restaurants open so we tried Fireside Kitchen for dinner. Service was slow even though it was practically empty. A $9 beer and a $13 glass of mediocre wine and a long wait later our food was served. I was happy with mine but my husband’s taco salad was horrific, so over salted, very little lettuce. He didn’t come close to eating 1/2 and felt ill all evening. And the bill for the meal was ridiculous for the food and service. We did go back for breakfast the next day as there were no other options and it was a much better experience but still pricy for what you get. We tried a few slots and sat at a blackjack table for a while but over all were underwhelmed by the ambiance and staff. Not a drink server in site despite being on the floor over 2 hours. In the morning I found only 2 packets of coffee in the room and 1 was decaf. The line at Starbucks was 20 deep so we grabbed a cup from the well hidden drink station at it tasted like hot water. The gun was great, good equipment and good size. After that We left for the day, opting to play and eat elsewhere despite the snowstorm we had to walk through to get away from here. We had a fantastic day playing, drinking and eating great food at nearby casinos. We got back at 6:00pm to find our room hadn’t been cleaned and no coffee restocked. We called down and they said we must have had the do not disturb sign out but we did not. They brought up 4 coffees for us for the next day and said they’d try to get a crew in to clean so we went to the pool. Pool was nice, we had it to ourselves. Hot tub needs chemicals as it was foaming like crazy but over all a nice experience. Went back to our room an hour later to find they just arrived to clean so we paced the hall in our wet suits for 20 minutes before we could get back in. It had been a long day and nothing downstairs was worth going back out for so we called it an early night. The TV is subpar, we can’t stream on it and there is no guide showing what’s on so we turned it off. The room is a bit cold and drafty near the window, definitely could use more blankets. It’s now our 2nd morning and I went to make coffee to find our coffee cups were not replaced so we have 4 coffee packets and no cups. It just feels like one thing after another around here and no one seems to care. We planned to eat at Timberline to celebrate our anniversary tonight but I’m afraid I can’t take much more disappointment at the high prices...

My husband and I came here for several days for his birthday - specifically to spend a bit of time in the mountains, and to relax in the rooftop pool. I will say that the rooms are a decent size. The bed was comfortable and the bathroom was lovely, if impractical. The rooftop pool area is gorgeous, and the hot tubs are wonderful. HOWEVER. There are several issues we ran into along the way that honestly kind of made the trip not really worth it.

The biggest one being that the pool, as nice as it was presented, was way too cold every time we tried to visit it, no matter what time of day it was. We even asked a couple of maintenance guys if they were able to adjust the temperature (as it was advertised as a HEATED pool), and they said they didn't have that ability. The hot tubs were great, though. The room we were put in was an accessible room at our request, as I'm partially disabled, and it wasn't clear at all HOW it was an 'accessible' room. When we got settled, we called down for a shower chair, and received one very quickly, which they even installed for us quickly, which was nice, but I'm a bit confused as to why it wasn't already installed in an accessible room - even a folding one that can be moved out of the way easily.

It's also painfully obvious when hotels don't think about details at all. For instance: there's a separate room for the toilet within the bathroom, and there's literally ONLY a toilet in that room. Did a man plan that? It's pretty obvious that's the case. Here's a little hint - PUT A FRICKIN TRASH CAN IN THERE. PUT A SHELF IN THERE. IF IT'S AN ACCESSIBLE ROOM, ADD A SIMPLE BIDET ATTACHMENT. Yeesh. There's a nice, big tub in there - ADD SOME BUBBLEBATH OR A BATHBOMB TO THE COLLECTION OF TOILETRIES. IT'S NOT THAT DIFFICULT TO MAKE GUESTS FEEL WELCOME. And the frickin' shower. Even without the shower chair in there, the shower head was ATROCIOUS. Please invest in some upgrades. And here's a wild idea while you're at it - for accessible rooms.. make that shower head a handheld one. WE CAN NOT MOVE AROUND WHILE WE'RE IN THE SHOWER CHAIR, HOLY HELL, THINK ABOUT IT A LITTLE BIT. And please offer actual bath mats. If I need a cane to get around a hotel room, then getting out of the shower onto a very slippery, tile floor without something to step on is about to be a disaster.. or a lawsuit. Lastly on this subject - there is only one elevator that accesses the first floor (where most of the gambling takes place, and, incidentally, where most of the restaurants are), for the disableds to get down there if you can't use the escalator. In order to use this elevator, you have to actively get the attention of, and wait for a security person. Their reasoning for this is understandable: they can't risk minors getting down to the casino floor. Their execution, however.. terrible. I mean honestly.. just make it so we have to swipe/scan the penn play cards. we have to get them anyway, right?

So overall, it seems like a nice place on the surface. The service is actually pretty great - everyone we had occasion to speak to was very kind and helpful. Everything is kept very clean. But they clearly have not put any real thought into the user experience there. Ultimately, it makes staying there feel like being on a cruise ship, but you don't even get to see dolphins or whales, or end up on an...

I stayed at the Ameristar from the 18th to the 20th of this month. I was very disappointed in my trip this time, I might honestly never stay at the hotel again. For starters, the key cards to our door had to be reset almost every time that we left the room. 3 of of the 5 bottles of hygiene products offered by the hotel were empty upon our arrival, like they hadn't been stocked for multiple stays prior to ours. I brought up the issues to the front desk and they pointed me to the house keepers. When I addressed the problem with her all I received in return was a sorry, no attempt to resolve the issue or replace the products. - Shampoo, conditioner and other shower products are rather important to be available, especially when they are OFFERED! We never got these items refilled or replaced, we had to go buy hygiene from the store in the wild card. Our refrigerator did not work, it was plugged in and said it was on but when I woke up to a 2 year old asking for milk, the entire freezer was melted and everything in it was warm and soaked in water. I don't know if it is normal, or why this might be the case but there was no microwave in the room. The housekeepers that went to our room when we were taking our things from the room to the car while we still had personal belongings inside, we left the hotel missing a wallet with a social security card, 2 debit cards, a 20$ bill, an old concert ticket and a wallet sized photo. When I asked the housekeepers they both claimed to not know how to speak English, and also denied responding on translator to me. When I had translation saying "my boyfriends wallet was on top of the safe in there still, we still had a few food items in there and a small barbie in the room = that we were now locked out of, and not granted entry back into (10:45am) to retrieve.

I reached out to the front desk and they sent me to the casino floor to ask if it was brought to the lost and found, (the house keepers had just shut our door and were still in the very next room). I did as requested and went to the lost and found. They told me house keepers would not be finished with those rooms until 4 pm. (When I was just upstairs they told me that they were already done in the room)They had already moved onto the next set of rooms. During our stay I had run out to a few of the other casinos and the vehicle a couple of times - I got my hand stamped for age verification and was wearing a couple wrist bands from other casinos as well and not only one time but TWO!! I was denied entry into the establishment because my ID was on the my Colorado app and these instances my phone had either just died (why i was trying to get to my room) or it was left up in the room. I offered to run up and grab it for them to verify since the stamp that THEY STAMPED ON MY HAND FOR PROOF OF AGE was not enough for them. I was still denied. I was seriously told that I could not be inside the building and they sent me walking... IN THE RAIN... 2...