Element Denver International Airport — Hotel in Denver

The hotel is modern and very nice. All the staff are polite, kind, attentive, and hard-working. There was one caveat, staff were smoking directly outside one of the parking lot doors and blocking the exit so no one could use that door, but I think they subcontract cleaning to another company. They should probably tell that company not to smoke in the alcoves to and from the parking lot, and not to hold doors shut and prevent guests from coming and going. We have had to leave the hotel and walk around the outside of the building more than once because staff completely blocked hallways with cleaning carts.

Rooms are clean, emphasis again on modern, large (non-tub) showers, big windows to see Aurora, thermostat is modern (no window-unit AC, it's actually forced air!), big flat screen TVs ... It's all very inviting, until you realize this hotel is a dorm.

Doors will slam at all hours of the day and night, even though they all have closing mechanisms, all of them are set to slam the doors and guests absolutely will not close them quietly. The walls are thin, so plan on hearing your noisy neighbors all night long (we had cackling neighbors from 8 pm to midnight) and a neighbor who wanted to watch football as loud as the TV would go at 7 am. The upstairs neighbors are dropping something heavy, repeatedly at night.

The hotel does not have a hot tub, spa, or sauna, which strikes as strange for a very new looking hotel. After a full day of hiking the beautiful national parks in the area, you'd think coming back to the hotel and relaxing in a hot tub and letting all your muscle release would be a wonderfully relaxing finish to the day, but they just don't have it. The pool they do have is a heated, saltwater pool, and was quite enjoyable to swim around in. They do also have a nice outdoor space and a large fire table.

There is a basic breakfast provided in the morning, two types of cereal, two juices, coffee, espresso, tea, toast or bagels, a parfait bar, and a hot-item window that served french toast on our first morning, avocado toast on our second.

The hotel is surrounded by lots of food options, including a diner that is very busy, but very worth it (the chicken fried steak was fantastic). There's a Walmart near by if you need anything. It's a pretty short drive from the airport, and the highway is the perfect distance away (convenient for travel, but you won't hear or see it from the hotel).

If you plan on staying here, the location is nice, you'll get a clean room and linens, the price was very affordable, but definitely bring ear plugs or some ear buds you can sleep in. Also bring a sleep mask. The lighting situation is strange. Most lights are on motion sensors and will turn on even if the switch was last set to off. The lights in the closet we're overly sensitive and would turn on because of motion detected through the crack of the doors and the main bathroom light turns on, blindingly, during the night if someone goes to use the facilities while you're attempting to sleep.

If it weren't for the noise, this would be a...

I was mired here after a United flight got delayed, so take into account some general annoyance due to that. Overall: 7/10

Atmosphere: 9/10. Felt very new and shiny, the lobby and bar area were pretty sleek and modern. The hallways didn't have the funky smell of 10,000 pairs of feet, and it didn't feel anything like the Shining. Quiet-- couldn't tell you if I had neighbors at all, and despite being very close to the airport (~5 miles), heard nothing of planes. Wifi was free and had decent speeds. Staff were very helpful, friendly, and kind-- especially the great shuttle drivers. Although the prerecorded instructions are a bit lacking, just make sure to exit from door 512 and head to island 3 (should all be red), and wait for an Element-branded shuttle to arrive.

Room overall: 5/10. A bit of a disappointment after the first glance-- it looks great superficially, with a small kitchenette (full sink, toaster, microwave, decent sized mini fridge) and was very clean. Even though there were great little details, like an actually decent amount of half and half for coffee or tea, a can opener(!), silverware, and a full-size ironing board, the execution was lacking.

Biggest issues: very low water pressure in both sinks and shower-- the bathroom sink at full engagement was just a trickle, and the shower felt like a gentle rain. The sink water was also not the best tasting, unfortunately. The bathroom door was not correctly hung, which meant it wanted to be closed all of the time. In addition, the bathroom lights were motion-sensor triggered, in a way I couldn't figure out how to disengage. This meant that getting up at midnight to use the bathroom triggered all of the very bright (but modern!) lights in the bathroom, even after manually clicking the switches off. Perhaps you have to hold them down? Also, all of the pillows were the awfully thin, cloudy type that hotels favor, which was not pleasant. The "curtain" is one of the vertical ones, with a thin one and a thicker black-out layer. However, this means I couldn't open a left/right side to let in natural light, while having a side for privacy. Not my preference, but most people are not as particular as I am.

Other: ice machine is kind of hidden-- there didn't appear to be one on the floor I was staying on, although I didn't look very hard (but it certainly wasn't on any of the signage), and the one on the main floor is quite hidden. I didn't get a chance to try out the pool, but I did note that there was no hot tub, unfortunately.

Ultimately: this was a decent place to stay overnight, with the notable exception of the unfortunate water pressure. At least the water did get to a good temperature, and there were thoughtful touches (shampoo/conditioner and body wash dispensers installed in shower) that brought...

We stayed twice at this hotel, one week apart. Our first stay was fine - no complaints. Nice people at check-in, friendly shuttle driver, clean room. All was good.||Then came our second stay, one week later:|| It took extra long to check in because the young lady couldn’t find our reservation. I produced a paper copy of the confirmation & she then found our name, which she admitted she’d typed in wrong. BTW, I’d carefully spelled out our last name at least twice (need to do this all the time because of the unusual spelling).|| We then took our keys up to the assigned Room 215. Multiple tries. Didn’t work. We were frustrated & tired (9 PM). My wife was hungry & had purchased some food to heat up in the microwave. Delays… went back down to check-in and were given two new card keys. Back up to the room. Didn’t work. Went back down & were given two black check-in cards, which we were told were less likely to malfunction. Took those up. Didn’t work. Back down to checkin, where the young lady said she’d go up with us with HER master key to check things out. Didn’t work. As always, the handle was jiggled just to make sure we weren’t getting access. This time, with the check-in lady with us, another guest opened the door & said she had a feeling someone was trying to get into the room. We showed her the envelope for our room with “215” on it so she’d know it wasn’t OUR mistake. Back down to check-in. After several minutes,|young lady seemed to indicate the person actually assigned the room had a similar last name to ours, thus the mixup. We were then assigned Room 115. I requested that, at the least, we should be comped the food my wife bought and the drink I’d bought at the bar. She agreed and this was done. The next morning, the girl who actually checked us in at first (and apparently made the mistake that put into motion this whole series of events) asked how our stay was. Well, not good, I replied. Besides the above issue, there was no soap at all on the wall of our shower - not|even a container for one (it had been removed and not replaced). She then remembered who we were. She said she’d ask if points could be added back to our account. To the hotel's credit, the manager wrote me after we returned home, apologized, and said that he'd restored 15,000 points to our Marriott account (a partial refund). In effect, we’ve been refunded for about half our stay & had some food/drink taken off our bill. ...