The Crawford Hotel — Hotel in Denver

The Crawford Hotel is a wonderful mix of old & new. On our first trip to Denver, we researched a lot of hotels & ended up picking The Crawford as it had a variety of convenient things that made the trip so much simpler for us. We wanted to save in other areas so we skipped renting a car & opted for the RTD/A Line train from the Denver airport to Union Station (around $10/person one way). The train drops off just steps from the Union Station doors. After inside it's just another few steps to the front desk of the Crawford.

The Crawford Hotel (hotel details, staff): The hotel itself repurposes old spaces of Union Station and converts them into upscale hotel rooms from Pullman & Classic Guest Rooms up through lofts & suites. We ended up in a Deluxe Classic room. It had a fun entrance with 2 steps as you enter. You can see all the room photos you want on other reviews but a few quick notes. The room was good sized & the ceilings were quite high which were complimented nicely by tall windows. Our room (327) was on the corner next to The Cooper Lounge & the windows overlooked the courtyard where a farmer's market was setup, Wynkoop Street & a glance up 17th street. Inside the room to the right was a desk, a small sitting area with high back chairs & a large standalone closet that included a small refrigerator, iron, hangers, robes, & a safe. The room is divided with a dresser that also is the resting place of the TV (on a swivel base). The bed has a large, colorful headboard with a mirrored trim. Next to the bed on the end tables is a room iPad from which you can order breakfast from Snooze! To the side of the bed is a sliding barn door entrance to the bathroom. The bathroom has your standard large mirror & vanity, toilet, rain shower & tile flooring. Our room did not have a tub. The bed was comfy/large & with the padded headboard, was a nice place to relax. We paid for some added extras & they provide anything from rose petals, wine, flowers, candies & so on at reasonable costs plus a fee per trip to the room for setup. The Guest Amenity Form walks you through anything you may want to add. Some other unique ideas include adding Crawford Cookies & Milk, a European breakfast or a meat and cheese charcuterie board. The rooms with bath tubs also have the option of a Bath Amenity. I would recommend taking advantage of a few of these just to take the experience to another level. Overall a very nice room that is laid out to make you feel comfortable while providing a variety of areas to relax.

The staff at The Crawford may be the best thing going for it. We dealt primarily with Katelyn & she was fantastic. Katelyn provided not just exemplary customer service but special detail customer service. Katelyn took the time to understand what I wanted out of the trip, helped me plan the best stay possible & then checked in with me often to make sure it was up to our expectations. Katelyn is top notch! Staff is very welcoming and friendly.

Union Station (non hotel details): Inside Union Station you still have the traditional train/bus station feel with benches & waiting areas mixed in with some tables, chairs & a variety of bars, restaurants and shops. The open lobby is a great hangout spot to relax & enjoy a snack from one of the great food options. Of the food options our favorites were Pigtrain Coffee (also has pastries & breakfast options) & the breakfast spot Snooze. The hotel also offers an option to have Snooze delivered to the room for breakfast! The Terminal Bar and The Cooper Lounge each provide easy options to grab a drink and relax. The Terminal Bar is a bit more laid back PLUS The Crawford provides a free drink here daily. The Cooper Lounge is found on the mezzanine of Union Station & is a throwback cocktail lounge. There are a few other shops inside too.

Just a couple blocks to Coors Field, too!

Overall, we really enjoyed the stay here & would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to visit...

First let me say that the hotel itself is beautiful, the staff was all extremely nice and the location is very centrally located (if your visiting Denver this is the area you want to be in). The reason for the deducted stars is the insane amount of trouble our group (mostly me as the organizer) went through pretty much every step of the way... We had a work event in Denver that required something like 18 rooms that we booked well in advance. In addition to the various hotel staff being quite difficult to get ahold of (there were lots of problems that required lots of calls), fairly crazy amount of paper work involved, half a dozen or so people (probably more) I had to work with, insane number of emails, and mistake after mistake on the hotels end (pretty much anything you can imagine: from mis-programmed room keys to accidental cancelations, billing mistakes etc...). Again, the hotel was very nice and so was everyone I worked with but the headache of dealing with constant mistakes and amount of time required of me to simply book a group of hotel rooms was quite ridiculous (in fact I'm still dealing with billing issues). Had I any indication that staying at the Crawford was going to be that much trouble I would have absolutely chosen another hotel... Also, as an additional side note: While union station is very central and nice, the homeless issue may scare some - There was a very large presence of security to keep things in check but in my two day stay I witnessed an old man (security guard) almost being attacked near the elevator by another man needing to use the restroom as well as countless others with various degrees of mental health/drug issues being confronted in the union station lobby (shared with the hotel) and escorted off the premises. Not the hotels fault (more of an inter city problem), and the problem does seem to be being dealt with, but just a heads up to any of you not so used to such an urban environment.

Update: I actually just reduced my review stars to two as it has been several weeks now with several work days of mine spent trying to clear up billing mistakes on the Crawford's end... And while we have made some progress: for example on our individual guests personal credit cards; there were charges ranging from over $1200 to as little as $50. most of which being incorrect (such items as valet parking charges for those without cars - and overcharged on the valet even if they had actually used it). Which is pretty embarrassing having to call up each of our business guests to look into their personal credit card statements etc. (when this was supposed to be an event covered by our company... it was, and the individuals shouldn't have been charged). On top of all this the company is still due over $800 in refund credits etc. I have honestly never dealt with such a mess: and find this to be quite remarkable considering the level of hotel we are dealing with. Again the staff has all been very nice, its just the level of mistakes made and still being dealt with is...

We stayed four nights in room 214 in August 2023 and it was just a mess. Here’s a few problems we had during our stay…

First off, it’s a train station. So expect homeless people around the building. Fine, I get that, but what we didn’t expect was so many homeless people INSIDE the lobby ALL the time. There are security guards around, but most of the time they’re outside vaping.

There’s a really loud knocking that comes from the elevator that is loudly heard down the hall. It goes on all day and all night. It was four loud knocking bangs every time the elevator moved. We were about halfway down the hall from the elevator shaft too. I feel sorry for anyone staying closer to the elevator shaft as it echoes throughout the walls. We asked front desk about it and to look into it. They sent an “engineer” to our room. That “engineer” did nothing.

We had to ask front desk to clean the room and make the bed every single day of our stay. Which is funny because there was a card in the bathroom that said ask us to NOT have your room cleaned. Whenever we got home right before dinner about 4-5 PM, it was never made up. Unfortunately we got back late on the last day and housekeeping was already gone so front desk told us no service can be provided. I felt like saying, “do you know how to make a bed?”

No refill Keruig coffee pods were provided on the second day. No bathmat was provided on the third day. The sugar for coffee was never refilled even when we asked front desk to do so.

Our scheduled European breakfast reservation was missed. We had to call to get it delivered. When it came two hours later, there was no sugar for the coffee. And since they never refilled the in-room coffee’s sugar, we had to go down to the coffee shop anyway. Pointless. Still was charged for it too.

About five TV channels didn’t work. They either said “weak signal” or stated “audio only channel”. Asked front desk to fix twice, they never did.

Out of the four light fixtures in the room, three were either bent, broken, or barely attached.

Saw a mouse in the lobby that ran into the restaurant.

The fire detector above the bed flashes all day and all night. How are people supposed to sleep with a flashing light?!

I ended up paying $400 more than my confirmed reservation fee. This included “$27 nightly Destination Amenity Fee + tax, 14.75% room occupancy tax, 1% tourism tax, and 3% Union Station Preservation Fee.” Be sure to add an extra $100 to your daily rate with these hidden fees. Also, I was not charged the same rate for each night. Fluctuated by $95 each night.

I only gave my email while visiting the USA to sign up to use The Crawford Hotel wifi. Immediately after I did so, I received many, many junk emails. I am still receiving them. Probably about 10-15 a day now. If you use their wifi, they sell your info. Keep that in mind.

It’s such an amazing building and great location, but the customer service is non-existent. We will not be...