Coyote Mountain Lodge — Hotel in Estes Park

5-star is perfect. This was a great place to stay, but I hesitate to call most lodging choices perfect - that's hard to do. I would probably come back, so how about we get into the summary...

Let's start with the not-so-good: they use old-school keyed doors with a $50 replacement charge (we didn't lose a key, but I'm sharing for others) - no throw away magnetic swipe cards here. Breakfast included omelets pre-made, in baggies, sitting in a plastic tote that you microwave. Unless I'm eating those at 6:01am, I'd be hesitant to press my luck there. Driving lanes and parking area is cramped - you show up later than 8pm after shopping and you may not get a spot.

We had one of the 2BR condo units (good stuff coming, I promise), and had to fight with both of those previously-mentioned metal keys to get in our sliding doors. Every time. There was a horrific smell in our unit the entire week. We even bought an air freshener at Dollar General. Mentioned it at the front desk, who said maintenance would be contacted (it felt to me like it got worse when the A/C kicked on). No salt or pepper - dollar store trip again. We left what we bought in the unit, as there were 9-10 other spices there, but no basics. Had to do dishes every day because there were the oddest collection of spoons, knives and forks (no matches) and only about 4-5 of each. So, one meal and you're done with silverware. TV channels (not that we watched much) were few and far between - it's direct TV but we only found a dozen channels or so. Hallway bathroom tub filled up during the shower - drain needed to be cleaned but there's no way I'm touching that. :| Toilet paper dispenser in master bath fell off the wall. One of the pillows on the deck was shredded open. Lots of stains on the carpet throughout. Box fan (no ceiling fan) in 2nd BR had no controls - you plugged it in and it was on max speed, all the time - unless you unplugged it. Fridge is a double-door unit, with freezer on bottom. Open one door and the other fridge door would pressure-open, ever so slightly. We heard that alarm go off quite a bit. Ice maker never made ice - another trip to Dollar General. Maid/cleaning service was suppose to come on our third day - according to the website (no one ever arrived).

** Shift gears, now for the good stuff: the location is in a great spot away from the crazy downtown area. Folks at the front desk were always nice. Coffee and tea options at breakfast were solid - I was told the waffle was good, too. :) Quite a few drinks and snacks, including local beers, available in the main lobby. Our deck view was great, off the back side of our condo (where the doors were). We spent quite a bit of time just chilling on the deck (leaning on the rail or sitting on the furniture on the deck). Although a bit rough-looking, the sectional was comfy and big enough. We loved the huge dining room table. Seating for six meant we could stretch out for dinner and finish the evening playing cards or Yahtzee. FULL kitchen with basically everything you need (especially since we left some things we bought): dishwasher (with a supply of pods), lots of pots pans and skillets, cooking utensils, cutting boards, pretty good supply of plates, bowls, and quite a few glass/cups (though a couple more big ones would be cool). Huge double sink for hand washing anything. Full stove and oven, plus a microwave.

2 full baths is great - each couple could claim one as their own for showers, getting ready, etc. Well appointed baths with wall-mounted soaps and shampoos. Pretty good supply of towels. Queen size bed was very comfy, I slept well. Our roommates had the king size and I can only assume it was comfy, too - they never said a word. Bonus: we saw elk pass by the rear of the property on a couple of occasions. And the sunrise is nice from our deck, too. :)

Like I said, not perfect - but a solid choice nevertheless. Obviously our experience was in a 2BR condo, and there's only two of those, so I assume your experience in a regular hotel unit would be...

The room and bathroom were small, but were clean and had comfortable beds and linens. The bathroom towels were nicer than most of the more expensive lodging we've stayed in. Heater worked great and there was plenty of hot water. This is an older roadside motel that has been kept up nicely. There are two buildings for lodging. One is attached to the main office and is your traditional drive up motor motel set up. There is a second building that appeared to have the king rooms and decks. We stayed in the first described building. We did not use the hot tub. Pool was closed for the season. The room met our needs. Last year we stayed at Murphy's Resort up the road. In comparison, we liked the Coyote Mountain Lodge better. Keep in mind that anyplace is going to be overpriced in Estes for what you get. So, don't have sticker shock. It's a popular place to visit.||Check in and out was easy and smooth. Staff was friendly.||Breakfast was what you would expect, heated cheese omelets, sausage, bacon, cereals, bagels, fruit, juice and pancakes. The breakfast area is not handicap friendly as there are stairs. But overall, the breakfast was adequate to get your day started. ||My only complaint..... in Colorado everyone seems to think they can take their dogs everywhere they go. It is true that this motel is dog friendly and we knew that when booking. However, I don't think it's appropriate to take your dogs into the breakfast area and feed them off your plate. I'd think that staff would also feel that this is inappropriate, yet nobody said anything to any of the people doing this. I love dogs, but I would not take mine into any area that is serving food (unless there is outdoor seating where dogs are welcome). My daughter was recently the victim of an unprovoked bite by a strangers dog. She ate her breakfast with one eye looking over her shoulder. My four star review is not based on the dog complaint. It's based on the motel in general. But, maybe more dog owners will read this and take it into consideration during their future travels....

We had been on a ten day road trip and this was our last place to stay because we love Estes Park, we got into town a little early and wanted to drop our things and change clothes after driving most of the day before supper and was told we would have to pay extra if we wanted to get in early, I’ve never had that happen before at any other place. Once we hung around town for a bit we came back and checked in, we looked around for blankets so the kids could use the pull out sofa but had none and upon going to the front desk they had only one blanket and would have to wait for another. When we got back from supper we did have the two blankets but when we pulled out the sofa sleeper there were no sheets to be found and one pillow, front desk closes at 7 so we ended up giving them a sheet from our bed to cover the mattress with. There ended up being no middle support in the pull out couch so the kids ended up sleeping on the floor. We couldn’t get the tv to work in our room, after about 40 minutes we got it reset and in the right HDMI port, I decided to take a hot shower before bed as always and because I had had a surgery a couple weeks prior the hot shower helps, when I got in I went to use the pump body and hair soap they had and sitting on top of the dispenser was a tampon wrapper with something inside it that had not been removed from the previous tenants, so I questioned if the shower had even been cleaned or the bright pink wrapper wouldn’t have been missed. My husband said he did sleep good for the most part, the girls had a bad night sleep on the floor and I didn’t sleep at all. My husband made two phone calls to the emergency number and no one answered or called back and of course no one was in the lobby. All in all a not good experience and would never spend $130 something on this hotel ever again. It was our one and only bad experience...