Discovery Lodge — Hotel in Estes Park

This is such a nice lodge! Close enough to Estes Park it is walkable to the downtown area. José was the attendant on duty who checked us in. Very professional and hospitable. He’s lived in Estes his whole life! We talked about all the changes since we’ve visited-probably 7-8 years ago. He advised that the last 4-6 years have brought more population and more shops and stores. Downtown has had little change in terms of all the shops and dining -I’m sure I could spend multiple days here. He graduated from Estes High School a couple of years ago. His graduating class consisted of 64 students, he says this past year it was 130+. We were only able to secure our room for 2 nights. I’m going to see if we can get on a waitlist as we’d like to extend our stay. The room is very nice. Lots of dresser drawer space, nice flat screen TV ( in case of rain I guess)! Mini fridge and microwave- mini Mr Coffee-(we are missing the pot), coffee and creamer-sugar sweetener packs. We think it’s a Queen size mattress -we are used to a King so hard to gage. It is comfortable. The furniture is designed from wood and looks great- like furnishings in a lodge should look. The shower is huge, The rest of the bathroom is pretty snug but manageable. Love the fact that they have dispensers near the wall on the sink and in the shower for body soap and shampoo. Currently they are not doing daily room cleaning due to Covid which is pretty much status quo of everywhere we’ve been over the past month. The bedding is upscale and really comfortable! Nice crisp white sheets, white comforter and duvet cover. We did not need another blanket but if there is a need they have one available in the closet for you. The closet is nice size and has a little luggage holder along with plenty of space for hanging and or storing belongings. We have a screened in back door that goes out onto a large deck. The lodging we have is a duplex style. At this point we don’t have anyone next-door but I am expecting that to change. The deck is plenty for two families or couples or whomever. I’ll add pictures of many of these items I am mentioning so you can see for yourself how comfortable these accommodations are. Most all the rooms face the pond where you can fish and the mountains which are just beautiful to look at. Estes Park is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. Last night we took José’s suggestion and ordered takeout barbecue from a place just a couple miles away. I’ll be writing that up separately. The barbecue was fantastic. Best I’ve had in a very long time. I hope to see him today to thank him for that suggestion! We may go into town today to do a little shopping and maybe pick up lunch or supper,however,we are both just tired. If we decide not to go into town this is certainly the perfect place to relax. We’ve been coming to Estes Park for many years on and off and have always enjoyed it but we will definitely plan to book our forthcoming visits at Discovery Lodge in the future! This trip was a “Spur of the moment adventure”-if you plan to stay here it would be a really good idea to book ahead. I am certain it fills up quite often. Last but not least this large is dog friendly and the pet fee is $15 per night which is the average that we have found during our travels this past month. I really just can’t say enough good things about this place! Come check it out...

The location was great, although it was a little bit tricky driving in and out. The hotel isn’t far from downtown. It’s next to a golf course, and we saw elk out on the course. We could also see snowcapped mountains from our room and from the trout pond area outside, which had a number of chairs out. There was also a firepit stocked with firewood. The outdoor hot tub was closed while we were there because of renovations.|The rooms seemed like they’d been recently renovated. We had a main floor room with an outside entrance. It was spacious and had 2 queen beds, a fridge and a microwave, and there was a small round table with two chairs in the room. There were no lamps in the room…overhead lights only, which had its drawbacks (e.g. for reading in bed and for putting out the lights at bedtime).|Although we liked this place, we did have a number of issues! When we arrived, there was no remote for the tv so the office sent maintenance and they eventually solved the problem, although it took a while to sort out. We hadn’t unpacked our car in case we needed to move rooms, so once we knew we had a remote, we went ahead and unpacked, only to discover that there was no power to the fridge or microwave. Maintenance came again and luckily it was just a breaker so that was fixed quickly. In the morning when I went to shower, the shower wasn’t working. Maintenance had to be called again. While they were working on that, we got dressed and went to the office for the continental breakfast, which was included. There was no coffee available! Boo! Tea and hot chocolate were available, though, as was instant coffee. As far as continental breakfasts go, this one was great (and I got over not being able to have a proper coffee!) Breakfast offerings included yogurt, fruit cups, granola bars, poptarts and waffles for the toaster, toast, cereal, bananas/apples/oranges, and muffins. The shower issue was fixed while we were at breakfast. When we checked out, no offers of a discount for our night’s stay were made for our inconvenience. |I was impressed with their environmentally friendly efforts; the toilet had a small or large flush to conserve water, there was recycling in the room, the in-room coffee pods were compostable, and the shampoo/body wash/soap were in large dispensers.|The staff were friendly, and we unexpectedly got to see a lot of the...

It’s a two-star hotel, and I’m giving it a two star rating, funny. We got stuck in town unexpectedly on a Saturday night, and I had to make a last minute reservation, and in the end had to pay about $200 with tax for a room that anywhere else in Colorado should cost about $100.

Guy at front gave us our key, room 409, and when we went to the room, the key wouldn’t work! We both tried it, but the key definitely didn’t go to that door! Oddly, when I pulled on the door, it opened; it wasn’t locked! What kind of place is this? Was someone already in our room? I had to go in and “clear” the room to make sure no one was inside.

Motel is very old and showing its age, carpet was kind of sticky. We were able to park right outside our room, which was good.

So, we went inside and settled, took showers. Then, as I always do, went to the bed and pulled the sheets back, checking to see if they were clean & lo and behold I see hair, small specks of dirt, etc. I lifted the pillow and brushed the sheet, and white stuff (dandruff?) fell onto the carpet. Obviously the bedsheets hadn’t been changed.

I went over to the other bed and checked the sheets, and it looked better, so we laid down in that one. However,nNeither wife nor myself were able to sleep very good, as we were itchy all night! There were no bugs, so maybe it was just the detergent they use on the sheets? Maybe they weren’t clean? No idea, but we itched and scratched all night. We got up at 6, took hot showers, and it was good. Terrible night though, wanting to have a good nights sleep before an all day hike, it sucked.

Forget the “breakfast”, the coffee was some kind of Folgers from a machine that tasted like a mix of battery acid and used motor oil, just horrible. We grabbed a few bananas and headed to Starbucks.

You heard that old saying “You get what you pay for”? Well, in this case it isn’t true. I paid $200 which was the same as a new 3-star hotel in Denver, but got a horrible experience.

I should have known when we checked in and the clerk was a young dude in a backwards baseball cap sitting in the lounge looking at his phone. I thought he was a customer, until he got up and went behind the desk. Oh well, I learned my lesson. We would have been better off just sleeping...