The Stanley Hotel — Hotel in Estes Park

No doubt, this is an elegant, old hotel with a rich and interesting history. I spent two nights there and I will likely not stay there again. ||The hotel is an impressive sight and will likely meet your expectations for an old, historic property. The lobby is wrapped in dark wood walls and trim. The stairs are built from the same dark woods and creak the way you would expect them to when you walk up and down. The elevator is small and slow and gives you a feel for life in the early 1900s. There are old photos hanging on all the walls showing how people vacationed when the hotel was new.||The rooms, which, of course, have been upgraded over the years, have some features that have otherwise been left behind in more modern hotels like thick wood trim around all the doors and windows, and wooden crown and baseboard moulding around the ceiling and floor, and marble countertops in the bathroom and bedroom.||So, if you come to the Stanley with the intention to soak up the history, maybe take advantage of some of the tours and other experiences that are offered, and if you appropriately set your expectations to match what you would see in a 115 year old hotel, you might be satisfied. But I ran into some, admittedly small, but some other not so small problems. ||I'll talk about the small (some would justifyably say "nit-picky") problems first.|It would have been nice to have a larger mirror in the room, maybe hung on one of the doors.|There was no chair or desk in the room.|There was no trash can in the bedroom.|The lighting in the bathroom was poor (very dim).|There were no soap dishes on either the bathroom sink or in the shower. What are you supposed to do with the bars of soap that the hotel provides?|The bathroom sink was poorly installed leaving an unsightly, sloppy gap between the sink bowl and the marble countertop. (This oversight was inconsistent with what I expected from a somewhat more expensive hotel and simply introduced a bad impression about the overall, underlying quality of the maintenance of the hotel and, of course, the hotel itself.)|There was no safe in the room. There was no refrigerator in the room.||Here are some of the bigger issues that I ran into.|The information I received said that the rooms in the main hotel (where we stayed) had no air conditioning. OK. I knew that going in and decided that would be OK. When we got to the room, there was, in fact, something like an air conditioner "connected" to the window and sitting on the floor (see photos). It was ... interesting, and I think it might have worked, but was certainly unexpected.|The shower in the bathroom and, specifically, the shower faucet control was a real puzzle (see photos). First, when you rotated the shower handle, it just went around and around without any specific starting or stopping point. I mean, it was not loose. It felt functional, but there was no way to tell what was "on" or "off" or where hot or cold was. In fact, when I first rotated the handle, I could not get water to come out of the shower at all. And I thought, "uh oh". Then, when water started coming out, I could not figure out how to get hot water. Then, I could not figure out how to shut it off. |I spoke to the woman at the front desk, who was very friendly and pleasant. She said she would send an "engineer" to look at it while I was at dinner. After dinner, I checked with the front desk and was told that the problem had been fixed. I went up to the room and the problem had not been fixed. I decided to just deal with it.||The next night, the temperatures dropped into the low 30s. I set the thermostat in the room to 72 degrees and waited. The baseboard heating never got the least bit warm.|Again, I went to see the friendly woman at the front desk. She was wearing a coat and talking to another guest who was telling her that his room was cold. The woman said that the heat in the hotel had been deliberately turned off. (WHAT?)|She offered the man what she thought was her last space heater.|When she had finished with him, I asked her what I was supposed to do. She said she would bring some extra blankets to the room and try to get another space heater. Some time later, she showed up at the room with blankets. A little while after that, a man came to the room and handed me something that he said was a space heater. I took it, looked at it, and saw that it was nothing more than a fan.|I returned the fan to the nice woman at the front desk. She said her engineer was working on another problem but had found another space heater and he would deliver it to the room later on. I waited. No space heater ever arrived. We piled on the blankets and slept through it. The heat never came on and the room was at 63 degrees when we woke up the next morning. (see photos).||When I checked out, the woman at the desk (a different woman) asked how our stay was. Well ... I explained about the problems with the room, the shower and the lack of heat. She said that the heat had been turned on, but I never saw any evidence of it. And my wife told me that when she went down to the coffee shop in the hotel for a latte, they said they were cold because there was no heat. |I asked the woman at the front desk if she could make an adjustment to the bill to compensate for the inconveniences. She asked what I had in mind and I thought, why not try for something "ambitious". So I asked for one of my nights to be free.|She said that this was an interesting time at the hotel because they were in the process of changing management. She would have to check with her new manager to see what she could do and would call me with an answer.||There was no fix to the shower.|There was no space heater.|There was no heat turned on in the hotel.|There was no phone call about the adjustment to the bill.|(There will likely be no adjustment of any type to the bill.)||There is a little bit of a customer service problem at...

Wow, this is an incredible property and I'm glad I had the opportunity to stay here for my 31st wedding anniversary. A beautiful iconic building with magnificent views of meadows and mountains and a beautifully landscaped grounds (despite the charming menace of the robust local elk population). Since the hotel has recently changed hands I would like to offer the management a few tips to make the experience a 5 star one:

Driving in we were surprised to see a dude with an apron collecting the $10 parking fee. We didn't have to pay since we were checking in but seemed like a printed pass would be helpful as anyone could just say that, also get the lift bar working and it will seem more professional.

Improve the signage directing guests to the reception area. I was confused!

After receiving my room assignment in the lodge I had to figure out which building it was (not that hard). Then I had no idea which floor as it wasn't really marked. (Even the housekeeping person I asked wasn't sure). Also the sign in the middle of the staircase (stating lodge guests only) was kind of an impediment to passing through with luggage (I moved it to the side for everyone's benefit!)

The little parlor going into the corner where our room along with one other room was on the third floor looked a little shabby; a tattered ottoman was shoved in a corner and there was a white hand towel lying on the floor (I folded it up and later it was gone).

The room was large and lovely with fabulous views. Just a few things would have made it better: The toilet seat had a crack, so easy and cheap to just replace! We were left with a very small roll of toilet paper and no spare despite all the drawers and cabinets, which considering there is no daily housekeeping could have been a problem had we run out in off hours. There were little bars of soap but no soap tray, I'd consider a refillable bottle of hand soap for easy hand washing in the bathroom. The outlet in the bathroom didn't work, I had to dry my hair using the outlet in the entryway. There was a portable (A/C) machine sitting in the closet with a handwritten note taped on saying - do not use / broken. (That should be in a housekeeping closet!) The TV remote had dead batteries, even when I scrounged some new batteries (asked the front desk but they didn't have) it turned on but we couldn't change any channels. It's an old TV; there was a newer one in the "parlor" area but no remote I could see. Finally the mattress was pretty old with creaky springs, and not very comfortable. I know upgrading all the mattresses is a more expensive improvement so I'd focus on the little ones like having housekeepers check the TV and outlets, stock with toilet paper, etc.

We dined or had a drink at 4 of the restaurants and they were pretty good, but we were surprised we didn't have the option to add our charges to our room, which is the norm for upscale hotels. The vouchers for the lodge brunch room seemed a little old fashioned and unwieldy, would have preferred a room credit. No big deal but just an observation. We had champagne brought to our room and it was lovely - but the bucket made a water mark on the coffee table, perhaps a stand would be more practical?

Despite all I've written, we had a fabulous visit at the Stanley and would 100% go back or recommend to our friends; some of the things I mention actually made it more charming because it's not quite as "corporate-ized"/commercial as many chain hotels. The staff were all incredibly nice and I can see everyone is working really hard to maintain the property and keep the operation going to deliver a wonderful experience for guests. I hope these suggestions...

Stepping into a hotel built in 1909 transports you to a time and place where people were not owned by their screens. The lobby, ball room, and music room evoke a longing for a time when the desire for connection was met with dancing, music, and games. However, those rooms are all roped off, which is quite unfortunate as so much could be done to revive a bygone era or at least allow passage.

As I entered I was welcomed by a girl dressed in gothic attire asking if I was checking in for the seance. Bypassing the opportunity to dance with the devil, I proceeded to the front desk where I was given a keycard and discovered the assigned room was in a resort across the street, not even part of the main property. I was quite confused as I had booked directly from the Stanleys website. I was presented with an unexpected 20% upcharge if I opted to stay in the Stanley itself. Since we had just finished the 1997 miniseries of the Shining on Amzn Prime (which was filmed entirely at this location unlike the first 1980 version) and made the trip specifically for this reason, I gulped and paid the piper.

Our room was quaint and cute but quite drafty and cold. So we turned up the thermostat and retired with our children. My wife and I huddled together as we waited for the room to heat up. We both woke from the cold and realized the baseboard heaters were doing nothing, so we turned the heater up higher, and did so each time we awoke. We did not call the front desk because doing so would have disturbed our slumbering children and in our drowsy state we expected that eventually the heat would kick on with our latest adjustment, which never happened. So we naively toughed it out.

The thin doors had us awoken all too early from noise in the hallways and early knocking by housekeeping. Exhausted from the 16 hour commute the day before, skipping an hour due to daylight savings time, and facing a 10 hour drive ahead we realized we simply needed more rest. Expressing the difficulty of our sleep to the manager, we asked if they might comp or discount us another night given the fact our room had no heat. The managers reply was as cold as the night we endured, sorry, but we should have called during the night and they would have brought us space heaters or more blankets (indicating this is clearly a common issue). I was met with a blank stare when I suggested they might just have a thermostat that works properly instead of shifting the blame to guests for not seeking out their unknown resources in the dead of night. We were offered an insulting 10% discount and nothing more despite our protest. I'm also fairly certain the thermostat is just intended for a placebo effect, there was no surprise at all by the staff that it was malfunctioning.

So the two stars is primarily for the poor response to a very poor night of sleep (which later placed our lives at risk on the road). I would not dissuade anyone from coming and taking in the charm of this hotel, but I would suggest you only visit the grounds while staying elsewhere for better sleep. Anyone is welcome on these premises and we saw many folks exploring the hallways and lounges who were likely not guests. They have a couple of restaurants, offer tours, and have gift shops and historic displays, all which are reasons to stop by without overpaying for a...