and I don’t think it deserves a 3-star rating. Checking in took a while, because it seemed that everyone in front of me had some issue. When we arrived in our “newly renovated” room, it didn’t appear “new” at all. The beds and furniture seemed “newer” and the tub and shower area looked redone, but the wallpaper, carpeting and rest of the bathroom looked old and worn. In fact, I noticed that under the bathroom vanity a towel was wrapped around the sink pipe and there was a huge hole in the wall that they sloppily attempted to cover up with some sort of plastic cover. Also, there was used soap (and a hair) in the shower leftover from the previous guest. We called to get it removed as well as to get a light bulb replaced and some extra towels. It took about 45 minutes to an hour for someone to come and they didn’t even remove the old soap. One more thing about the bathroom—our toilet didn’t work properly and after every couple of flushes my husband would have to remove the tank lid and reconnect the chain that kept slipping off. I told the front desk about this twice, but I don’t know if they ever sent anyone and if they did, they never fixed the problem. (So if you want a properly working toilet, don’t stay in room 239). Housekeeping was minimal—never really cleaned out the tub when they came—just replaced towels. Never felt that the bathroom/room was very clean. As for noise, we didn’t find the hallways or rooms particularly noisy and the hotel was completely booked the weekend we were there. However, our air conditioner sounded like a freight train. If you started to doze off or were in a light sleep and it kicked in, it would wake you up and keep you up. As for security, the card-access only door into our building was sometimes working and other times anyone could open it, or, better yet, it was propped open. As for the pool area (and this was one of the reasons I chose this hotel—it had an outdoor pool) it was pretty old like the rest of the building and in need of some major repair/maintenance. It also wasn’t that clean (my children kept finding floating dead bugs) and the hot tub was out of order (not that I would have let anyone in my family go in that hot tub anyway). It was also open until 10 pm, but when we walked by at night there didn’t seem to be any lighting.
On a positive note (yes, I do have one), the location is great. It’s on Garden of the Gods Road, right off of 25 and not too far from anything. As for the breakfast, I have to agree with previous reviews that it was excellent. The made-to-order eggs/omelets and pancakes, along with fresh fruit made the rest of the hotel bearable. We also never encountered any huge lines, as was mentioned in a previous review. The chefs were always smiling and friendly, as was the wait staff at the Bucking Toad, where the breakfast was served. Just had to get there before 9:30 when they start clearing everything away (although one of the waitresses said if I was looking for something that they had put away, just let them know and they would get it for me). Also, twice we went down to the Bucking Toad for dinner and the food was surprisingly good and reasonable. It was nice to have the option of eating a decent meal at the hotel when it was late and we didn’t feel like venturing out again. There were also several good restaurants nearby. The Fire Rock Grill across the street had an excellent steak dinner (reasonably priced), although they were short-staffed when we were there and our waitress was a little frazzled, and the 3 Jarritas Famiy Mexican Restaurant (take the road behind the hotel heading toward 25, next to Days Inn) was an excellent authentic Mexican restaurant with a great atmosphere and friendly service.
Overall, I would not recommend this hotel (unless you don’t care about cleanliness and/or working toilets). It is not surprising to me to read in one of the recent reviews that it’s closing—maybe that’s part of the problem; they’ve just given up. Too bad, it’s a great location and with the right management and some real renovating, it could be a decent hotel.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC