Before setting off on our trip to Dubai, Egypt and Jordan, Shae, Truffles and I stayed at the Element Denver Park Meadows in Colorado for just over a month.
We did this for a few reasons. There were quite a few places in and around Denver we wanted to visit, so spending longer there made sense. We got a great rate on a one bedroom suite at the Element which was cheaper than anything else comparable in Denver, so it seemed like a perfect place to be based.
Another benefit of booking such a long stay is that if you stay 31+ nights at the same hotel in Colorado, you don’t have to pay hotel taxes. That can save you a significant chunk of change, so that’s what we did.
There were some things to like about our stay, but also quite a few things to dislike. I’m actually hoping that writing this review will help me come to some kind of conclusion as to whether I’d want to stay there that long again or not. Here’s my review of the Element Denver Park Meadows where I’ll try to explain why I have these mixed feelings.
Check-In
We booked the stay in Shae’s name because the 38 nights would mean she’d end up with enough nights over the course of this year to earn Platinum status with Marriott Bonvoy. Ordinarily we book stays under my account as I have Titanium status and so we have a much better chance of getting a room upgrade with rooms booked under my name. However, we’d booked straight into a one bedroom suite and didn’t need an upgrade, so it made more sense booking it under Shae’s account as I’d already requalified for Titanium status for this year.
Shae therefore went inside to check in while I tried to unload the car (more about that in the moment). The front desk agent apparently wasn’t particularly friendly and when Shae asked if we could be on the top floor, she said that because we had a dog we’d have to be on the ground floor.
Shae asked again if there was any way we could be on a higher floor because being on the first floor tends to be noisier with people walking past your room outside, car lights shine in, etc. With us staying there for more than a month, that wouldn’t be fun. The front desk agent begrudgingly put us on the third floor; we subsequently saw a lot of other dogs on our floor and in the elevator going to the second or fourth floors, so it didn’t seem like they applied this rule particularly strictly.
Another non-fun aspect about the check-in experience is that the hotel doesn’t have regular luggage carts like normal hotels. Instead, they have luggage carts like the ones you use at airports. While that’s fine if you’re traveling with a couple of suitcases, it’s a pain in the backside if you travel with a lot of stuff like us. (n.b. in case you’re reading this review and aren’t familiar with our travels, we’re on a 50 state road trip and pretty much everything we own is in our car, so we bring that into hotels with us).
We therefore had to do two trips with two of the teeny luggage carts in order to get everything up to our suite. To be fair to this specific hotel, I think the luggage cart situation is a brand standard for Element properties as we had the same situation when staying at an Element in New Hampshire. It’s surprising that the Element brand has chosen this setup though as it’s an extended stay brand. We weren’t the only guests staying there for a long time, so I can’t imagine we were the only ones who’d be moving in with more than a couple of suitcases.
One Bedroom Suite
With Shae managing to convince the front desk agent to put us on a higher floor, we ended up in room 319. As mentioned earlier, we booked a one bedroom suite to have more space during our stay.
When entering the suite the kitchen was on the left, the living room further on the left, the bedroom ahead on the right and the bathroom on the right.
Living Room
The living room had a corner sleeper sofa which was very comfortable to both sit and lay on. There was a small side table, along with a couple of ottomans that were beneath the TV.
Against a wall in the middle of the suite was a work desk and office chair.
Back by the entrance on the right was a very large closet/storage unit. Beneath this was a dining table with a couple of leaves that folded down, along with a couple more ottomans.
Something that was awful throughout our stay was the air conditioning and heating system. It was impossible to set a temperature that was comfortable. The unit either pumped out icy cold air endlessly or it pumped out so much heat that it felt like we were sitting in a sauna. There was no in-between; for example, it could be pumping out icy air when the thermostat was set to 73°, but turn it up one degree and you’d have moved from the Arctic to the Arabian desert.
There was even a large temperature difference between the living room and bedroom as the bedroom didn’t have a separate temperature control. Although things would be chilly out in the living room, it felt like icicles would start appearing at any moment in the bedroom as the icy air pumped out even more strongly in there.
Something else that was a little strange is that our suite didn’t have a phone. We mentioned this to the front desk a couple of times, but no one ever brought one up and we were told to just use our cell phones to call the front desk if needed.
Kitchen
All rooms – even studio suites – at the Element Denver Park Meadows (and other Element properties) have a full kitchen. This includes a full-sized fridge-freezer, a dishwasher, toaster, double stove top and microwave.
There wasn’t too much cupboard space, but that’s because plates, dishes, glasses, etc. get stored on top of the long shelf above the countertop. It’s empty in the photo above, but that’s because it had all been run through the dishwasher before we arrived.
The dishwasher was dodgy in a couple of ways. First, it hadn’t been installed properly and so fell forward whenever you pulled either of the racks out. Second, it simply didn’t work at times. It would turn on and every so often you’d hear a click as it thought it was moving on to the next stage of the wash, but it wouldn’t be running.
They sent someone from maintenance up to fix it which initially seemed to work, but then it reverted back to only working every so often. It would therefore sometimes take half a dozen attempts to run a wash before water would actually cycle through. To the maintenance guy’s credit, he fixed the installation issue proactively without me mentioning it to him.
As you can see, the dishwasher was jam-packed which is why a couple of other miscellaneous items hadn’t made it in there (not that you’d put the toaster in the dishwasher 😉 ).
On the countertop was a small coffee maker with a selection of tea and coffee options.
During our stay, the garbage disposal got clogged and I couldn’t for the life of me find the switch on the wall to turn it on. This confused me for a long time until I found out where it was hiding.
We’d been running the dishwasher rather than washing items by hand and so didn’t have any need to use the plug stopper. If we had used it, I’d have discovered the garbage disposal button much earlier!
Bedroom
The bedroom wasn’t huge, but we were glad to have that separate living space so that I could be up late working in the living room without disturbing Shae, while she could be up early and not disturb me sleeping.
Opposite the bed in an alcove was another TV, while to the left of that was a closet which contained a safe, iron, ironing board and luggage rack.
What was a little strange was that for all the storage space available in the bedroom and living area, there weren’t any dresser drawers. Again, this is most likely a general Element brand issue rather than being specific to the Element Denver Park Meadows, but it’s a strange design choice.
From a strange design choice to an annoying design choice. The bedroom had a blind which – in theory – was a good blackout blind in that it was thick enough to block out light.
Unfortunately the design of the window and mounting of the blind meant it didn’t work as it should. Our room (along with presumably half the rooms at the hotel) looked out on to the hotel’s courtyard which stays well-lit at night. That light therefore made its way around the sides of the blind because it didn’t extend to the wall, as well as up over the top of it. That meant that even in the middle of the night it was fairly bright in the room. The photo below was taken at 3am; the light issue was therefore even worse when the sun came up.
A further design flaw is that the bedroom has a sliding door. While that’s good in that it means it doesn’t take up space when swinging out or in, it was very noisy when sliding it. That meant I’d usually disturb Shae’s sleep when coming to bed at night.
Another downside to our room facing out on the courtyard is that you could hear everything that happened out in the courtyard at night. People would sometimes be out there being noisy past 11pm; the design of the courtyard meant the sound echoed all around too, so I imagine all rooms facing the courtyard would have that issue.
Bathroom
The bathroom had a walk-in shower with a nice showerhead. Unfortunately the door’s seal didn’t work properly and so it always leaked water on the floor outside.
There were wall-mounted bottles of shampoo/conditioner and body wash.
The bathroom also had a nice, large sink, with a good amount of storage space either side and beneath.
In addition to the shower door being an issue, there was another irritant. The toilet roll holder was installed in a way that meant that every time you pulled on the roll, it fell off – this happened to both me and Shae. It might sound like a little thing – which it is – but it got old having that happen for 38 days! Installing it so that it faced the other way would’ve fixed the problem.
Breakfast
The Element Denver Park Meadows serves breakfast from 6:30-8:30am on weekdays and 7-9am at the weekend. This was disappointing because I’m not an early riser, so having breakfast end so early during the week was a shame as most hotels serve breakfast until at least 9am during the week. Thankfully Shae was often up before me, so she’d grab me something.
As for the food itself, there was a fairly good selection. There wasn’t a regular buffet-style breakfast due to COVID (we stayed there from the end of June to the beginning of August 2021), but there were a lot of to-go options including hot breakfast sandwiches and burritos.
There was also a tea and coffee station that was available 24/7.
Even though Shae and I are fully vaccinated, we’ve still been trying to avoid dining indoors. There was a large breakfast area in the lobby though if we did want to eat there.
Amenities
The Element Denver Park Meadows has a guest laundry room with several washing machines and dryers. These cost $2 per load which was a reasonable cost.
The hotel’s detergent vending machine was broken while we were there, but there was a sign advising you could get it at the front desk. We have our own laundry detergent, so that wasn’t an issue for us.
There’s a good-sized fitness room with several pieces of equipment and weights.
I appreciated the fact that the thermostat could be controlled by guests as I like to work out in cooler temperatures.
Opposite the fitness room was a (not particularly big) indoor swimming pool.
At the far end of the lobby there’s a business center with a computer and printer for guests to use.
Also in the lobby was a large, comfortable seating area.
There’s also plenty of seating outside in their courtyard, along with a grill and a fire pit.
Just behind the front desk there’s a pantry area with snacks, drinks, microwaveable meals, etc.
If you want to visit somewhere nearby but which is a little bit too far to walk, the hotel has a bike you can borrow.
Evening Social
Element hotels normally have evening socials during the week where drinks and snacks are provided. This was suspended for much of 2020 and the first half of 2021 due to COVID, but this hotel started it back up again the last week of our stay. I didn’t take advantage of it though because every night they only seemed to offer cheese and crackers as the snack and I don’t like cheese.
Pet Policy
The Element Denver Park Meadows is a pet-friendly hotel. When we stayed in the summer of 2021, they were charging a pet fee of $50 per stay.
Their website has since been updated to state that it’s $50 for the first night and $25 per night thereafter. If that’s what they’re actually charging without any cap on the fee, that’s absurd and would mean we’d definitely never choose to stay there again unless it was only for a night or two. For our 38 night stay, our pet fee with that new fee structure would have been $975. There’s no way we’d pay almost $1,000 to have Truffles with us, so we’d have booked somewhere else instead.
On the slightly positive side, the front desk had a glass jar with dog treats in them. Truffles is a fairly fussy treat eater – she loves meaty treats, but doesn’t like Milk Bones and other biscuity dog treats. Whatever treats they had were like puppy crack because she wanted one every time we walked past the front desk.
The hotel has a few spots around the property for your dog to go to the bathroom.
Something I loved about our stay there was that the Lone Tree area was a great place to walk Truffles. There are a lot of apartments nearby and it seemed like a lot of residents there have dogs, so Truffles got a ton of sniffs whenever we went out for a walk. The area was well lit at night and so I always felt safe walking her in the evening. The only downside is that there were sprinklers that ran at night time; a lot of them weren’t configured correctly, so they’d often spray the sidewalk instead of the grass, so it was sometimes an adventure trying to stay dry!
Service
Service at the hotel really was a mixed bag. Some staff members were very friendly and helpful, others tried to be helpful but weren’t necessarily very competent, while one staff member wasn’t particularly friendly or helpful most of the time.
For example, the day we arrived I took Truffles out to go to the bathroom and we were running back in from the rain when I noticed a couple of plastic bags by someone’s car on the other side of the lot. I was worried someone had forgotten their stuff and that it’d get wet, so I mentioned it to the not-particularly-friendly staff member. Her reply was “If you go and get them, I’ll put them behind the desk”. Apparently I had to get them or she’d just leave their stuff out there to get wet and/or stolen. I therefore went back out in the rain to get them; it didn’t end up being an issue because it turned out to be two bags of trash someone had left by their car, but the staff member’s lack of interest was poor.
That was by far from being the only service issue. There were guests who’d play cornhole in the courtyard until after 11pm. That meant there was constant thumping echoing around the courtyard (and therefore could be heard in our bedroom) at night, so Shae went down to the front desk to ask if there were quiet hours. We were advised that the hotel didn’t have quiet hours, so cornhole continued until the other guests decided to stop playing. It wasn’t only cornhole though – there were other guests who’d sit out in the courtyard talking and laughing very loudly at night. Rather than having quiet hours, Shae was told we should choose a different room type in the future which didn’t look out on the courtyard – like we had a choice or knowledge about that when checking in. When discussing this with the manager afterwards, Shae was advised by Jesse that the hotel did indeed have quiet hours and he ensured the cornhole players stopped by 10pm in the future.
When letting the front desk know that we couldn’t call down to the front desk because there was no phone in our room, we were told to just use our cell phones.
Another night there was a strong smell of pot that wafted into our room. While we weren’t worried about the legalities of that because it’s legal in Colorado, we didn’t want the smell in our room and it meant someone was smoking in their room when the Element Denver Park Meadows is a no-smoking property. When reporting it to the front desk that evening, Shae was told that she’d need to tell the manager in the morning – the person working that evening didn’t seem to want to deal with it. The manager agreed the next morning that had been an unacceptable response; it also turns out that they did discover evidence of the person smoking in their room and so they were charged a $250 fee.
We declined housekeeping most of our stay as we didn’t need our suite cleaned. We knew we’d be out of our room for most of the day one time though, so we asked for housekeeping to clean our room. Before heading out for the day, we stopped by the front desk to verify that housekeeping would come and we were assured they would. As you can probably guess, they didn’t come.
A few days later we arranged for housekeeping to clean our room and they did come this time, except they did a half-assed job. They made the bed (and hopefully changed the sheets?!), changed the towels and cleaned the toilet. However, they didn’t sweep the floor, didn’t refill the shampoo or body wash bottles that were empty, didn’t wipe down any surfaces in the kitchen and didn’t run the dishwasher or even leave any dishwasher tablets so that we could do that ourselves. I think that was the only time we asked for housekeeping during our 38 night stay, so the fact that they didn’t even do what I’d class as the bare minimum was disappointing.
Mail was another issue. We had a few pieces of mail sent to the hotel as we were staying for so long. A couple of items were sent by trackable mail and so we could check when it had been delivered. Despite knowing for sure that our mail had been delivered, a couple of times we were assured that the packages hadn’t arrived. This was concerning because some packages contained new credit cards and other important documents. We eventually got our packages a few days later, but it was worrying not knowing if we’d ever get our mail from the hotel even though it had definitely been delivered. I’d therefore be cautious about getting any mail sent there in the future.
On the positive service side, the manager was very nice and seemed to be trying to resolve service issues. The guys who worked in the evening were very welcoming whenever we got back from our nighttime walk and Truffles always wanted to say hi to them.
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi is free for all guests and always seemed to have a good connection and speed.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
Check-in at the Element Denver Park Meadows is at 3pm, while check-out is at 12pm.
Location
If you’re not worried about staying in downtown Denver, the Element Denver Park Meadows is in a great location. It’s in Lone Tree which is a suburb of Denver and is only a mile’s walk to Lincoln Station if you want to get around on Denver’s RTD metro system.
There are several restaurants within walking distance and it’s only a short drive to all kinds of grocery stores, large retailers, etc.
Parking
The hotel offers free parking and there were plenty of spaces all around the property. If you have an electric vehicle, they had four charging stations at the back of the hotel.
Cost
With us staying for more than a month, we were able to take advantage of being eligible for a long-term stay rate. That was $84.15 per night before tax and $95.01 with tax. Due to the fact that we were staying more than 30 nights, the taxes were removed and so we only had to pay $84.15 per night. Ignoring the service issues at the hotel, that was a fantastic rate for a one bedroom suite with a full kitchen and breakfast included in the Denver area. n.b. If you book a 31+ night stay, you have to actively ask the hotel to remove the taxes – I don’t think it’s done automatically.
Before making our reservation, I clicked through to Marriott’s website from the TopCashback shopping portal. That earned us $159.88 cashback for our stay which meant our net cost was $79.94 per night.
Points Earned
We earned 19,184 Marriott Bonvoy points for the stay which wasn’t much for a 38 night stay. However, that’s because Marriott only awards five points per dollar for stays at Element properties.
We paid for the stay with a Marriott credit card that earns six points per dollar for stays at Marriott brands, so that earned us an additional 19,186 points.
Final Thoughts
It’s been interesting writing this review because I’m writing it almost two months after our stay. When I started writing it, I thought that it might end up being more positive, but as I remembered the plethora of issues we had, it started to wind me up thinking about them all! Although we didn’t really have any major issues during our stay, there were many niggling things that made it a less impressive stay than we’d hoped for.
If we’d only stayed at the Element Denver Park Meadows for a couple of nights, it might not have seemed too bad. However, having 38 days of some of these issues left an impression that wasn’t as positive. I certainly wouldn’t recommend against staying there because it really wasn’t terrible, but I also wouldn’t choose to book another month-long stay there despite loving the neighborhood.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives the Element Denver Park Meadows four paws out of four – pawfect! Although Shae and I weren’t huge fans of the hotel, Truffles seemed to love it there. The treats at the front desk were apparently delicious and the neighborhood was great for taking longer walks.
However, if the hotel is indeed charging $50 for the first night and $25 for each subsequent night, Truffles would give them the middle toe. Or middles toes seeing as she only has four of them on each paw.
Our Rating
Room = 3.9 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.6 / 5
Food = 4.3 / 5
Location = 4.7 / 5
Service = 2.5 / 5
Overall Value = 4.4 / 5
Total = 4.07 / 5
Address
Element Denver Park Meadows, 9985 Park Meadows Dr, Lone Tree, CO 80124
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