For our second night in Denver, I chose to stay at the Element Denver Downtown East. We had an expiring Marriott free night certificate, and this was one of the few places it could be used.
Element Denver Booking
As mentioned, we booked this hotel using a 35k free night certificate. Although this hotel is only a Category 4 property, all Marriott hotels in Denver were at peak pricing, so there weren’t many options. We still got a pretty good value, considering cash rates were $283/night for a base room pre-tax.
Element Denver Location
Contradictory to it’s name, the Element Denver Downtown East is located slightly to the southwest of downtown. While not perfectly located, it only took us about 7 minutes to reach 16th Street Mall – it takes 13 according to Google Maps, but we’re fast walkers.
It’s right in the middle of several government buildings, meaning it’s a short walk to Civic Center Park and the State Capitol. There’s also multiple good restaurants nearby.
Element Denver Check-In
This is where the problems started. We arrived at the hotel around 1:05 – earlier than guaranteed check-in time, but with Titanium status, should have been just fine. Apparently not.
We spoke to a friendly lady who apologetically said that they were running a bit behind, but that a room should be ready in 30 minutes. That was totally fine, because you can’t expect the room to be ready before regular check-in time. So we went out for a quick lunch, and returned about 1 hour later.
We then spoke to 2 new people, who said that unfortunately the hotel is running behind today, and that they didn’t know when the room would be ready but that 3pm was guaranteed check-in time. We decided to wait in the lobby, as they said they’d notify us as soon as our room was available.
At 3pm, there was nothing. So my dad went to ask why the room wasn’t available. They said the same thing: “I’m sorry sir, I know it’s super frustrating, but your room’s not ready yet. Maybe in the next half hour.”
We went out to walk again, and when we returned at 4:06pm, our room was finally available. They did apologize, but offered no compensation to make up for it. This was extremely frustrating, as we only had one full day in Denver, and we lost over 2 hours of it to this mess. It would have been much easier if they had said from the start “We’re running behind today, so we don’t expect to have your room ready until 4pm.” That would have saved us all the wasted time, and made it a lot less stressful.
The Resolution
As for the resolution, we reached out to Marriott with a complaint the day of, and they responded two days later saying that they’ve forwarded the complaint to the hotel and to allow 5 days. I wasn’t expecting much at all. Imagine my surprise when the next day, we received the following email (abbreviated):
Good morning,
After reviewing your feedback, we would like to apologize for your negative experience. You have been awarded with XX,000 Marriott rewards points for this terrible experience.
Our Strongest Apologies,
Staff of Element Downtown Denver East
This was a generous apology, and we ended up essentially having a free stay.
Element Denver 2 Queen Room
We were assigned room 740, a 2 Queen Studio on the highest floor, but didn’t receive any upgrade as Element properties do not honour elite benefits. The room was nice enough overall, and more upscale than expected, however it felt smaller than what was stated on the website and had a few quirks.
Here is the room as pictured from the entrance – you can get a sense of the general layout.
While the beds are the focal point in most hotel rooms, that wasn’t the case here. They were rather bland and simply appeared to be shoved in the corner where there was space. In fact, despite the hotel feeling somewhat upscale as a whole, if you look only at the beds, it could almost pass as a motel.
After coming from the Hilton which had great pillows, I was severely disappointed by the ones here. They practically collapsed under me when I placed my head on them – and I’m very light. However, by piling them all on top of each other, I managed to sleep well. Or maybe it was just the 14 miles I had walked earlier in the day.
I liked the arrangement of the artwork in the room – a more creative variation of the standard “slap a random picture on the wall” that hotels use to add some decor to their rooms.
The bedside table appeared very small and bare, with nothing but a thin alarm clock placed on top.
By the window was a couch with a table and the TV. The placement of furniture seemed to be an afterthought here. The couch was blocking the window and made it difficult to roll down the blinds, although surprisingly the table was at a usable height.
I must mention that I had been worried about the location of the hotel. However, the views out the window were quite decent for Denver – way better than expected for sure.
Also in a seemingly random place was the desk. As this is an extended stay property, it doubles as a dining table.
Despite looking horribly uncomfortable, the chairs were not that bad.
Along one wall was the kitchen. It consisted everything you would need to function over a longer stay, including a dishwasher, stove, microwave, fridge and freezer, various pots and pans, and utensils. There were several empty cupboards for storing any pantry items.
On one side of the entryway was the closet, containing the basic amenities such as hangers and an iron (and, unfortunately, a bible). *Disclaimer: I’m not discriminating against religion – I will explain my reasoning behind disliking the placement of Bibles in hotel rooms in a later post.
Element Denver 2 Queen Room Bathroom
The bathroom was to the other side of the entryway. It was airy and spacious, though I wish they would have dedicated more space to the room and removed some from here.
Whoever designed the shower is much smarter than most hotel designers, because you could actually adjust the temperature without getting wet.
Bathroom amenities were from 2 different brands, Aveda and Pharmacopia. These seemed nicer than you’d usually find at a hotel of this caliber, but then again, I don’t know much about toiletries. Though I will note that the shampoo was in shared-use bottles. Not my favourite during the pandemic.
Also, these adjustable hooks in the bathroom were great – more than one person can hang their towel! That’s such a rarity.
Element Denver 2 Queen Room Problems
As a whole the room felt modern and (relatively) upscale, although as I said, there were some issues.
For one, on the website the room was stated to be 380 square feet. It didn’t feel nearly that large, with all the furniture crammed together. Additionally, there was nowhere to put our luggage. If you were here for an extended period of time, there was plenty of closet space to unpack, but for us, since this was a quick one night stay, we just wanted somewhere to place our suitcases. That didn’t exist. We ended up piling them onto the couch.
Another problem was the safe. We tried to open it several times before realizing it was jammed.
Most concerning was the window that didn’t close. My dad noticed it when adjusting the blinds before we left for dinner, and we mentioned it to the staff at the front desk. Thankfully, they were able to fix it.
That wasn’t the end of our window problems, though. Despite the heavy curtains, this is what it looked like in our room at 7:30am with no lights on.
There were a couple other issues – the lock on the bathroom door not working, the inability to push in all 3 desk chairs at once, parts of the room that were not cleaned, and the wear and tear that shouldn’t be showing at a hotel that’s less than two years old.
Element Denver Property and Public Areas
For a limited service hotel, the property was remarkably expansive.
On the 7th (highest) floor, there was a patio overlooking the nearby buildings and the mountains. Unfortunately, it was closed “due to the pandemic” when I stayed at this hotel in October 2021.
Other than that, the remaining amenities were located on the ground floor.
A majority of the lobby was a wide open space filled with various seating. It’s designed in a way that made it feel warm and cozy, but upscale at the same time.
Behind the check-in desk was a partially closed-off room filled with chairs and couches. It didn’t appear to have any specific purpose, so we used it to relax while waiting for our room to be ready.
Out a nearby door was the patio, which consisted of a fireplace, some chairs, a barbecue, and a life sized game of Connect 4, presumably for kids to play with. It was lacking in views, but would be a nice place to work from or just hang out for a while.
Back inside the hotel was a not-so-great fitness center. And it smelled beyond disgusting. As in, probably one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever smelled – which is saying a lot.
There was also a laundry room that smelled about 10x worse than the gym. If that was even possible. I’m not sure where the smell came from, but I sure hope it was a one time thing.
The business center was located in a small room attached to the lobby, and was nothing too exciting.
On the positive side of things, the hotel was tastefully decorated, and everywhere felt very spacious and bright without being too overpowering. I truly loved the decor here.
I was a huge fan of the lighting in the hallways – isn’t this just so pretty?
Element Denver Dining
The Element doesn’t have a restaurant as such, though there is a bar open from 4-10pm. It wasn’t entirely popular, but I did see a few people getting drinks.
Element Denver Breakfast
Breakfast (6-9am on weekdays, 7-10am on weekends) is included for all guests and is mainly buffet style with a few hot items. To be honest, it looked a lot better online than it did when we were there.
There were 2 grab and go stations set up in the middle, consisting of fruits and pastries. They weren’t particularly well stocked.
In addition to that there was coffee, juice, oatmeal, and yogurt.
Finally, there was a station where you could request hot items such as breakfast sandwiches, or bread and bagels to be toasted. According to another guest I spoke with, the selection changes depending on the day.
I had two pieces of toast, and tried one of their waffles. I would have also eaten a banana, except that we saw someone taking all 8.
Just a tip, don’t turn the dial on the toaster to 6. I manually released the toast before it automatically popped, and it still came out extremely burnt. I like my toast crisp, but not blackened. The apple jelly wasn’t terrible, at least.
Another tip – don’t get the waffle. It’s not a good idea. They might as well just serve you a cup of sugar.
My dad sampled the two breakfast sandwiches, which weren’t any better.
I had initially been impressed by the variety of choices, but this was Holiday Inn Express quality. The food was substantial enough that you won’t go hungry, but it’s not even close to the quality of a Fairfield Inn or SpringHill Suites breakfast.
Other Dining Options
Slightly higher quality food options can be found at the marketplace, a standard feature of limited service Marriott hotels.
And finally, there was a small table set up with coffee and tea packets in the lobby.
Element Denver Service
This is the Element Denver’s biggest downfall. The service here was hilariously bad, and these employees need some serious training.
First there was the whole check-in saga, which was completely unacceptable. The way they were handling it wasn’t ok either. I don’t care that the Element isn’t an luxury property, the employees still shouldn’t be scowling and red-faced. They also probably shouldn’t be screaming at a guest that the housekeeping left early and they can’t do anything about it.
That was only just the start. When we came down to get our broken window fixed, two employees practically got into a fight over whether someone had left a necessary tool behind or not. I feel as though a more professional way to approach this would be to apologize to the guest, and then let them know you could go up to the room and take a look at the problem.
Worst was when I walked by one employee who was on the phone (their personal one, not a hotel one) ranting about the “sh*t they have to do” working at this hotel and how “all the guests keep complaining about their darned keycards”. I don’t even want to know what the rest of the conversation was, but either way, that is a completely unprofessional thing to do with guests around.
I could see that the staff were clearly having a rough day, but this is no way to treat your guests.
Oh, and then the following morning, at 8:54am, housekeeping opened the door while my dad was taking a shower. They quickly realized someone was in the room and apologized, but it was before posted check-out time on a one night stay AND we had the do not disturb sign up. I’m not sure what it is with housekeeping and randomly opening people’s doors, but this has now happened to me in 3 out of my 15 most recent hotel stays. That’s 20%.
Final Thoughts
This was my first ever stay in an Element hotel, and I’m not sure what to think. On one hand, hotel felt more upscale than expected. But between the awful service, check-in fiasco, and unsatisfactory breakfast, I didn’t enjoy the stay. The Element Denver has great potential, but their employees need some training and the rooms need some updates. I wouldn’t have hesitations staying in another Element hotel if it was a good deal, but I certainly won’t be seeking them out either.
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