Denver Area Hotel-- Please Help!
 

We are planning a seven day trip to Colorado for August, and I have narrowed my hotel selections down to three (based on air, hotel, car packages at expedia.com).

1.Best Western Denver Central
200 W 48th Ave
Denver, CO 80216
(actually most expensive of the three)

2. Cherry Creek Hotel
1475 S Colorado Blvd
Denver, CO 80222

3. Doubletree Denver Southeast
13696 E Iliff Pl
Aurora, CO 80014
(cheapest package of the three)

The Doubletree seems to be the best offer, since its more than $100 less than #2. Doesn't offer breakfast though...

Is Aurora too out of the way? We will have the rental car so will be visiting Denver, Boulder, Estes Park, Colorado Springs.

Selecting a hotel is always the most nerve-wracking part of trip planning to me! Who knows what you are going to get??

Thank you!

What's your hotel budget per night? Honestly, I'm not sure any of these locations are ideal to experience Colorado. Plus you'd be better off staying in a couple different hotels with what you have planned.

Are you opposed to booking your air, hotel and car separately? If not, maybe we could offer you some hotel alternatives.

Lamchop,

I'm with yale. Only one of these hotels is decent (The Doubletree) and none of them are in locations conducive to seeing anything.

If you absolutely must pick one of these I'd choose The Doubletree. At least it's right off of I-225 which will give you access to I-25 and therefore Denver and Colo Springs. Denver would still take you 30 minutes to reach, however, and it would be approx. 1 & 1/2 hours to The Springs.

There is NOTHING worth seeing near the hotel though.

AL ((d))

I agree with the above posters. The location of the Best Western is undesirable to say the least, the Cherry Creek Hotel is centrally located, but on a major thoroughfare full of strip malls and construction, and the Doubletree is really in the middle of nowhere.
What are your sightseeing plans? You would enjoy Estes Park much more if you spend at least a few nights there. It is a 2-3 hour drive from Denver, which doesn't give you a lot of time to explore RMNP. Depending on what you want to see in Colorado Springs, a night or two there is also advisable.
Sorry for not being able to offer a postive thought on any of your selections, but hopefully we can offer you some alternatives.

Also agree with previous posters that none of your three picks are in great locations. If I were you, I'd go to the Embassy Suites downtown for a good price place with breakfast buffet and evening cocktail hour included. Don't get locked into buying a package if it's not what you want. It's not worth the small price savings to be in the wrong location IMHO.

Then spend a couple of nights in the mountains, too. With the price of gas, you won't want to be driving all day everyday (not to mention polluting the air). And August will be hot in Denver, and gorgeous in the mountains.

Agree--don't buy a package. Get your individual "needs" by different methods.For your car rental look on Hotwire for a car--and even a hotel.Then you can sort of total it all up. I regularly rent cars in Denver and usually save 50% over Expedia through Hotwire or Priceline. You could bid on a 3 or4* downtown hotel and get a nice central place to stay for perhaps a good deal.
IF you want to choose a hotel I might suggest that you stay at the Denver Tech Center. Before all the Denver folk jump on me, the hotels there are new, cater to business (can get a suite), are very reasonable, and getting to downtown can be done in maybe 20 minutes. If you are doing some of your other places as day trips, you can do it pretty easily from that area.

Lamchop,

Gretchen raises some good points about the Denver Tech Center. The hotels are pretty new and have good access to I-25 and, therefore, both Colorado Springs (one hour) and Denver. My concern is that while it's possible to get downtown in 20 minutes, that time could easily triple (or more) during peak times--or if there's an accident.

MaureenB's suggestion of the Embassy Suites is also a good one and got me thinking. There's a place just a few blocks east of downtown called the Burnsley Hotel and Suites. The Burnsley is a neat old hotel (recently rennovated) whose suites include full kitchens, living rooms, separate bedrooms and huge private decks. Many of the rooms and decks offer breathtaking views of Denver and The Front Range.

Two other great features the Burnsley offers are free parking (which will run you $20-$25 downtown) and free shuttle service to and from downtown Denver (five minutes away) if you wish to leave your car at the hotel.

While I don't know what the price of the rooms is currently, we have stayed here for as little as $89 and as much as $159. It's really a great place to stay and still be extremely close to downtown and the action.

Check it out at: http://www.burnsley.com/

AL ((d))

There is also a Comfort Inn right downtown acrossfrom the Molly Brown. Might be reasonable. Parking is extra so it needs to be factored in to the total.

As a follow-up to Gretchen's Denver Tech Center recommendation, the Hyatt DTC usually has great weekend rates around $89.

If you bid on Hotwire it may be even less. Our kids live near there and one time I thought we wouldn't be able to stay with them. I got a rate of less than $50/night.

Thanks everyone for your reply. Soon after I first posted we purchased the package that included airfare, Alamo rental car and 6 days at Aurora Doubletree for $850.

More questions to follow I'm sure.