Following extensive research through phone calls and online for our June family vacation to Colorado, we settled on staying two nights in a "luxury" cabin in Estes Park.
Having four young children (ages 5,7, 9 and 12) means that sleeping arrangements are important for our family when on vacation. That was part of the appeal of a cabin instead of a hotel room.
This particular cabin was advertised as a luxury cabin and the pictures on the website absolutely made it appear to be so as did the description given on the website and the rate charged per night. So I called, made the reservations and gave my credit card number to hold the cabin.
When we got there, it did indeed seem to be a lovely cabin. The furnishings were nice and it was handy to Estes Park. I was a little put out by the musty smell, but assumed once the air conditioning kicked it would eliminate that problem.
Upon further inspection, however, we discovered that the thermostat on the wall was only meant to control the furnace as there was no air conditioning in this "luxury" cabin. The temperatures the week of our visit were in the 90's. That was our first unpleasant surprise. We have air conditioning in our home and our camper. Why would we not expect air conditioning when we were paying for a "luxury" cabin?
To continue, the attendant at the office of the facility had indicated to us that most people enter the cabin via the garage so that is what we did upon our arrival to the cabin. Our very first observation was that the garage was too small to park the truck in so we parked on the drive way. When entering the cabin from the garage one walks into what I initially considered a mudroom that had about six or seven steps that led up to the kitchen and the rest of the cabin. This mudroom consisted of a futon loveseat and some shelves with some books. It was the only "room" of the cabin not shown in the pictures on the website which even included an exterior shot.
After going into Estes to souvenir shop and have dinner we headed back to the cabin. After checking the outside of the cabin for signs of an air conditioning unit and realizing there wasn't one, we decided we'd have to live with it and get everyone to bed. It was getting late. That is when we "discovered" the next unpleasant surprise.
I began pulling cushions off the sofa and loveseat in the living room (the room with the fireplace, sofa, loveseat, TV and big picture windows) to locate the "pull-out queen in living room". To my disgust, the only thing I found was a half eaten cookie. I was confused for a while before I finally realized the "pull-out queen" was supposed to be the futon in the mudroom which, by the way, I highly doubt is a queen.
I was very upset. There was no way I was going to let my children sleep in a strange place in a mudroom down off the garage where I couldn't even hear them if they needed me. The website had indicated this bed would be in the living room. Upon further reflection, I'm not even sure this mudroom hadn't at once been part of the garage as the common wall between the mudroom and garage had new drywall on the garage side that had never even been texturized or painted.
We left and stayed in a hotel the next two nights. And while they didn't charge us for the two nights stay at the cabin, they did refuse to give us a refund of our deposit. It is my contention that that deposit was made based on lies and misrepresentations and should therefore have been refunded.
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