After reading the horrible review, I was a little worried about this hotel, but was heartened by the other very positive experiences that the other past travelers had at the Ritz, and hoped my stay would be as good as theirs. I have to say, my stay exceeded all expectations.

Upon arrival, due to the corporate rate my firm had paid, I was upgraded to the Club level. Because I was in town for a series of meetings that were all going to be held at the Ritz, this was a god-send. I never left the premises! Ate breakfast in the Club twice, lunch once, and did evening cocktails with a colleague who was also upgraded. It was fantastic, and I must recognize Darcy who was there both evenings and who could not have provided better service. One night, I even had my dinner delivered to the lounge on her excellent suggestion that I might be more comfortable eating there than from a tray in the room.

And oh, what a room. The bed was heavenly (move over Westin) and the bathroom sublime. The only thing I don't care for at Ritz Carlton are the bathroom amenties -- a little over scented for me.

The meeting space there is second-to-none, and all the food service was wonderful. I had nothing but excellent service from the front desk, to bellman, to concierge.

This may have been one of my top hotel stays of all time.

This hotel was wonderful! I stayed at the Ritz-Carlton in San Juan, Puerto Rico but this one was top notch.

The people were very friendly and helpful. The room super clean and beautiful.

The room service menu came right from John Elway's restaurant and the food was wonderful!

I would definitely stay here again whenever I'm visiting Denver.

Really wanted this to be good and they insisted it be bad...

I was so looking forward to staying at this hotel. I have stayed in nice hotels around the world, but so far never at a Ritz. Being that it was newer and a 5 star hotel, I passed up on the excellent stay I had last year at the Hotel Monaco and booked the Ritz instead three months in advance of our trip. Since we would have four adults, I required 2 queen beds and hotels.com confirmed that room was available. A week before arrival I received a follow up confirmation from hotels.com for the 4 adults and beds.

Upon arrival, we were informed of the hotel's completely sold out status due to the convention. We arrived at the hotel around 11:30 am and even though they were checking in the few guests in front of us in line, we were told that no rooms were cleaned and we would have to wait to get a room until later. Not to worry, as soon as one became available I would receive a phone call on my cell phone. They confirmed the number twice. We went the entire day until 6:30pm with no phone call. At this point we need to get ready for a dinner, so we went back to the hotel. We were slightly concerned that we went all day with no phone call and no room, but upon arriving back at the hotel, we were told our room was now available. I jokingly asked for Club Level upgrade since we never got a call and had spent hours killing time waiting for the room but the front desk attendant quickly denied it. He did tell us we could pay $100 a day to get access to the club, but we would still not be on the club level due to the hotel being sold out. We declined.

A little bad goes to totally wrong...

Upon receiving our keys we proceeded to our room to find one single bed. Without even setting down our bags, we immediately carried all our luggage back down to the lobby and front desk. I politely informed Marco, the same front desk associate that gave us our keys, that a mistake had been made and we were given a king room instead of the 2 queens that we had been confirmed. He quickly snapped back that there were no other rooms available. He offered no solutions until I pressed him how could four adults be expected to stay in a king bed. He eventually offered a roll away bed as the only possible solution, but kindly he wouldn't charge us the normal $30 a night fee for it. Are you kidding me? I have slept on roll aways before, but I refuse to at a 5 star hotel with arguably the best beds in the industry. And to even comment that you wouldn't charge me for your hotel's mistake...

Needless to say I asked for a manager. Amazingly enough right in front of my eyes, Marco transformed from the night shift desk clerk into a manager. I pressed him to speak to someone else. I was then given Gary who told me the same story: No more rooms. I asked how I could be confirmed with two beds and be given only one. I asked if showing him my confirmation would help. He said yes. I proceeded to locate the email and show him. Then he said there was still nothing he could do. Was proof of the confirmation just to amuse him? At this point he blamed hotels.com. He said hotels.com sent a reservation for only one bed. I argued, seeing no reason why they would send me a confirmation showing two beds when they intended to book only one. We went round and round. Finally I asked if the room could be cancelled and we would move to Hotel Monaco on the next block which had a two bed room. Gary told me that was impossible, the whole town was sold out, but we could cancel if we got approval thru hotels.com.

We went to our room, which by the way was beautiful and immaculate. I confirmed limited availability at Monaco and proceeded to call hotels.com. I explained the situation and the representative confirmed that a 2 bed reservation had been sent to the hotel. They resent my confirmation to me. They then put me on hold and contacted the hotel directly. After several minutes, the representative came back on the line. He said that the hotel now agrees that they were sent a 2 bed reservation, but at this point they had no other rooms to switch us to. I asked if I could get permission from hotels.com to cancel the reservation, as stated by Gary at the Ritz. The representative then informed me that I could switch hotels, but the RITZ would not grant me a refund for this one!!! Gary was one of the people the hotels.com rep had spoken with while I was on hold. I was shocked. After all this and Gary telling me I needed permission from hotels.com to cancel, he was now the one not willing to allow a refund. After hearing this, I asked to speak to a supervisor. I then received excellent customer service from hotels.com and was told that if we needed to switch hotels, we would receive a full refund for the Ritz reservation, even if the Ritz refused to give any money back.

Once hotels.com agreed to take care of me, I went downstairs to the front desk of the Ritz and asked what I needed to do to check out because we would be changing hotels. Marco, the original front desk attendant, stated in a slightly smarmy tone that we had to do nothing because the room was officially ours for the whole reservation since the Ritz would not be refunding any money. This irked me even more and I again asked to speak to the manager, who was Gary. Gary came out and once again told us it was all hotels.com fault and therefore the Ritz was taking no responsibility. I asked him if the Ritz knew there were four people in this room, which they had already admitted they knew, why they would assign us a single king bed. I asked if this was normal policy of a 5 star hotel, four people in one bed, and suprisingly he responded "sometimes this does happen".

At this point I knew this was going nowhere and I told him they really needed to rethink their customer service policy. Gary then took it one step further and told me "to be honest, I hate dealing with hotels.com and expedia. They always cause problems." I told him I thought the problems lied within the hotel because the hotels.com rep had already confirmed with the Ritz that the Ritz had received a reservation for us for two beds, but gave the room to someone else. Gary's response and I quote: "They are lying." I asked Gary if hotels.com was lying then how was Marco able to see that a reservation for two beds existed in the system after someone from hotels.com confirmed it with him personally. Gary then had to eat his words. Marco then showed him in their own system that a reservation for TWO beds WAS RECEIVED BY THE RITZ. They knew it all along and refused to admit it. How does the hotel manager not even know how to correctly look up a reservation in his own system. Gary then suprisingly mentioned that they were already giving us a roll away bed at no charge, there was nothing else they could do. I asked him why he would refuse to cancel our reservation at no penalty to hotels.com if he now knew the problem existed on the end of the Ritz. He finally agreed to this option again.

We went back up to our room to gather our luggage. As this had been an ordeal spanning well over an hour, we were already late for our business dinner. As we waited for a car, we had a drink at the bar. Realizing I had forgotten something in our room, I quickly ran back up to the room. Marco quickly followed me to the elevators and asked if we had vacated the room. I told him that because the ordeal had taken an hour and a half before being resolved, we had no choice but to leave our bags and attend our meeting. He quickly informed me that since they had agreed to refund our money, we would have to take our bags with us to the business meeting, since they were going to try and resell the room for that night. I thought that they couldn't push us any farther than what they already had, but he continued to suprise. I immediately called the Hotel Monaco back. Unfortunately now in the two hours that had passed since receiving our keys to the wrong room at the Ritz and this point in time, that room had already been taken at the other hotel. I informed Marco we were stuck at his hotel.

The following morning I requested at the front desk to be called if a room with two beds became available. My phone number was again confirmed by a friendly woman. She told me I would be contacted by the reservations coordinator once they arrived. Another day, another day without a phone call from the Ritz. Now I know that probably very few people checked out on a Friday, but by Saturday we witnessed several groups of people checking out. I am certain that over the three nights we were there, a two bed room could have been located. Yet instead of ever receiving a phone call, we consistantly received apologies for things that should have happened that did not. Without a doubt this was the worst front desk service I have ever received. Even though I was furious, I never raised my voice and never spoke unprofessionally to any of the staff I dealt with. At one point I told Gary that I was a member of Tripadvisor and I would be happy to document this event. He asked if I was threatening him, I told him it was a promise. Well even if the Ritz can't fulfill the promises that they make, I can. Please enjoy the recounting of this awful customer service.

There were a few highlights. James at valet was always friendly and always remembered us, asking hour our dinners were from the night before. James also coordinates the Rolls Royce that the hotel provides and he does a wonderful job. The driver, whom I can't remember his name, was also great as were the bellmen. There were some excellent staff, they just weren't at the front desk on our trip.

Another tremendous stay at the Denver Ritz. We originally tried a new place in Denver (the Inverness) as we hadn't stayed there, but called the Ritz even before they had delivered our bags. We quickly moved our weekend getaway to the Ritz. We were just there a month ago by ourselves, but this time we had our two daughters for a "back to school" shopping/leisure weekend. We stayed club level again and it did not disappoint. I love everything about this hotel. The staff is first rate. The club gals (Jessica, Darcie, Karen) are incredible. Kind, thoughtful and professional. An example? One evening during apps, my daughter asked if they had just carrots versus the vegetable variety in the cups that were offered. Without asking, Darcie went downstairs to the kitchen to sort out carrots and a helping of ranch dressing to deliver to our daughter. Amazing. On our day of departure, Karen heard our daughter was celebrating a birthday in a matter of days - she delivered a small gift with a personalized card to our daughter. Jessica would deliver a napkin or a refill even before you asked.....this is the description of service. Everyone from valet, housekeeping, front desk to room service...impeccable. We've stayed in many places in the Denver area and unfortunately nothing compares to the Ritz. I've gone two months in a row, perhaps I can make it a monthly ritual! In a nutshell, don't hesitate to book the Ritz Denver!