Charles S.
Yelp
I must say, thanks to Sarah. An older review but was so well written, and I hope I remembered her name correctly.
I was the "operations manager/maintenance do-it-all," for a very nice B & B in Curtis Park in Denver, for about 5 years. One pic from Sarah says it all --the top of that heater mounted at the bottom of the wall. If you won't replace something that obvious and disgusting, probably about $45 dollars new, you sure as hell ain't gonna chase down mice/critter access points, mis-fit doors, parking lot access, heat/plumbing problems, etc. Just a quick thought -- every one of those cabins needs a ceiling fan just to spread the heat around. And window screens. But wait, then they're not "rustic" anymore. Depends how you define rustic I suppose.
This is a picture proof positive of: "somebody else can, and should, and promised, and never even scheduled it, and so here we are." Can you imagine what a black light inside those cabins would show? Don't think about it, you will wreck your dreams tonight.
Dealing with the public nowadays (we quit 12 years ago) is a pain in the ass, because you have to allow so many more people in to make any $ at all. More people =more goofballs=more substance abusers=more nitwits.
Alas, the "Great people"/"A-hole" per guest ratio keeps trending in a definite negative direction, and has for the last 10 years. Or more. Plus now, the regular old-time A-hole (dog shit on the lawn, piss in the pools, noisy music, let's see what isn't nailed down since this place is so damn expensive) is now even a bigger A-hole. Blame whomever, you know it's true. So kinda keeping the place up without losing the battle equals spending more and more money. Which sometimes you have to borrow, as we did.
I very much doubt you will find a quiet solitary peaceful moment in those pools, particularly on the weekends. I take that back, maybe in the winter when it's 25 below.
And no daily dog turd collection? On the entire grounds? Take one staff member all of 20 minutes. Once you catch up that is. And doing that might take 3 hours. And don't even think of supplying dog do bags unless guests ask. Provide dispensers with bags and young generation A-hole will clean it out 3 or 4 times a week guaranteed. Oldsters too actually. And all other generations now that I think about it.
Our B and B got away without experiencing the majority of the above abuse because we had 8 high priced, stunning rooms including a restored 150 year old carriage house, high thread count, British carpeting, coffered ceilings, Ralph Lauren paints, etc. with no pets allowed. Or kids. Or pool. Or hot tub except for 3 months. Whence we recycled the leaky POS, never to return.
8 rooms, profit wise, wasn't enough in the end. Nation wide recessions were a monster, but still gotta keep the lights on and the place warmed up. Turn off the heat and it would take 2 days for the interior to really warm up. We had one month with 6 guests total. And we also messed up by having a real genuine chef come in to make custom breakfasts for the guests. All of those chefs, had, um...light fingers if I might state it delicately. Without exception. Poor maid thought her work was lousy, since she never "received" a tip. And the waste and disappearance of food? Damn. Let no friend of the chef ever suffer a single pang of hunger!
Add water to the mix? Impossible. Just making sure the water and surrounding pools are clean and healthy. With that volume of people in and out? Ain't happening, unless you got a large fairly well paid and supervised crew. Throw in kids with toys and balloons and other celebratory bullshit, maintenance time goes up. Quick.
Yet. If you truly deeply cared ...
You would quickly refund, or offer other decent stuff for weather related cancellations. If you will absolutely NOT, that means that your finances are shot. You have that constant heavy nut, which WILL NOT let you delay or offer refunds because of weather. You want to generate to quick nasty reviews? Can't think of a better way.
Oh, we tried the DVD thing also. Gave that stupid nice-ness up pronto: buying DVDs and watching them get stolen right and left. One guest took 60 movies "home" with them, claiming they would return them after they watched them. Fine. We charged their card $300. DVDs came back. Future policy: One DVD per night. Period. The end.
So. I "weave" a bit, yet it is all true. The heyday of Hot Springs was about 30 years ago. Glenwood Springs? Yikes, just to be one among a thousand ...
Iron Springs? Ehhh ... Strawberry Springs? I hiked up there with a buddy of mine back in the 60's, and there was nobody there. My friend owned a rundown mining type crapcan 100 year old house in downtown Aspen. Da good old days.
Think New Mexico has some mostly unpopulated Hot Springs. A beautiful place, it's too bad it's not one of the United States of Merica.
As I said, a truthful weave.