HotelChatter

ENTRANCE AND LOBBY
The front entrance area has a small parking area and tight driveway. There are time-share buildings going up on either side of the Westin as well.

The main seating area of the lobby has beautiful views that look toward Beaver Creek Mountain. Opposite the front desk, there is a sort of "great room" with a TV and a fireplace. Two frat boys were sitting around drinking beer and watching college football when we were there. We thought this area was a little small for this size of the hotel.

POOL AREA
There was a pretty nice pool area with salt water pools, presumably because this is a "green" hotel. You can't see them in the photo, but there are three hot tubs (big) at the back end of the pool, behind the umbrellas. They are sunken a few feet below the pool deck, and are above the Eagle River which is behind and 2 stories below (visible from the upper guest rooms). This area is very nice, but it will be open year-round so it will be cold in the winter, despite the heated pool deck to melt the snow. And the hot tubs will be a long "run" from the doors!

AVONDALE RESTAURANT
The Avondale restaurant is run by the guy who developed Larkspur and Larkburger, which should be familiar to Vail Valley locals or frequent visitors. In fact, they sell the excellent signature "Larkburgers" here...at twice the price of the actual Larksburger restaurant up the road. The restaurant also uses these tres cool disposable fountain pens for writing comment cards -- we took ours home.

ROOMS
We went to the front desk and they had a rather humorless and unsmiling staffer show us the "show rooms" of the day, which they are trying to sell to prospective renters who will let the hotel put the units into the rental pool. That's one reason why the units are so big and why there is such a large number of suites.

Most of the rooms are called "Studios". That's because even though they are only a little larger than normal, they have a few cool extras (note: they were just placing the artwork in the rooms when we toured; they hadn't been put on the walls yet). Some cool extras: 32" flat screens (and yes, they are HD), gas fireplaces, coffee makers, a 2-burner glass top hot plate, a real tea kettle, a toaster and glasses, dishes, etc. to prepare snacks. Very unique (for a resort Westin) and very useful.

SKI CONVENIENCE
The rooms all have huge closets for ski-wear and clothes. Just behind the closet is a wide, padded bench for putting on ski boots, and there are very large coat hooks for hanging up ski jackets (which, if wet, will drip all over the upholstered bench!)

There is a ski valet who will store skis and boots for you (preferred). It's just outside the hotel's semi-private gondola, which will whisk you up to the Beaver Creek lift ticket windows in 2 minutes. Then, one more lift will take you to the runs of Bachelor Gulch, or you can change there to get to the Strawberry Park area of Beaver Creek. Guests here never need to go to Beaver Creek Village and can bypass all of the lines!

A suite. Pssst: check out that anti-view...

ANJALI SPA
Finally, we visited the Anjali Spa. Very, very cool -- and it comes with a salon, many treatment rooms, and an enormous, luxurious workout room with killer views and unbelievable equipment (and lot of it). However, the whole spa does not have a steam room or a sauna. Apparently, it was left out and management is now talking about adding it to a large unfinished area which is adjacent to the spa within the next year.

Thanks, Mark! Make sure to check out the HotelChatter Flickr pool for tons more of his Westin Riverfront pics.