Lady Luck Casino Black Hawk

The bathroom had gray, yellow, and pink mold, gaps between the tiles, and a strange smell. The room was way too hot. Someone had left the heat on, and the AC didn’t work when I switched it on. I was going to sweat all night. It was a free room, and I can see why. It wasn’t very good. Jillian or Jullious at the front desk was great, though I’m sorry I forgot his name. The chubby white lady in her 50s with blonde hair was really rude to him, not to me. When he asked for help, she treated him like he was stupid. I almost spoke up but bit my tongue, like he did. I would’ve been fired right away if I’d talked to a coworker that way. She was passive-aggressive and had no business treating her coworkers with so little respect.

The maintenance employee seemed knowledgeable, concerned, and willing to help. Management’s response, though, showed little competence or concern for customer satisfaction. This experience was deeply disappointing. I believe the hotel’s negligent practices pose a health risk, its online information is misleading, and it doesn’t adequately address problems. Late in the evening, the room was uncomfortably warm despite the window being open all night and the outside temperature being 27F. I have MS and need to avoid overheating, so I called the front desk to ask for help. They said the room cooling system was turned off for winter because the hotel is old. I asked for a fan, since the website advertised a ceiling fan that wasn’t in the room, but they had none. I asked what else could be done, and they said someone from engineering could take a look in about 30 minutes. The maintenance employee found the room was 83F, which she said wasn’t normal. She explained that the cooling system in this building wasn’t actually shut down, but many employees didn’t know that. She opened the HVAC panel and found the unit caked in dust, with a furnace filter dated 6/14/24. She said the dirt had clogged the system. After removing the filter and fiddling with it, she got cool air from the vent, but said it still wasn’t fully working and would look for a fan. She came back later without one and said she’d asked their other property to bring one over if it could be found. The room had cooled slightly. She offered to disconnect the heating element, warning we wouldn’t be able to use heat if the room got too cold. After she disconnected it, she suggested we request a different room if it didn’t cool enough. She left the HVAC unit’s door loosely covered so we wouldn’t breathe in too much of the dust inside. Eventually the room cooled, but the whole problem left us with little time to sleep. I called the front desk and asked for a late checkout. They said we could stay until 11:30 without a fee, but would have to pay to stay later. They said I could talk to a manager between 9 and 10 a.m. In the morning, assistant manager Neil made strange excuses. He repeated that the cooling element needed to be shut off in winter, even though it worked after the dirty filter and door were removed. He said we’d booked through a third-party app, so the AC situation wasn’t posted there, but it wasn’t on the hotel’s own website either. When I pointed out that the heat had been stuck on and the HVAC unit was caked in dirt, he said maybe it was protocol to service it only every six months or annually. I told him the filter hadn’t been changed for 1.5 years. He returned to the claim that cooling had to be shut off in winter. When I said the employee had told us otherwise, he said she was wrong, then ignored me when I said she had got the cooling to work. He again blamed the building’s age and said he’d comp us if the problem wasn’t due to the building setup. When I explained it was clearly a maintenance issue, he said that since it was at least partly due to the setup, he could comp a noon checkout instead of 11:30. He said no manager was on duty when I asked, then told me all rooms would have fans by April. That didn’t address the main issue or make up for the experience. The attached pictures show the HVAC system left open all night without a filter. I’ve inspected hotel HVAC systems for quality assessment work, and this isn’t normal or acceptable, nor was the way the hotel handled it.

I waited more than an hour in line for breakfast, and when I was almost seated they told me they weren’t taking any more tables. At 9 p.m. that night, after waiting in line for a similar amount of time, they turned us away again, saying they’d be closing shortly. The restaurants at the resort were even worse. Getting a drink was no better. Servers ignored me and took at least 30 minutes to take my order. I watched one offer refills to other customers and serve people who came in after me. They also don’t offer tap to pay or wire transfers. I never leave bad reviews, but this was the worst customer service and worst experience of my life.

The rooms seemed relatively clean, but that was the only good part of this one-and-done stay. The walls are paper thin, so you can hear your neighbors’ every word at any hour. We were there in the middle of November, and the rooms were insanely hot. I couldn’t sleep at all, and neither could my dogs. They panted and whined all night while we tried to keep them cool. You can’t set the temperature, just choose “hot/cold” and turn the fan “on/off.” The fan barely moves any air. The window only opens four inches, and the side-to-side curtains block the cool air unless you sleep with bright lights shining into the room. There’s no restaurant on site, and the check-in location feels like an afterthought, miles from both Lady Luck and Horseshoe. Although the hotel allows pets, there’s no grass or earth anywhere nearby to take a dog out. All the rooms seemed to allow pets, so people with allergies should know that. Staff were nowhere to be found for most of our stay, so we couldn’t even raise our complaints.