Lodging

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the brilliant Timbers Hotel, where my family typically stays before we board an early morning flight at Denver International Airport. While the Comfort Inn Airport is not nearly as classy as the Timbers, it’s a valid contender for an ideal place to rest your head overnight and park your car for the duration of your vacation.

Decent rooms at the Comfort Inn Airport.

Because the Comfort Inn is next door to DIA Park, an off-airport parking facility, the hotel offers guests complimentary shuttle service to and from the airport 24 hours a day. During our mid-December stay, the front desk gave us a time that our large group of 9 was to board a van to the airport in the morning; the van could not accommodate all of us, since people were already on board, having parked their car at DIA Park.

A quick phone call brought another van to the Comfort Inn for us. Most airport-area properties only have one van servicing the hotel, whereas the Comfort Inn has access to an entire fleet of shuttles. This is a good thing when you need to get to or from the airport fast! On your return, you call a local number, and DIA Park will send a shuttle to pick you up from the airport or let you know if it’s already there (as it was on our return).

Otherwise, the hotel is a standard three-star property: clean beds, decently sized rooms, but nothing out of the ordinary. There is an on-site indoor pool, free wireless Internet (with Internet-capable community computer in lobby) and free copies of USA Today. The free breakfast in the morning includes make-yourself waffles, fruit, two kinds of cereal, hard-boiled eggs, toast, cold pastries and stale bagels.

But you can’t beat its location – 15 minutes from the airport – or the rock-star shuttle service. The price is pretty good, too, considering parking is included. We paid $110 (plus tax) for one night of park-and-fly rate for a standard room with two double beds. A three-double-bedded room was $130 (plus tax) for the night. Pets are allowed for a small fee.

Photo by Kara Williams, December 2008.