Last week my 12yo daughter K- and I had the opportunity to spend a few days at one of my favorite hotels in the world, The Broadmoor, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. “The Springs”, as it’s known, is about an hour south of Denver and is an interestingly diverse city, home to the US Olympic training facility, the US Air Force Academy and Focus on the Family. To fully enjoy our stay at one of the very few five-star hotels in the state, we pulled up in a 2016 Lexus ES350 [as I’ve written about in A Week in the Lexus ES350] and handed the keys to the valet after pulling out our luggage and, inevitably, a few stuffed animals and board games.
We checked in and headed to our luxurious room, featuring super comfortable beds and a bathroom so well designed and appointed that I want to hire their architect to redesign my own bathroom. One neat feature: a TV embedded in the bathroom mirror. K- loves their shampoo too and had two showers each day we were at The Broadmoor. A nice bonus!
Once we were settled in, we headed to our first adventure, the just launched Wild West Adventure, featuring traditional “cowboy” diversions of archery, shooting and tomahawk throwing. Yes, tomahawk throwing. How cool is that?
K- already does archery at school, and she wow’d our guide Dan with her accuracy:
He kept putting up balloon targets and she’d nail ’em, one after the other. She’s definitely better at archery than I am.
Tomahawk throwing was different, however, and I learned that the key to these particular tomahawks is to not be afraid to really throw ’em enthusiastically. As a result I planted about 80% of my throws into the target:
No doubt a useful skill if we do end up in a zombie apocalypse, though you’d run out of tomahawks pretty fast if you weren’t careful about it! You’ll also notice that the target stand isn’t robust: we were so early in the Wild West Adventure at The Broadmoor that they were still setting things up and some of what we experienced was “interim” rather than the final targets and setup. Still, was great fun and entertaining, though the air-powered rifles were a bit tricky to figure out in terms of correcting for being slightly off target.
Back to the room and here was our view off the patio:
That night we had dinner at the always-delicious Golden Bee, an English restaurant that features mushy peas with your fish and chips and quite tasty shandies (a beer + lemon lime soda concoction). In fact, we both had fish and chips and K- ate a very large portion, making it beneficial that we walked around the lake after our meal before heading back to the room for a movie and sleep on their super comfortable beds.
The second day we changed our plans around as it was cool and windy, so we ended up playing some board games in the hotel lobby. Easily the most luxurious place the two of us have ever played games:
That evening we headed to PLAY, the Broadmoor’s sports and bowling alley for a few quick games. Very fun, everyone in the family quite enjoys bowling and we’re occasionally not horrible at it too.
The setting is definitely quite fancy too, it’s definitely not your father’s alley:
The fare, as you would hope, is a substantial step up from frozen pizza and undercooked french fries, and we enjoyed hot edamame while we bowled:
When we were done bowling, we had a light dinner at the restaurant area of PLAY, including a”black and white” oreo cookie milk shake. Delish, as you would expect, and perfect fuel for us to head back up to the room for some cards before bedtime.
Our final day on property we had breakfast at the Natural Epicurean, including a quite tasty quiche:
Looks huge but it was just a bit larger than a hockey puck, which turned out to be the perfect size for a light breakfast before our last adventure: Fly fishing.
We’d gone fly fishing at The Broadmoor the last time we’d stayed at the hotel [see Two Glorious Days at The Broadmoor] and really enjoyed it. This time, K- was determined to beat me in the fish count (catch and release, in case you’re curious). She did. by a crazy amount: she caught 23 fish by focusing her attention on the fish that congregated under the dock:
Me? I caught 4 or 5 fish in the lake that’s part of the irrigation system that The Broadmoor uses to manage its water needs across the championship golf course. But oh, the ones that got away…!
When we were done fishing, our guide let K- drive our golf cart back to the main lodge area, and took the long way back. The really long way. Maybe 2-3 miles worth of long way. And that, of all things, ended up being the absolute highlight of the trip for my daughter, being able to drive the cart with its gas and brake pedals and steering wheel “just like a real car”:
If that’s not the portrait of a happy young lady, I don’t know what is.
And that really sums up our entire stay at The Broadmoor. Fun and relaxing. From the staff to the food, the grounds to the activities, it remains one of my very favorite places in Colorado, well worth visiting, even if only for a single night.
The Broadmoor hotel is located at 1 Lake Ave, Colorado Springs, CO 80906 and you can visit their website at broadmoor.com.
Disclosure: The Broadmoor covered the costs associated with our stay, including food and activities. Which was super nice of them!