Friday, April 16, 2010
I thought I'd plug the historic hotel we stayed in during my cousin Jennifer's wedding weekend. Her reception was on the second floor of the hotel so mother booked us a room there. We were on the 5th floor and had a gigantic room. The hotel was built in 1905 and is situated on curvy Spring Street surrounded by shops galore. I've always been a fan of Eureka Springs, it's beautiful and the people are nice, a good southern nice. Tourism is a huge business for this town and the hotel had several wedding receptions through out the weekend.
The hotel has a spa located on the second floor, the Balcony Bar with a patio over looking Spring Street, and behind the lobby you'll find the War Eagle Mill Outpost. It served a breakfast buffet of eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage and biscuits and gravy. They had a good selection of coffees with all the fixins. The store also sold the House of Webster jellys, whole grain natural foods and even bagels. They had a few tables set up in what looked like a cave with natural stone, see the top picture.
The hotel has Ghost Tours nightly at 8 pm for $15 and $7 for children 12 and under. We didn't take a tour but the website talks about the illegal gambling parlor of the 40s and 50s, a lion ghost, the young woman that tries to evict the tenants from "her" room, and on and on. I didn't even bring up the word haunted to Chloe because I knew it would turn into days of sleepless nights worried about what the word haunted meant and all.
Jennifer's reception was nice and the hotel staff were great at helping get things situated. My mother was in charge of table decorations and did a great job. It was simple with rose petals and votive candles. The reception room was roomy and set up perfectly for the crowd. Once the DJ started, Chloe was ready for bed. We heard the DJ through the night because we could hear music from her or someone else's reception in our room until the wee-hours of the morning.
We liked our room on the 5th floor. I can't tell from the website the last time the hotel was updated but I'd say it was the early 80s. They did give us a complementary inflatable bed for Audrey and Chloe to share. The girls enjoyed camping out in the living room part of our room. A king room runs $150 a night. We took the stairs the whole weekend because the little, old elevators were so slow. We definitely got our exercise that weekend. My brother Craig and his crew had a huge room on the second floor complete with a patio over looking Spring Street, Jacuzzi, huge couch and flat screen TV and two bathrooms. That room was probably a honeymoon suite but was perfect for Craig's five. A Jacuzzi runs around $200 a night.
We did have a snack right before the wedding in the restaurant bar and had a good club sandwich and french fries. Upon checking out of the hotel, I recommend requesting your car about an hour before you need it. We were ready to hit the road on our 5 hour trip home that Sunday morning and had to wait for an hour for our car. They had one guy getting the cars and there were several people in front of us. I never, never like to use valet parking but we did on this trip because the parking lot was located nearly a mile away where you wait on the hotel shuttle to take you and your bags up to the hotel.
The Basin Park Hotel is a neat hotel with lots of history to it. There aren't many of these type hotels in the country and it's worth a visit. Check out their website for more information.
Basin Park Hotel, 12 Spring St., Eureka Springs 877-643-4972 www.basinpark.com
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