If you’ve been around a while, you know that I’ll stay at any hotel that has a connection to trains. So when we were picking a hotel for St. Louis, I knew immediately that we were staying at the St. Louis Union Station Hotel.
This incredibly restored hotel has been a St. Louis landmark since 1894, when it was the train station serving St. Louis. It’s now a 567 room hotel with multiple event spaces (we saw a wedding and three proms when we were there).
We booked a clock tower king suite, because staying in a clock tower sounded unique and fun. The room was quirky, as any hotel room is when it’s trying to fit the mold intended for something else, but it was nice. It also gave us access to the executive lounge (which we had anyway with my Diamond status) and it was nice to have a quiet place to grab a snack and drink.
But the showstopper and raison d’etre was the Grand Hall Light Show. In all my travels, over decades and dozens of countries, I’ve never seen anything quite like this. Every day on the hour from 5-10 pm, the hotels puts on a light show on the gorgeous Grand Hall ceiling. They rotate shows throughout the night and have custom shows for weddings, and they are all spectacular. When we were there, the main show was a Beatles show, and I’m a huge Beatles fan! It was amazing. There was a Queen show (also a huge Queen fan) and an underwater show. The best part about the clock tower room was that the top of the Grand Hall was right outside our door. I could hear the show start and go out and watch it when we were in the room. While the view was also great from the bar on the ground floor, it was really cool to watch it at eye level. You can watch videos of the ceiling on my Instagram @PattiLeoBath.
The hotel has multiple restaurants and bars onsite, and is attached to the Union Station entertainment area. Without leaving the area, you can go to the St. Louis Aquarium, the St. Louis Wheel, and other touristy things. There’s also a nice area to walk around. The neighborhood around the hotel gets a little suspect at night, but we walked around and didn’t feel unsafe.
At $1,050 for three nights, it wasn’t cheap but it was definitely worth the value. The room was nice, the amenities were good, and the light show was incredible.