Meet Me in St. Louis!

St. Louis, MO. You know, I consider it the Midwest, the gateway to the West and all. The famous point of embarkation for Lewis and Clark on their exploration of the West. I guess it was considered Southern as a result of the Missouri Compromise prior to the Civil War and all of that drama. So, it fits into the southern blog. Or, even if it didn’t… who cares, it is my blog and I can write what I want to. (Yep, I was singing it’s my party, I can cry if I want to in my head while I typed that!)

A couple of weeks ago I was in St. Louis for a conference. My boss and I were giving a presentation on an initiative in our office, it went really well and we only had two open seats in the room! So here is my review of that little trip.

It was actually my second trip to St. Louis, I was there for a conference a few years, but stayed in a different hotel. This trip was to the Hyatt Regency at the Arch and it was a good hotel overall. I had a giant king size bed, a view of the Mississippi river, and a really lovely shower. They also had the best service that I had in years… from the housekeeping staff, to the servers to the front desk staff… all amazing. The only things I would change are: there needed to be another chair or sitting item in the room, they needed to clean the rooms a little more quickly, and they needed to actually CLEAN the rooms in more detail… the dust ruffle had dust in it and the carpet along the walls needed to be vacuumed.

The metro in St. Louis is actually great to use. Easy to follow, clean and pretty cheap. There are two things that amazed me about the system. First, so many of the stops were OUTSIDE and not covered. It snows in St. Louis, why would they not be covered? Also, you never had to scan a ticket or show a ticket to get on. Yes, I bought tickets every time, but the honor system… really? Amazing.

The arch was cool as well. I didn’t go up in the arch… the small elevators I just couldn’t take it! But I did walk around the base and in the park around there. I don’t have any good feedback on food, which is odd for me. There was just not a lot of good local options around the hotel.

Finally, the coolest experience I can recommend is to be in town when there is a St. Louis team in the running for a sports trophy. We ended up grabbing appetizers in a bar after we got to town and it happened to a winner takes all game in a series for the Cardinals to advance to the play offs. Coolest thing… be out in a city win the team wins (even if it is an away game). The energy was amazing!

I am sure I’ll be in St. Louis again in the future, hopefully with better food options!