Park City Anniversary Getaway

August 20, 2017



For our first wedding anniversary, we took off for a fun weekend in Park City! We never went on a honeymoon and always planned on doing a BIG trip for the 1st anniversary, but with my new job & a crazy summer, it just wasn't in the cards to take off a ton of time at the end of July. Since we couldn't spend a ton of time anywhere, we made more "high-priced" choices to make the short time a touch nicer.

I posted about our weekend up on my Instagram story and got a lot of questions about where we stayed & ate, so I thought it would be helpful to just make a little post about it!

Fair warning: LOTS of pictures ahead.

Even though we were having a "fancy" dinner for our anniversary, we still wanted to mark the occasion eating our wedding food: donuts, burgers, fries and milkshakes. We grabbed donuts for breakfast and checked off burgers, etc for lunch.

    

I spent hours researching every single hotel, room type and amenity in Park City because I wanted the weekend to be perfect. After all that research & a friend's recommendation, we chose the Stein Eriksen Lodge.

Long story short: It was THE best decision we made and was the best park of the weekend. 

We had a HUGE suite. Definitely more room than we needed, but it felt so nice to spread out. I'm 60% sure this suite was bigger than our apartment!
We don't have cable at home, so I'm pretty sure having sports + HGTV on all the time was Zach's dream. While I fawned over the suite, he went straight for the TV haha. Also, note the wood-burning fireplace!
Currently wishing this was my real kitchen. (PS: excuse the mess of all our stuff strewn about.)

Can we just talk about how there is a SECOND fireplace in the bedroom??? Because I guess one just wasn't enough...

Bathroom was like 5x the size of our current bathroom at home

  
The best part? Drumroll please....our own private deck and hot tub!

I am not joking when I say, this deck is the #1 reason we chose this suite! I love hanging out in hot tubs and they're so relaxing, but being in there with strangers is not my jam. Having one to myself - HEAVEN. Jumping in the hot tub was the very first thing I did and I seriously sat there for hours before dinner.

Also, the view from our deck was 🙌🏻  🙌🏻  🙌🏻


I had some feelings about it...

Some people freeze their wedding cake to eat at the first anniversary. We had a donut tower instead of cake (and year-old cake sounds terrible), so we grabbed those fresh donuts to make our own tradition. I thought it would be fun to put on our wedding clothes a year later and eat donuts in our big fancy bed. Somehow...that turned into jumping on the bed eating donuts in our wedding clothes.

We ate our donuts, sat in the hot tub for a few hours, relaxed, watched TV, checked out the lodge pool, and then finally got ready for dinner. We are terrible planners, so by the time we showered, got dressed, and took the shuttle to Main Street, it was 9pm.

By the way - Stein Eriksen (and many of the other hotels in Park City) offer a free shuttle down to Main Street all day long. It's so nice to just leave the car at the resort all weekend and not have to worry about parking or driving. They drop you off anywhere down there and when you're ready to come back, you just call the number on the back of your room key! They'll pick you up right where you're at, so you don't have to trek to some predetermined spot (which is great for lazy bones like us).

We didn't have any reservations for dinner or any idea where to go (like I said, bad planners). Zach wanted pasta, so we just asked the lodge staff for recommendations and they pointed us to Grappa. It's at the top of Main Street and did NOT disappoint.

The interior of Grappa is gorgeous, but I especially loved eating out on the patio. The weather was perfect.

 And for my foodie friends, check out this menu 😋

 Zach was initially scared off by the menu, but ordered the Spaghetti Arrabiata and LOVED it.

I ordered the Lasagne Al Funghi. I don't usually like Italian food, but this was HANDS DOWN the best lasagna I've ever had. Even full of kale! Drooling about it right now to be honest. (PS I know my food photography is not the best, so forgive me haha)


After dinner, we just walked around Main Street, holding hands, people watching and enjoying the live music in each of the alcoves. It was just a cute little romantic evening and so fun to feel miles away from real life. 

Once we got back to the hotel, my brain exploded.


I didn't realize there was a turn down service at the Stein Eriksen and to be perfectly honest, I'd never been anywhere fancy enough to even know what that was. We left our suite in a MESS when we went to dinner. Clothes all over the place. Bed covers messed up. Makeup & toiletries all over the counter. 

And they CLEANED IT UP.

Not only did they put out slippers, some chocolates, a room service menu, turned on the TV...they REMADE the bed just to turn it down for us. And folded all of our clothes, put Zach's suit back in the closet, and then tie up all the cords with ribbons. I think those ribbons sent me over the edge! Like every little detail you don't even think about, they tidied up!


It seriously felt like little house elves worked there. Wondering if this the treatment they get at Hogwarts...

I'm honestly a little bit embarrassed they cleaned up our clothes and such, but oh well. Next time, I'm not going to be so messy before the turn down service!

Really quick, just wanted to mention they cute little gifts they gave us. Some house made granola, playing cards, and chocolate bark - I think they give this to everyone. They handed it to us when we checked in.


While we were out, they came to our room and left a nice card about our anniversary with some of their house made truffles. (Also, seeing it say Mr. George for Zach makes me giggle...checking in with my maiden name oops haha) The chocolates were too gorgeous to eat - I brought them home with us and have been eating them little by little.



Anyway, got a great night of sleep and woke up to the BEST breakfast of my life from room service. I ordered pineapple upside down pancakes with a strawberry peppercorn compote and coconut agave syrup...plus avocado toast & egg whites. Zach got the regular buttermilk pancakes, sausage & bacon.
I only ended up eating about half of this, which I'm still regretting. I could use a slice of that avocado toast RIGHT NOW.


Egg whites were pretty standard. Avocado toast was amazing. Pancakes were incredible, although I didn't end up liking the peppercorn in the strawberry compote, so I just ended up picking out all the little pieces. The coconut agave syrup - I want it piped into my veins. Zach's meal - the pancakes were standard, we did not like the sausage, but the bacon was THE best bacon either of us had ever tasted.

So if you get room service breakfast from Stein Eriksen - avoid the peppercorn, skip the sausage, and order extra bacon!!

Unfortunately, we aren't billionaires and had to check out after breakfast. We headed to the Park City farmer's market to people watch and browse. It was a beautiful morning and the market was way more crowded than we expected!



For having limited time to get away, this was the perfect little trip for our anniversary. It's not Fiji or Italy or New York or anyone glamorous, but it was so fun!

We HIGHLY recommend Stein Eriksen Lodge, but it can be pretty pricey, so try to find a room special. The next time we go to Park City overnight, we're planning on staying there again. I'm not sure any other property there will be able to compare to the amenities, suites, and kind thoughtful staff (plus the elves!) we experienced this weekend.

Getaway or no, I am so happy & grateful to be married to this guy! I can't believe it's been a year married and 3 years together. He is kind, patient, hardworking, faithful, funny and treats me better than I deserve. I'm sad we're not "newlyweds" anymore, but I'm so excited for the lifetime we still get to build together.




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11 thoughts

  1. Wow! That hotel looks beautiful! And, those personalized touches and great customer service are really what puts somewhere over the top for me. Happy Anniversary love birds! <3

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  2. OMG I am so in love with this hotel. Turn down service?? Yes, please!! I need to remember this when we plan a sky trip to Park City!

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    1. Yes! Highly recommend staying at Stein Eriksen!

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  3. What an incredible getaway! Park City is BEAUTIFUL! I visited a few years ago for Sundance and it was so much fun!

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    1. I've actually never been to Sundance, but it's on my list for this year!

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  4. What an absolutely gorgeous place to visit. I definitely need that sign that says you deserve a donut haha!

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  5. Donuts, Five Guys, Chocolates...all you needed was bacon on that Avocado toast and I would have been in food heaven! Happy Anniversary to you guys. Looks like you both celebrated it in style with a lot of fun.
    May you have 100s of more 1 year anniversaries

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  6. I stayed in Park City once. I absolutely loved it! We had a few really good meals at the local restaurants there.

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    1. They have such great restaurants in Park City - every meal we've had so far is amazing!

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