Feelin' Hot-Hot-Hot in St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

September 4 – 6, 2015 – Labor Day weekend

Written April 7, 2023

Planning

Visiting St. Louis, Missouri was probably one of the most spontaneous trips that I arranged. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and see, and only had a little over 48 hours to do it in. My checklist included: A St. Louis Cardinals game, the St. Louis Arch, ride a steamboat on the Mississippi river, and see the Anheuser Busch Clydesdales.

The flight from New York City to St. Louis was approximately three hours. Arrival in St. Louis was planned for early afternoon on Friday and departure was midafternoon on Sunday, Labor Day weekend in September 2015.

Arrival in St. Louis

First off, I had a wonderful experience getting around St Louis Lambert Int'l Airport. Although I didn’t need baggage claim or a rental car for this trip, the direction signs to both were clear. I saw some of the rental car areas on my way to the train. Locating the MetroLink (train station platform) to take me into the city was easy. I chose the Metrolink as my mode of transportation because it had stops for the hotel, Busch Stadium, and the Gateway Arch.

The Metrolink train ride was pleasant, baseball fans from the airport were also traveling by train, so it seemed like it might have been more crowded than usual, a good indication that I was on the right track! (no pun intended :-) ) Once settled on the train (I think it was the red line), my traveling companion and I looked out the windows and kept a look out for our stop at Union Station. The ride took approximately 45 minutes.

The hotel I chose for our stay was St. Louis Union Station Hotel Curio Collection by Hilton. I'm a sucker for historic hotels and this one seemed like it had a lot to offer at a reasonable price. The walk from the train platform to front desk of the hotel was about 15 minutes. From this side of the hotel, you could enter through the Union Station mall, which could be seen as soon as you ascended from the train station stairs.

This was my first experience being outside in St. Louis. I had no idea how freaking humid St. Louis is. It never even crossed my mind, not one bit. So, while the walk was short (maybe 5 minutes), it was not fun with luggage.

We entered through the mall (yay air conditioning!) we discovered the next day that this was not the main entrance to the hotel. Oops! The mall seemed empty, not too many shops were open, the food court had rental space available in several areas. We crossed the mall and found the door to the hotel. The hotel itself was enormous and very ornate. I looked forward to exploring, but it was nearly 5:00PM and the game started at 7:15PM. We dropped our luggage in the room and hustled back to the Metrolink to get to the baseball game. It was a nice feeling to be on our way to complete one of the checklist items so quickly. It was about a 10-minute ride to Busch Stadium on the train. The weather remained warm and humid; this didn’t seem to affect the enthusiasm of the fans one bit. Sadly, the Cardinals couldn’t pull a win out of this night. They lost 9-3 to the Pirates.

Back at the hotel there was a light show being held in the Grand Hall. We were able to catch a few minutes of the last show. The bar was open so you could order drinks, but I am not sure about food. We weren’t approached by a server, probably because the show was almost over.  Instead, we went to the Hardrock Café (closed in 2018) which was outside the mall area but only steps away, it was like across the parking lot.

Photo 1: balcony entrance into the hotel from the mall

Photo 2: Grand Hall in Union Station hotel St. Louis

Photo 3: Grand Hall during light show in Union Station hotel St. Louis

Jam Packed Day – No Meals Planned

On Saturday we had another day planned, it started off with a Metrolink trip to the river area to take a riverboat tour on the Mississippi River. When we arrived, my expectation was that we would be able to eat breakfast at a café or restaurant along the river, near to the riverboat area. This was not the case. This surprised me! Seems like a missed opportunity to make money. The ticket window had a little convenience store that sold snacks, but that wasn’t what I had in mind.

The riverboat ride was relaxing and the guide informative, since it was early morning, and we were on the water there was a little breeze.  I took photos of other riverboats and the Arch (St. Louis Arch). I didn’t think that the riverboat tour was unreasonably expensive for what it was, however, there were only two of us. I’m not sure if I’d view it the same way if it was a family excursion. Between arrival and disembarking, we were probably in the riverboat area 3 hours, maybe a little less.

Next up, the Gateway Arch! Well, the surprise was on us! We did not know you could go inside the arch, so traveling to the top by tram to look out of the windows was quite the treat. Of note, the tram was a bit tiny and there was no place to sit when you arrived upstairs. I suppose this leant itself to people retreating downstairs more frequently. The total visit to the upper area of the arch was about 90 minutes. That includes waiting for the tram to return downstairs and some time at the windows.

Photo 1: Riverboat on the Mississippi River with St. Louis Arch in background

Photo 2: Entrance to the riverboat we were on

Photo 3: View from the top of the St. Louis arch

It's now about 2:00PM, we haven’t eaten since our late-night visit to the Hardrock Café. It’s hot and humid, we are hungry and cranky. I was hoping again to find a place where we can sit and eat but anything we walked by was closed for the weekend. Only a few vendors were out, and they only sold water and ice cream. While we were in search of food, we noticed different bunches of people walking in a common direction. We followed them and a few blocks later we entered a large complex with places to eat and tv screens. I think it was Ballpark Village.

This place was mobbed. There were more people here than I had seen in any other place in St. Louis except the baseball stadium. We tried to find somewhere we could grab something fast to eat, but most everywhere was at least an hour wait. Outside this complex was a tour bus to Budweiser Biergarten, this made sense! I did have “see the Clydesdales” on my list, so we hopped on the bus but when we arrived, we found the Biergarten had a 90-minute wait to eat and even longer to take a tour. Feeling defeated, we boarded the bus back to Ballpark Village and traveled back to the hotel by Metrolink.

At some point in our trip, we began to discuss eating ribs. I mean, we are in St. Louis! Places like, Bogart’s Smokehouse and Pappy’s Smokehouse, were just not feasible without our own transportation. My traveling partner even attempted to call an Uber, but only one driver responded and never showed up. The unplanned hours of our day did not go in our favor, and we were both a little disappointed that we didn’t get to do some of the things we wanted.

We spun it around though. Saturday evening, we explored the mall and bought t-shirts, ate at the food court, then picked up some snacks for the room. We played around with the soda vending machine on our floor, it was the first one that we’d seen that took Apple Pay. Later that night we ordered room service with some of the specialties that St. Louis is known for, such as fried ravioli and gooey butter cake. I’m not one to order room service, this is a rarity!

Time to Say Goodbye

Sunday morning, we went for breakfast in the hotel at Station Grille, afterwards we explored some other parts of the hotel, read about the history of the hotel and Station Grille, walked around near the convention area, and took photos.  By noon, it was time for us to jump back on the Metrolink to the St. Louis airport and return to NYC.

Photo 1: Inside the Station Grille

Photo 2: A view of the mall from a hotel balcony

Photo 3: Model train from inside one of the hotel shops

Things I learned from planning this trip: check the weather, plan dining experiences, I want to plan more trips! This Union Station hotel really set the bar for any future hotels that I sought out.

Things I keep in mind when organizing a trip for myself: always leave something to go back for, for this trip it’s visiting the Budweiser Clydesdales and tasting ribs in St. Louis. Find something unique to eat or visit.

Some information, such as baseball game information was sought by using ChatGPT.

​©2024 Theri’s Travel Tales