While we have no complaints about the comfort of the room for our two night stay I have to say that the check-in procedure is completely unacceptable and got our stay off to a very poor start. Ourselves, along with at least several dozen other guests at Ameristar this week were a part of the Missouri River 340 kayak race. I was the paddler in our group and as such had spend the past 67 hours paddling from KC to ST. Charles. All my Id's, credit cards etc were with the remainder of my party. Unfortunately, I was also the one who had made the initial reservation. Since my wife and brother would arrive at St. Charles several hours ahead of me and since they to had been traveling along the river they were tired & dirty and "tried" to check in. They were refused and told that the only one who could check in was myself. This, despite them having not only all my I.D's but also their own photo I.D's which had the same name and address as my own. I could not be contacted and they were refused entry. There is simply no excuse for this. If you choose to hide behind a "This is our policy" reasoning then that's fine, BUT you need to clearly transmit on your check-in policy that only the original payee or any pre-authorized people may check in. So in short, the room, staff etc were great but this check-in procedure made things pretty difficult for us for several hours. In listening to other's we found that many of the paddling group had run into the same problem.