I've always wanted to stay at the Peabody and finally got my chance on a 3-state Blues & BBQ tour my husband and I did. The hotel is historic, with an impressive massive 2+ story lobby anchored with a huge marble fountain in which their 4-5 ducks live from 11-5 every day. We stayed 2 different nights with 2 different room assignments.
For our first room assignment, we ended up in what I think was a room for wheel chair using patrons, as it was enormous with 2 full beds and a very large bathroom. The only problem came at 10pm at night when we returned from Beale St and tried to turn on the heater, but the HVAC unit was dead. The maintenance person came, left, came back, but could not get it to work. We mentioned it at check out but no compensation / credit was offered.
For our second room assignment we had a king bed, a smaller room, and the tiniest bathroom I have had in a hotel I think ever. There was literally one spot to stand in, and you would turn to use the toilet, face front to use the sink, and turn the other way to step into the tub/shower. Too small, but we made it work.
Everyone comes for the ducks, and here's the scoop. You need to have butts in seats in the lobby by 4pm latest, 3:45 if there is a full house due to a football game or something else. They make significant bank by selling drinks as people wait for the 5pm show. I would like to say that they could definitely benefit from more staff to provide more timely service, as we did wait several times as 1-2 women tried to serve hordes of people. Even the manager got involved to help one night, but it was impossible to ask for something extra, like water, as they were just too busy. The speech and duck procession show is cute, but once you've seen it, that's probably enough. There is a very large gift shop immediately off the lobby with every duck thing you can imagine, and there are other stores there as well.
I felt the Peabody was charming, centrally located, a cool history, and I loved seeing the ducks before the 5pm show, but it feels a bit dated and cavalier in its service in my opinion. Good historic hotel, but could be better.