Frances B.
Yelp
It didn't start out too well as we pulled into the roundabout that fronts the lobby to go do our check-in and were immediately told we couldn't park there. Since it's pretty standard practice to temporarily leave your car in front of the hotel while you check in, we were surprised, but fine, my husband went and parked the car in the lot and we dragged all of our luggage into the lobby. What really got us annoyed was when they wouldn't let him pull up in front to just pick us all up again after check-in when we found out our rooms were several buildings away- including my disabled in-laws. There was a huge open driveway and he wasn't even allowed to stop for 30 seconds and let them get in the car and load the luggage? Very weird, and not very ADA compliant. But the lobby was beautiful, and the person who checked us in was really nice.
It's like that with everything at this place - like there is a flip side to every good thing. The lodge itself offers a lot of restaurants, coffee bars, gift shops, BUT they were all overpriced and not the highest quality. The grandness of the reception area (and the price of the rooms!) say "luxury" but the rooms are basic motel level. My husband pointed out that the fancy "woodwork" on the walls was just stained plywood and 1x2 (hey! we used the same approach in our outdoor room!) There are no mini-fridges or microwaves in the room (sorry, for $300+night I consider those basic amenities. We stayed in a virtual meth den of a hotel in Anchorage, and THAT room had a mini-fridge). They don't offer housekeeping with the claim that this is due to their commitment to being eco-friendly which seems great, but I suspect it's more about keeping costs down as this place is HUGE.
We booked 2 rooms for 3 days, and every.single.day - sometimes multiple times a day - multiple key cards would fail. The staff person who came to fix it was very helpful and really went out of his way, which was great, but...why was this happening? My in-laws had a horrible noise coming from the heating unit and we had to have engineering come- took a couple people several hours to fix it - again, super nice people, but c'mon, I paid $1800 for these rooms! My worst moment came when I tried to use the laundry and it wouldn't accept real money. You had to download an app and enter your credit card, which I very much did not like doing, but to make matters worse the laundry was in the basement so there was no wifi. I had to go back upstairs, download the app, get my credit card, enter everything in, then run back down and enter the numbers off the machines (I am fuming at this point) then go back upstairs to upload the numbers then back down to start the machines. Are you kidding me?!?!? And for this, the laundry app charged me a 35cent "convenience fee". I was glad to have access to laundry, but it was super frustrating to use it. See what I mean about flip side for everything?
I think this is all represented best by the location: It's 3 minutes from the Park entrance, and it's GORGEOUS. Like I cannot overstate how epic the scenery is. The whole lodge is situated on a high bank overlooking the river and any time of day or night, your can sit outside along one of the many viewing areas and take in an absolutely drop-dead view. Oh, but speaking of drop-dead, the flip side: it would appear that a good portion of the property (A-building, where we were housed, particularly) is sliding into that very river. There were clear indications that the building itself was being adjusted at the foundations (which was covered with pretty rocks, lol!) and there were cracks EVERYWHERE. Are there engineers regularly checking this place for safety?!