Lake Yellowstone Hotel & Cabins

This is the oldest hotel in Yellowstone National Park and first opened in 1891. The architectural design of the hotel was significantly changed in 1903 giving it the “Colonial Revival” style it is known for today. This three-story clapboard hotel sits at the heart of Yellowstone along the north edge of Lake Yellowstone. The facade which faces the lake is the most stunning with the columns, balconies and steps that lead up to the front entrance. Inside the hotel there is a large upscale dining area, a large lobby with a bar and beautiful lounge area with oversized tall windows to sit and admire the view. There is also a gift shop within the lobby. The staff members at this hotel greeted us with warm and friendly smiles and made sure our stay was memorable. Our room was warm and comfortable but was very small size including the bath. There is a large parking lot to the rear with several different entries. But most of all, this hotel is perfectly situated along the lake and at the heart of the park. The hotel prices are quite high when considering the overall room and services, but it is all about the location, and this is one of the best places to be.

No wifi! It’s not the hotel’s fault, as there’s no wifi coverage in most area near Yellowstone lake, and the cellular signal – if any at all – is very weak. They do have a wifi spot near the front next but it’s so weak that even loading text-only website takes a long time. Not to mention, you have to stand right next to door. Inside the room, the decorations, furniture, and amenities, are all very luxurious. It’s rustic but not worn out. In fact, it looks very nice and clean. The room is also very spacious. The breakfast was delicious. Too bad it was fully booked for dinner the night before. If you’re staying here, be sure to reserve dinner in advance. There’s a restaurant that just a few minutes’ drive away, so you can dine there if the hotel’s restaurant is full.

We have stayed at the Yellowstone Hotel twice and absolutely loved our stay both times. The atmosphere is bright, the staff is friendly and the publis space with huge windows overlooking the lake is beautiful. The restaurant in the hotel is also very good. The rooms are clean, bright and beds are comfortable. Staying in the park is expensive, but we think it is worth it. We love this hotel.

We opted for one of the stand-alone cabins rather than the main hotel. We knew that there would be no TV or wifi - and were fine with that. What we were not fine with was that we shared the cabin with a colony of dust bunnies on the floor and under the beds. The room, the furnishings, the 120-grit towels, and beds - while not an epicurean's delight - would have been adequate and would have received 3 stars. Unfortunately, the cleanliness brought the review down to 2 stars.||Our experience in the main dining room did nothing to improve our opinion of the establishment. Our server was quite pleasant and personable on first encounter, but thereafter we had to seek him out to finally take our order, bring condiments, and bring a clean glass to replace one with schmutz stuck to the inside. Never did he come back to our table on his own initiative to see how things were and if we needed anything; we had to flag him down. After finally providing the dessert menu, he spent 20 minutes talking with another couple on the other side of the dining room, showing them photos on his phone. I finally went over to tell him that, since he didn't want to take our order, I wanted the check. He then had the audacity to get indignant and declare "I was only talking to them!" Yes, talking to the exclusion of doing his job. Sadly, when all this was brought to the manager's attention, he just nodded and did nothing - not even offer a non-apology apology.||This was by far the most unpleasant experience we had both near and inside Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.

Loved this location in the center of Yellowstone. A grand hotel with gracious service. Rooms are lovely and main lobby is grand but welcoming. Comfortable seating areas with a piano to set a lovely relaxing mood. We had dinner here (make reservations) that was great. Nice choices and great service. Our room was spacious and very comfortable. Views of the lake from the front porch were amazing. No air conditioning and no neat but the weather cooperated with our stay and we were very comfortable

Xanterra is very clear about the conditions and amenities in the Lake cabins. No TV, microwave, fridge. Furnishings are nice, with a desk and chair and table with two chairs. Little recycling slots in a free-standing stack of cubbies is for paper, plastic, and landfill items. Honestly, landfill items should be confined to waste baskets. I am not comfortable flinging used tissues or dental floss into the landfill cubby. Most cabins have one or two steps up to the door, but no handrails. if the weather is inclement, it would help to have something to grab onto; or even if it is nice day a handrail would be good. Wildlife will saunter by your cabin. The guest laundry at the Lake Lodge (a short drive away) is large and clean. Cost for wash/dry is very reasonable, and the machines have timers.Since retirement we have tried to visit every fall...fewer people and cooler weather. Still lots of folks, though, and attraction parking can be difficult. But since my first visit about 74 years ago, I always enjoy a trip to Yellowstone!

Thoroughly enjoyed our 2 night stay at Lake Yellowstone Hotel last weekend. The historic hotel is very well maintained and managed. All staff were friendly, efficient, and professional. We really enjoyed lounging in the large sunroom/lobby area, including the nightly piano music (background, no singing). Our one dinner in the dining room was really very good w perfectly cooked salmon over an interesting mix of veggies and beautifully presented. Service and drinks were excellent as well. Breakfast buffet was good. I really appreciated attention/options r/t gluten free. Our room was a pleasant queen room w nice spacious bathroom and comfy bed. Nice that windows can open for fresh air. We especially enjoyed observing the family of elk that hung around the hotel and strolling out along the quite large, beautiful lake.

After reading reviews of the hotel and lodge I had low expectations. After staying in the sandpiper lodge for 5 nights, I can’t wait to come back. Don’t go in expecting a 5 star hotel. Go in expecting an old and dated hotel with so much history and beauty and you won’t be disappointed. We were able to book the rooms during a winter sale for a good price and are so happy we did. The room was fine and clean, queen room was MUCH smaller than the king so opt for the king for much more room. The lodge is steps away from the main hotel where the string quartet and pianist play most nights in the hotel lobby overlooking the lake. The bar and hotel dining room were pretty great. Every staff member we met was nothing but kind and friendly. I could watch wildlife daily in the park and follow up with a drink watching the sunset listening to the music. Must stay. Not to mention, no crowds here!! An escape from places like Old Faithful (although also beautiful).

It was my and my husband's first national park road trip so we were excited with our first stop at Yellowstone NP. We picked a cabin stay at Lake Yellowstone for 3 nights due to its location in the park, availability and pricing for our visit in mid-May. I love the grandeur of the hotel. It has a large sitting area off the lobby with bar service. A wall of large windows in the lounge area provides a panoramic view of the lake. We spent much time there after a day of sightseeing in the park to read and sip coffees. Our room in a duplex cabin was very basic and it resembled a Motel 6 guest room. However, we knew what we were getting into so there was no complaint here. We were able to park right in front of the cabin so it made loading / unloading our luggages super easy. Our cabin was just a minute walk to the main hotel building across the parking lot. However, my main grief is the cellular reception on the entire hotel grounds. We were not able to send nor receive emails / texts essentially from 08:00 through midnight, let alone checking or posting to social media. Some may say you are supposed to be off grid while on vacation but everyone's situation is different. We relied on texts to keep our families updated daily where we were on our road trip. This is for safety reasons. We could not be calling everyone in different time zones. The only time we could get any texts or emails out were between 01:00 to 04:00 so we woke up around 02:30 everyone morning to keep our families posted. There is no WiFi connection for guests in any of the hotels in the park but we knew that ahead of time but we thought we could rely on cellular reception. I'm glad that I had downloaded an offline map of the park on my phone ahead of time. Otherwise, there was no way I could have used GPS for navigation while driving around the park.

Checked in for a 4 day stay. I was assigned room 357 and was bite by bugs for the first two nights. They changed our room to room 329 and it was filthy. For over $400 a night this was awful. Don't waste your money. Also , I was served raw scrambled eggs in the resturant for breakfast and missing bacon. 30 minutes later the eggs came out cold. 1 star was for the view. Stay in West Yellowstone or Gardiner Good food and better hotel choices!

We stayed in the building just to the right of the main hotel. A little on the older side and no a/c but they provided a fan which did the job. I would recommend. Nothing fancy but clean and does the job

Stayed in a cabin, which was had nice furnishings and was clean and tidy. These can remind you of a mobile home. It had a nice table suitable for dining. Upon arrival, the computer system went out. We tried again after 15 or so minutes and were then able to check in. Took the photo safari (excellent experience), which went over our check out time limit, but we were accommodated with late check out at no extra cost. Covid masks were required for dining at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel, and furnishings were placed in rows wide apart to as to maintain social distancing. Service from everyone was outstanding. They were eager to please.

I was so disappointed with Lake Yellowstone Cabins. I thought they were very over-priced. I appreciate that you pay a premium for being inside the park but our cabin and the one next door where the rest of our party stayed was poorly equipped (no fridge no microwave and no chair to sit on). This becomes important when there are very few dinning options open to you. The restaurant was fully booked and the food at the lodge was awful presented in so much packaging that I would think the establishment would be filling its own landfill within a week. The cabins were surrounded by unattractive scrubland. We had no view of the lake, no porch and we had to go in search of two dirty chairs which were scattered around other cabins. Yellowstone is majestic. The park's treatment of its wildlife and the natural habitat is world class but this hotels standards are appalling

Check-in at 4:00PM. Got in our room after 6:00PM. Seemingly unconcerned about horrendous lack of service or any regard for the guests. If this cost $100/night, okay. Unfortunately it was $350+ a night. Shocking how poor they treated us. Nice enough, but hardly worth the price. But, as they have a bit of a monopoly, I guess they couldn't care. And if it all about being short-staffed, try paying the staff more (with those prices, you can afford it!).

We stayed in a lake cabin. The outside looked a little rough as we pulled up, but the inside of the cabin was very nice and clean. The mattresses were a bit jiggly so we had a bit of a hard time sleeping, however the setting was beautiful right next to Lake Yellowstone. No fridge, microwave or wifi, but that's par for the course with Yellowstone. Pet friendly. Will definitely stay again!

We stayed in one of the cabins because we couldn't get a hotel room and the room was adequate. There were no major issues - it was a room to stay in that was clean and comfortable and people that go to Yellowstone are there to see Yellowstone, not spend a lot of time in their rooms. The cabins are single-story structures painted a bright yellow. Many of them had peeling paint on the outside. The rooms felt like they were built in the 1950s - the most modern thing that we saw in our room was a Keurig machine. We had two queen beds and the room was fairly spacious. The heat worked well (it often gets below freezing at night) and there was lots of hot water available in the stall-shower. There was no television in the room. There was no WiFi in the cabins. I don't believe that there is WiFi in the hotel either. We have AT&T for mobile phone service and we didn't have phone or cellular data service. We also had a Verizon iPad Mini and service varied from 1G to 3G. It was usable very early in the morning but I think that a lot of other guests were using their Verizon devices as well so things were slow to unusable in the evening. The Hotel is nearby and has a little cafe which we used - food is decent but the wait in line can be pretty long. They also have the dining room but we didn't want to spend time on a sit-down meal.