Old Faithful Snow Lodge — Attraction in West Yellowstone

We stayed a week across Yellowstone and in that week we stayed three nights at OFSL.||Check in was a nightmare. We were first given a room, in a hotel without air conditioning, that didn’t have a window screen. ||We were then given a room that was filthy. We toilet hadn’t even been cleaned. There was, literally, urine and hair under the seat. The floor of the bathroom wasn’t clean. ||The next room was checked personally by the Asst. Front Desk Mgr, a very nice and apologetic man, who couldn’t say enough about how sorry he was for the mishap. We ran out of time to get cleaned up after spending a long day exploring the park from Mammoth Hot Springs towards Old Faithful. We gave ourselves time to check in and shower before going to a dinner reservation we made a month earlier. We didn’t have time to do that and ended up going to dinner rather ripe. As I was putting our cold items in the fridge of the latest room I had to wipe out the fridge. Not cleaned by housekeeping. ||When we came back from dinner we discovered that the rooms on both sides of use were related and that the adults were in one room and all of the children were in the other. Not happening. We brought this up to the Asst. Front Desk Manager and he moved us to a fourth room. ||It appeared to be ready at first and he even checked it out himself personally. Then it started to be come apparent that it actually wasn’t. |I opened the shower curtain to have a shower and discovered an old dried washcloth between the curtain and the wall. I stepped out of the shower and barefoot kept discovering things that were sticking in my foot. I was saddened to discover nail clippings. Multiple nail clippings. I started placing them and everything else we found onto the top corner of the refrigerator next to the glasses and ice bucket. Then when I opened the door to the fridge it was pointed out that something was under the front edge of the fridge. It was a dental pick. ||While I was brushing my teeth I spied what I thought was a patina around the reproduction style faucet, only to loosen it and discover it was dried toothpaste. When I handled the end of the faucet I discovered the o-ring was deteriorating and the black gunk that covered my fingers just made me shudder with disgust as I had just been brushing my teeth, and previously we had been washing our faces. ||I finally had enough and zeroed in on the switch plate that I noticed previously. It had just been a turn-off, no pun intended, as I was certain that it would only take seconds to be cleaned. ||This hotel is just a joke and the management responsible for the property isn’t doing what it needs to in making house keeping efficient. ||I shared all of these photos and a detailed letter to ,not one but five, members of the hotel’s senior management the afternoon before our departure. By the time we were checking out at 11:30 I hadn’t had anyone reach out about the stay so I asked to speak to the hotel manager. I waited for him to arrive from one of the other properties and invited him to speak privately away from the hotel lobby. ||It was at that time he apologized profusely. I asked him how long he had been in hospitality. I asked him how long he had been the manager of the hotel. He had over 18 years of experience in Hospitality and yet he still hadn’t learned that responding to a complaint of this nature would have been in his favor. ||I explained that it was the beginning of the season and the excuse of a newly turned over staff wasn’t going to cut it as we were just arriving from two days at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel which was immaculate in comparison. I even told him that I wouldn’t even hear of any excuse that the two properties were dramatically different in size. ||Avoid this place if you...

If you decide to stay here, choose the bottom floor if you can. The place has NO AC and only offers asthmatic fans to help you cool off. If you're on the top floor you'll have the chimney effect all night long where all the heat from the floors below floats up to your room to exit your window. There is no relief. It was a solid 15 degrees cooler outside and on the ground floor in the mornings than it was in our room. We tried pulling out the screen to sit the fan on the window mechanism so it could blow in outside air, but all that did was let in a horde of mosquitoes. We were exhausted because we couldn't sleep due to the heat.

They charged us more every day to provide us with clean sheets and clean towels. With as hot as it is you'll need new sheets every night because they'll be soaked in sweat.

When we first entered the room we found a nice little stuffed bear and a water bottle thing. How nice we thought - the $350 per night fee came with this nice little gift! Nope. We found a card with some small print that said if we kept the items we'd be charged. We promptly put them in the closet. That's pretty low-down dirty and predatory. The management company is counting on little kids coming in the room and being like "YAY! A CUTE SOFT BEAR" and wanting them. It's a crappy ploy and really set the tone for the whole place.

The wifi- what a joke. There is none. The staff says you can pay for it by the day for some stupid amount, or for $5 an hour. The front desk staff told us to not even bother because it doesn't work. You know it's bad when the staff says not to try it.

There is no TV, no internet, no AC, no pool, no hot tub, no nothing. I get it - this is a rustic off-the-beaten-path place, but comeon. It's 2018. Get some dang internet.

The restaurant - oof. Not good. The staff is overworked and exhausted. They work three 12+ hour days in a row. The cooks are not good either. Every piece of meat that came out was hammered and the dishes were only slightly warmer than room temp. The cook's idea of a salmon dish is... drumroll please... salmon tacos. Tacos. What a waste of a great ingredient. Well, based on the quality of the food I'll bet the ingredients aren't all that good. Nothing was really very good except the pancakes. Those were amazing! They completely overcooked my poached eggs on my eggs benedict, and when they remade them the whites were not cooked through. Sheesh. Comeon - for these prices the food should be good. Save yourself and order the pancakes.

We brought our travel trailer and eventually found a spot in the parking lot. We REALLY regretted our decision to stay in the lodge instead of reserving a spot for our RV.

When we visit Yellowstone again we certainly won't stay here. Since you have to make reservations out a year for everything we'll just stay in our travel trailer. At least then...

The hotel is in a great location, just across the street from the Old Faithful Visitor Center. The foot traffic in and around the area is slower in the mornings and late afternoons, so as a guest, you'll be there at times were you can enjoy the sites outside of the busy midday rush.||The hotel and its rooms are modern. Our room had two queens leaving just enough room for a sofa chair, a refrigerator, recycling "center," and a desk and chair that offered a small individual coffee-type machine. The room had a separate vanity area, bathroom and a small, open "entry closet."||Our room was located on the second floor on the south side of the lodge, and it was impossible to sleep. There was a little guest noise from within the hotel, but most disruptive was being located on top of what I imagine was an industrial trash compactor. All throughout the night we heard this 30-second tone followed by dumpster noises. Even with my head buried in the pillows, I couldn't get to sleep. It was so loud. I'm not sure if the noise can be heard throughout the hotel, or was more concentrated to our side. Our reservation was only one night and we just left first thing in the morning. ||Missing a night of sleep during a jam-packed Yellowstone itinerary was not ideal. For over $500 a night I would expect to be able to get some sleep.||Also, we visited at the end of the season, but it seemed the staff was ready to go home. No one was particularly rude, but no one was really friendly or welcoming either. We also did an in-person, pre-check in only to have to repeat the process over again at actual "check-in." This wasn't especially time consuming, just inefficient. ||I may recommend staying here if I one could guarantee a room conducive to sleep. Otherwise, the public areas and room appeared clean, and the location was excellent for touring the Old Faithful area. All lodging in the park is overpriced, so if grading on the curve, the value is ok. A clean, comfortable room for rest should be considered basic amenities,...