Horseshoe Valley Resort — Hotel in Oro-Medonte

My husband and I chose Horseshoe Resort and the micro wedding package on October 20th of 2024 for our wedding and we were deeply disappointed in what happened on our wedding day. We were provided vendors through Horseshoe in the micro wedding package and we were unhappy with what unfolded:

On the day of our wedding, the shower in the "loft suite" was leaking into the bathroom below. We brought it to the hotel's attention and a maintenance worker came who told us to "not use the shower". We had several of our wedding guests that needed to use the room to prepare and we were not given any alternative options.

When it was time for our wedding ceremony, Julie did not know where our wedding officiant, Reverend Carmen, was and she claimed there was a family emergency after being 40 minutes late to our wedding. There was no back up officiant provided. She also wrote my husband's middle name instead of last name on our record of solemnization along with pronouncing my name incorrectly throughout the entire ceremony.

As part of the micro wedding package, there is 1.5 hrs included for photos through Raven's Feather Photography and because of the 40 minute delay into our wedding, our photos felt rushed and I don't feel we got as much time as we would've had things run on time. I can honestly say that Nadine was wonderful and she made sure to help us get amazing photos regardless of the time we had and offered to provide us with whatever photos we wanted. I do however, feel that in being rushed, a lot of authentically creative photos in the moment were an impossibility.

Dj Ken, told my husband that he didn't dress as nicely as he normally would have because he was going hunting right after our wedding ceremony was over. He also offered to provide a wedding video for us and told us that due to technical difficulties, we could only have an SD card with several individual videos. He still needed to combine these together and he would send that to us a couple weeks after the wedding once he was back from hunting. I had to purchase something to be able to watch our wedding video through the SD card. I followed up a month later and he told me that he would start working on it then and it was clear he forgot to finish it after we paid $250 for it. He then wanted us to drive to pick up the USB it was on instead of providing us with other arrangements. After much back and forth about picking up the USB, he eventually put it on google drive so we could have the finished copy.

We chose the Crazy Horse Chalet for our reception and I was very unhappy with the staff there. We had several guests, including my husband with serious allergies to food and they didn't know which allergies belonged to which guests when the food was being allocated. They threw out our wedding cake box and took a very long time to admit to throwing it out. They were only able to provide us with circular containers and we had to cut up our wedding cake at the end of the night to take it with us. We asked for a cash bar and were aware we were paying for our own drinks. I'd like to mention that there were only 16 guests to attend to and they were hardly in the room to attend to us at all. We paid $500 for the room and even my husband went 40 minutes without a drink.

I tried to call Julie the following day after the wedding had happened and she didn't answer her phone. I decided to make a list of everything that had gone wrong on the day leading up to when everything was finalized after the wedding which lead into December. I explained all of this to Julie in an email and had to follow up with her 3 times over 2 months to receive a reply. Once I did receive a reply, she basically told me that I should've advised her all of this on the day of and there's nothing she can do now. She didn't seem to acknowledge that this was the biggest day of our lives and seemed more inclined to defend the vendors. I can honestly say I would never have gotten married there had I known what...

Stayed for 2 nights 3 days in mid-week August.

1. Room/bed/bathroom: 4/5 Clean and comfortable, not a lot of noise although it was mid-week so the resort was not busy. I'd have given 5/5 if they were proactive with refilling our toiletries and coffee/tea bags and etc. Also during our entire stay we did not receive any housekeeping services - not sure why.

2. The hotel: 2.5/5 Despite our arrival mid-week and the resort not seemingly busy, our room did not become ready until past 4 PM. At check-in we were told the next day our building will not have hot water from 11 AM to 3 PM for maintenance. Despite not being ideal for our stay, we were understanding and planned our next day around this. Next day around 5 PM there was still no hot water. We thought it'll be coming around soon, but on our 3rd day there was still no hot water. We brought it up at our check-out and that we could not take a proper shower for our entire stay, but we were brushed off and told "the water was being flushed". Not even a single half-hearted apology. It's a serious deal when a hotel cannot provide a basic accommodation as hot water. This was very disappointing.

3. Food: 3.5/5 A) Crazy Horse on our first day: 2.5/5 Got the BEER BATTERED HADDOCK ($20) and CRAZY HORSE HALF POUND BURGER ($20). The fish was OK, the burger was dry and "meh" at best, and neither worth the price. We had to wait longer than usual for service and then again for the food to arrive, but the waitress was nice and accommodating and she was doing her best. B) Visited Eleven01 Taphouse on our second night: 4/5 Got the 14 OZ CENTER CUT AAA KANSAS CITY STEAK ($44) and BUTTERNUT SQUASH RAVIOLI ($28). Both were delicious, but I was disappointed with the portion size of the ravioli; it was more appropriate as an appetizer, and when you pay $28 for a pasta dish, you'd hope it's filling. We also got a bottle of wine, and the waitress (Kerry) was lovely and provided us with 2 wine glasses so we can finish the bottle in our room. Overall we were happy with dinner and only wish the portion sizes were generous and more in line with the prices. C) Got the buffet breakfast ($17/person) on our last day: 3/5 The variety and quality of items left much to be desired when paying $17 for breakfast, but overall it was OK.

4. Activities: 4/5 A) Treetop Trekking: 5/5 For $60/person we found the 3 hour experience well worth it; the staff were friendly and helpful, the courses were fun (and challenging!), and the PURPLE course was awesome. Make sure you do some dynamic stretches before hand (especially your upper back and shoulders), hydrate well, and wear workout gloves because you are in for quite a (fun!) workout. B) Mini-Put/golf: 3/5 Nothing especial here, but for $15/person I think it's worth the 1 hour laid-back activity. C) Spa/Massage: 4/5 Our couple's massage got cancelled since one of the RMT was not in, so we had to do a back-to-back instead. That was disappointing but the massage itself was good (Melanie, our RMT, was professional and friendly) and although pricier than massage clinics ($135+tax / person), I guess that's the resort premium. D) Horseshoe lake: 1/5 (it's barely a pond!) Very small and unimpressive, more of a pond than lake, not much to do. If you are looking for water activities (eg. canoeing and water sports), this isn't the resort for you. E) Walking trails: 4/5 Multiple trails and with nice scenery. We went for a nice 1-hour hike in the evening through the forest.

OVERALL: I'd have given this a 4-star if it wasn't for the lack of hot water during our entire stay. At least a heads-up or an apology would have been in order, but I guess our business and spending almost $1,000 on the resort was not much appreciated. But other than that we had a good time for...

We booked this vacation in hopes of having a nice quiet overnight getaway. We booked a spa treatment and really enjoyed that. Dinner at the Crazy Horse was really good with large portions and the wait staff were great. The Inn itself however was terrible. They had one young man at the counter for check in time (there was a lineup for 5 couples when we were there). The Sauna was also apparently out of service. The indoor pool area is dated but not the worst we have seen. The snack vending machine on the second floor was 98% empty, and looked dusty like it was forgotten about. There is 1 ice machine for the entire first two floors (which are quite large). The hotel itself seemed to be quite booked for the night. Of course we were woken up twice after 11PM at night by families coming in, all talking to each other at full volume and letting their children run up and down the hallway just outside our door (we were on the first floor). Our King fireplace room was very dated and noisy with little sound proofing between rooms (someone showering next door was as loud as if we were doing so in ours). The bathroom was the nicest part of the room. There is one outlet in the bedroom area that wasn't taken up by other things so charging multiple devices was a challenge. There is a huge door gap at the bottom that lets in tons of light at night time and noise in from the hallway. The pillows were all the same and were terrible to sleep on. They were super firm, thick and caused a neck/pinched nerve spasm in the middle of the night for my fiancé who was at the brink of throwing up from the pain. I went to the front desk to purchase Advil or similar to help with the pain at 3AM since we forgot ours for the first time ever (it happens!) and the clerk informed me that they don't have anything like that for sale here. The nearest town you can drive to (Craighurst) shuts down apparently at 10PM and not even the Esso gas station is 24 hours. 40 minute round trip drive back to Barrie or go to the Barrie hospital were the only recommendations from the front clerk (who honestly seemed incompetent). We ended up going back to our room, packing up and leaving at 3:30AM to drive home instead without our breakfast buffet or us spending any further money on resort. Upon checkout, the same clerk said nothing, offered nothing to us, not even any condolences we had to leave in the middle of the night, instead standing there with a "shocked" look that we were doing so. What other option was there for us? We recognize it's our fault we forgot the meds, but no other hotel we have stayed at had NOTHING to purchase for guests who forgot. It's brutally obvious now to us that winter skiing, etc. is the only thing that Horseshoe management care about at their resort because in the summer, it appears it is left to a bunch of inexperienced people to run the Inn until their bread and butter season starts. We will never recommend anyone stay there going forward. For the price you pay ($350+ a night with "resort fees", etc.) you can ABSOLUTELY find a much better value for your money elsewhere. Don't waste your time or hard...