Sauble River Marina & Lodge Resort — Hotel in South Bruce Peninsula

My family and I stayed at Sauble River Marina & Lodge Resort a few months ago, and the experience was so negatively memorable, I had to write a review.

I will start off giving credit where it is due - this place offers a lot of amenities and the accommodations themselves are decent. That gives it 3 stars. The other 2 starts are lost for one very large reason: utter lack of hospitality! If feeling welcome and accommodated does not matter to you, then you will likely have no issues staying here. Be prepared to either be treated quite well (as half the reviews on here seem to state) or absolutely terribly (as the other half go in detail about). I'm from the second camp. I don't think my family and I have never felt more unwelcome and unaccommodated in all our years of visiting Sauble Beach. Based only on our experience, I feel the owners Charlene and Ken Reinhart need a good berating here online for their attitudes and lack of care towards their guests. That's essentially their one job.

The stay was unpleasant before we even arrived at the facilities. We called to ask to store our perishables in the fridge of our room about 3 hours before check-in since we had a booking at the Grotto in Tobermory for the remainder of the day and didn't want to leave it in the car. The replies received were rude and illogical, saying that we couldn't enter the room before check-in for any reason. If entering the room was the issue, we then asked to simply place the items on the doorstep for them to feel more comfortable taking in with the gloves they were already wearing. Their answer was a resounding "no". Their reason? Strict Covid cleaning protocols, which was a load of crock as the rooms were not cleaned well and previous guest's socks were even found left in the closet. We were hung up on during the phone call. Strike 1.

We asked how to operate the air conditioning unit in the facilities, and the answer given was, "You have doors and windows". Unnecessary passive-aggressiveness for such a basic question is not appreciated. If the owners don't want guests using the A/C, remove the unit. Strike 2.

There were 6 of us during our stay, and when we requested more toilet paper at 8:30 pm as Charlene was walking by, her response was, "Next time, try asking a little bit earlier in the day." Again, unnecessary rudeness. The hosts' job is to provide guests with supplies when reasonable. This was very reasonable. Similarly, when we asked for a few clean towels, the response was, "You've only been here two days, you'll just have to dry them out yourselves. You know, for the environment." Once again, outright uncalled-for. Do these people realize what business they are in? Environmental awareness is understandable, but these policies need to be made known to the guests beforehand. Strike 3.

Which leads me to my last point. The Reinharts absolutely adore rules, rules, rules. As a fellow rule-lover, I was impressed and disgusted by the amount of rules for everything, many of which I found were cop-outs to not have to attend to the guests' needs. One preciously petty rule was that you will be charged a full-night's pay for not having checked-out even 1 minute after the check-out time. Is it possible to strike out a fourth time?

To summarize, the Reinharts are unfortunately inflexible, inhospitable, unaccommodating, and generally antagonistic to the guests they randomly choose not to like, I imagine from the direction the wind is blowing that day. I advise all who consider staying here to read the host of other reviews that reiterate my own experience. From what I have read, mine was tame compared to...

I would think twice before staying at this so called resort. It happened to be very cold and wet the day we arrived. So we checked in and once settled in decided to go out for something to eat, but not before we realized the remote did not work for the electric fireplace and after waiting for Ken the proprietor to come back with the remote we finally thought we better go eat because it didn't seem like he was coming back.(by the way he never did return). When we came back we could not see where we were going because there were no outside lights. Thank goodness I had a flashlight! We got back into the room and then my husband went back out to get something out of our vehicle and we noticed that you could see right through the curtains which by the way are makeshift. The one on the door was too short and filthy dirty and the ones on the window and french door looked like shower curtains. (who knows who could be lurking around outside....gave me the creeps!) After a bath we decided to watch some T.V but the T.V didn't work very well and it is positioned near the ceiling! Who puts their T.V near the ceiling anyway?!! And the microwave is almost on the floor. Weird! Anyway frustrated with all of it we decided to go to bed and that's when we realized that the sheets were damp on the bed and that was just about all I could take. Oh, and you can't call them because there are no phones in the room. It doesn't matter if you have a cell phone because you can't get any reception. Needless to say I never slept all night, my husband slept very little and so we decided the next day to go home. I said to my husband we should try to get a refund for one night since we had booked the room for three nights at $150.00 per night. I thought we were being more than fair considering they were getting close to $350.00 from us for the one very lousy night we had there. Well when my husband went to the office to ask for a refund for one night he was told we have a no refund policy. That's when he started to tell them all the stuff that was wrong. His wife Charlene stood with her mouth wide open like she was in shock then said just give them their refund and get them out of here! And to top it off Ken said it's not our fault your wife has a bummed leg. And then he said don't come back! Nice way to treat your guests. We have never been treated so disrespectfully anywhere that we have stayed. If ever there was a problem anywhere we have stayed the people who were running the place did all they could to right the problem and that is how a business should be run. If a proprietor of a lodge can't deal with people in a respectful manner they should not be in business. What is wrong with simply saying "I am sorry you were not happy here, what can we do to make it better?" My...

FIRST AND LAST TIME I WILL COME HERE. This place was DISGUSTING, run down, DIRTY, waste of money, the rooms were horribly hot with no air circulation at all. There were 7 ADULTS who have been here before and came again, this was my first time coming here with them. I was appalled at how we received complaints from other renters saying we were too loud WHEN WE WERE NOT. Being threatened to be kicked out if they get another complaint. We are all 30 year old adults who were here to relax and have a great time together and it was ruined by the owners telling us to be quiet by 9:00 pm when legal time to be quiet is 11:00 BY LAW and when asked if we needed to tip toe around we were told to “step lightly” HOW do you step lightly when you are just walking. When we first got here, our friends were told by the owner Charlene that “you’re going to be quite this time right?” How dare you. We couldn’t sit around our table and talk at 11:30-12:00 pm without being told the next day we were “too loud”. Not even 24 hours we were here. MY HUSBAND went into the lake with a friend of ours and sing song called my name wanting me to take a picture at 9:00 pm the sun was still out and everything and Charlene comes out while I get to him and WHISPERS “this is a family place” so quiet that not even I could hear her properly. I would understand if he was screaming and swearing but he was not. This place is ridiculous and if your the quiet, older type who doesn’t make any noise at all, not even to breath, then this is the place for you. Paid $1300 to stay here for 3 DAYS and THIS is how we were treated. When our friends came last year and received noise complaints again at least they STILL CHOSE to come here because they enjoyed themselves. As for me and my husband, NEVER AGAIN and we are certain we will be going to stay somewhere else next year and be absolutely certain to tell everyone we know this horrible experience and will NEVER subject someone to this place. On top of that the list of things we had to do before we left such as basically clean the entire cottage down to the dishes was ridiculous as well and goes to show these people DO NOT CLEAN THIS PLACE which is disgusting. What are we paying for? We paid for a vacation if I wanted to clean the entire cottage I would have stayed home and cleaned my own house. Not to mention the toilet broke on us the second day in. There was an above complaint from 4 weeks ago stating how DIRTY this place was ...100% believe them. Should NOT BE our responsibility to clean up the entire area. Garbage here and there and making sure it’s decent I understand but being a maid service wasn’t apart...