Grande Denali Lodge — Hotel in Alaska

After the “big room remodel of winter 2023” boasted on the website.

Fairbanks residents take a spontaneous trip to Denali Sept 13. Saw the Grande Denali Lodge had rooms for $250 a night for a king room and resident rate.

Arrived around 5:45pm, spouse dropped me off near the main building to check in while he searched for parking in the two rows of pull in or parallel parking.

Note for anyone with accessibility needs. The ramp to the left of the stairs seems like it would be difficult for some individuals to navigate. Uneven, potholed, blacktop with a steep incline.

Check in was pretty standard, vehicle make, model, color, and tag. No parking pass. 2 room keys. Breakfast buffet 6-10am $31 per person. No thanks.

No directions to room. There are 2 buildings with multiple floors and some cabins.

Went to the first building. Doesn’t require key card to access and doors do not have handles to pull shut. They stick open for a minute, then slam shut.

We were the first room next to the entrance with a glorious view of the parking lot. Room view options not provided while booking so I guess it is luck of the draw?

Our room door was OPEN resting on the deadbolt. Once closed it was immediately obvious the bottom of the door had been cut at an angle to accommodate the floor. This let in a lot of noise from the hallway as guests came and went through the main door. Meaning they could also hear any sounds from our room. The useless scrap of decorative fabric across the foot of the bed rolled up did cover the gap for a semblance of privacy. The bathroom fan and air unit can provide for decent background noise to muffle some of the hall noise.

Heat was off. Rainy cool 45F outside, not much warmer in the room. We are Alaska residents and the room was cold even for us. An hour after turning on the dinosaur baseboard heater the room was still cold.

Tip: Turn on air blower of the a/c unit above the heater to blow the heat into the room. Otherwise it just goes into the curtains. Keep heat on high or the unit will shut off.

Room was mostly clean. Bath floor was wet around the base of the toilet & next to the shower. Bottom of shower curtain touches the floor & had mold when moved. Brown marks on the wall near the toilet paper.

Room stayed cold enough that I didn’t feel comfortable showering & having wet hair.

Bedding provided is likely nice in the summer but not warm in Alaska fall. We bring our own blankets and pillows. I kept my clothes and beanie on, added a layer, and used our 2 thick fleece blankets. Felt like camping.

Guest WiFi no password, 2 of 3 signal curved bars. Standard browser login pop up, just tap login. I got kicked off every few mins. Keep in mind we were probably one of the closest rooms to the lobby. Able to access 5G using our own data.

Did inform the staff of these issues while checking out.

These rooms were remodeled last winter. Looks like furniture, floor, and carpet were replaced. Signs that the shower curtain rod had come out of the wall, been reattached, mud but no paint on repairs.

For those looking for it: no onsite amenities like hot tub, pool, or sauna.

You’re paying for the view. For most half the guests that view is available outside or in the dining area. Do not expect a view from your room.

For those driving. The road is unpaved, full of s curves, entertaining signs. Go slow, especially around the curves.

Woke before 8am to the entry door slamming and guest chatter hanging out in the hall, followed by the more chatter of guests loading a bus outside our room window, and then a guest rolling their bags down the decking sidewalk right next to our window. My spouse asked if there was heavy machinery in the parking lot and laughed when I said nope, it’s a lady with a rolling suitcase. I don’t blame her as it was the only spot she could roll her bag.

Overall, I managed some sleep and can say I’ve stayed at Grande Denali Lodge. I wish I’d looked around for the other hotels. I’ve stayed at the princess lodge in the past and had a much better stay.

Hindsight it was...

Do NOT stay here at any cost!!! SOMEONE URINATED ALL OVER OUR ITEMS!!!! My husband and I just had the absolute worst experience with this hotel that I have ever experienced in my life. We checked-in from 05/28-05/30 and rented a 2 bed room. We initially had the reservation booked for 3 adults and 1 child, however, my son and sister ended up not coming with us. Since we booked a 2 bed room, we placed all of our bags and other items on one bed and slept in the other. We went rafting on Saturday so were gone most of the day and when we came back, we only grabbed a few items off of the bed, took showers, and fell asleep. The room did have a strange odor, however, the hotel smelled quite musty from the minute we got there. Waking up this morning (Sunday 05/30), we began to get ready to check-out. When we went to the left corner side of the bed that was holding our stuff, we noticed it was soaked and smelled awful. One of our bags holding our clothes, including the clothes in it, was extremely damp and we could tell something was not right. After further examination, we noticed that there was urine ALL OVER that side of the bed. We pulled up every sheet and examined the mattress only to find a large yellow pee spot in the bed. We were confused and in awe. My husband and I were the only ones in the room as far as guests go the entire stay. When we checked-out, we kindly brought this up to the manager on duty, Riley, and showed her all of our bags and items that were soaked with urine. She was apologetic and let me know that she would "do some research" into the situation and went to the back for a few minutes and came back out. She could not necessarily determine what had happened in that short of time, understandably so, and she apologized again. She let me know she had my number and would give me a call later with an update and then attempted to send us on our way. I asked for at least one nights refund to begin with which she gladly gave us. We went on our way and she told us she would look into it and call us back. After several hours I called the hotel back and ended up speaking with Riley again in which she told me that she "did some research into it and had the housekeepers check the bed and the urine wasn't on the mattress and they noticed a child was in our room so they determined that that was what happened." This made no sense as our son never ended up coming with us and checking whether or not the urine was on the mattress was irrelevant as Riley assured us that there had not been another guest in there since the 2019 season due to Covid. When I was explaining the discrepancy over the phone she essentially said that they were sticking with their story of not being at fault as "no one would have came into our room." I proceeded to ask her if it was possible that a housekeeper/maintenance employee had access to the room in which she confirmed that they do in fact have access to the room but "would not be called upon during our stay unless we called upon them." Basically the hotel took no true effort into looking into what happened other than apparently checking the already urinated on sheets. This is EXTREMELY alarming if you are staying here alone, with kids, or just in general as someone had access to our room and was 100% in our room either when we were out or sleeping. Also, as we were walking through the hotel we noticed several rooms consistently ajar. Perhaps the rooms stick open and this is how someone got in our room. You also do not need a key to get into the hotel building as a whole. DO NOT STAY HERE!!!!

PS: The room was under my married last name "Jacobsen" just in case the hotel attempts to leave a comment on this review saying they have no...

I stayed at this hotel on our trip to Denali National Park last week. We stayed for two nights and the experience was mostly disappointing except the views from the room, the viewing deck and their restaurant. The negative reviews that you see here are not fake. They did have a fire alarm issue and the alarm would go off multiple times during the night. We received no apologies one of the staff even said, "I understand the frustration but you would not get such a view anywhere will you?"

The main drawback of this hotel are the staff. Rude, some a plain and simple racist and others simply don't care. I was standing at the front desk ready to check out, there were two customer reps working. one was attending one guest and the other was at her computer. Another guest walks in in front of me and she looked up adn attended her knowing full well that I was standing there waiting to be helped, i guess fairer skin has its advantages. It made me feel small, such an experience one would not expect during a vacation.

The hotel room was average at its best, except its views. The bathroom rack rod just came off from the was on the first night as i took the towel off of it. The bathroom was ill maintained.

I kept the first incident for the last. As i arrived at the hotel and after I checked in the hotel shuttle driver pointed and me and said you cannot park here. I was travelling with family and so i had luggage. I mentioned him about the hotel sign saying "no parking except loading/unloading" to which he said i don't care you cannot park here. So he made me to park away from the hotel and drag my luggage across the gravel road upto the hotel entrance.

The food at the restaurant was really tasty and flavorful. Even the restaurant staff were cordial and welcoming. however that will not makeup for the experience i had.

HoDo not recommend the hotel and will dissuade anybody who asks me. there are better...