McKinley View Lodge — Hotel in Alaska

Note, this review is for the LODGE, not the CAFE. When researching, we saw the avg. 4-star rating and thought it was for the lodge, so this review is to tell you about the lodge: the cafe was fine--diner-style food and friendly staff.||Staff: Meets expectations - Welcoming and assisted in canceling the third night of our booking when we realized the state of the lodge.||Basics/amenities: Generally substandard: |- No wi-fi and very little cell service|- Unpaved path to rooms|- Dingy carpet (and no boot tray to save carpet by removing shoes at the door)|- No overhead lights (only 1 lamp for entire room)|- Only 1 bedside table for a queen-sized bed with an old mattress/frame|- Bathroom vanity was not large enough for toiletries|- No hairdryer (and when I inquired at the cafe if there was one available, since the lodge doesn't have a "reception desk," I was met with a "no," that's all) or shower cap|- Ants on the floor of bathroom and spiders in most corners of all rooms|- No towel rack in the toilet/shower room|- No trash can in the toilet/shower room|- Cracks around the shower surround (likely location of mold)|- No air conditioning (or fan), only heat|- Walls and floors so thin that we heard someone upstairs pee (i.e., the entire stream, with slight pause in the middle!) and then flush the toilet as well as every footstep...

This is a family run property. This hotel has 8 rooms, the entrance to all the rooms is the back of the restaurant which has garbage can and supplies and pile of boxes. We stay here 1 night late in September late in the season. This hotel has no working heater! we got into the first room they gave us and find ourselves in a cold, outdated, no wifi, no TV, and i panic when i found out that my phone has no signal! I went up to find a solution, I asked if i can cancel my stay due to the condition of the hotel. She told me that i can not get a refund because i had been in the room!!! What? I then || asked for a new room because i saw a vacancy sign up when i came in. They deny me a first but later they gave me a new room which is in a better condition, It is more like a hotel room now compare to the first room they gave me. but still no TV, & no wifi but at least I had a reception on my phone, we can entertain ourselves, Portable heater kept us warm at night. This room come with lots of flys which kept me busy for while, i think i kill more than 10 of them!!! I can not recommend this...

Do not be fooled, as we were, by the nice looking website, and the even more deceiving name. This should be called a 'motel', not a 'lodge'. And it is a foul one, at that. There is literally nothing in the rooms....no phone, no amenities to make your stay nice. It feels as though they are used to things being stolen, and prepare the room with that in mind. That wouldn't have been the worst of it, however....except one of the beds had clearly been slept in previously, and it had simply been made, the sheets not changed. This was obvious as an egg crate mattress topper is underneath the sheets, and once slept in the pattern is distinct....compared to the bed that hadn't been slept in. It's the kind of motel you don't really want to touch anything, and you especially don't want to take your shoes/clothes off. And then, to top it all off, it smells. Don't waste your money, or your cleanliness, on...