Rapid River Lodge — Hotel in Baxter

Pros water park, sauna, and indoor+outdoor hot tub with towels and concessions +++ staff is so friendly and nice ++ rooms are spacious walkable to a lot of restaurants aesthetically, the lobby and property are nice breakfast was good workout room lots of outlets and even USB ports at the desk no noise issues, and we were on the 2nd floor...oh this I hadn't seen in pictures, but if you are on the "pool side" your room will be across the hall from windows that look into the indoor pool area instead of facing other rooms.

Cons

• • written communication is lacking: due to COVID19, they have you fill out a form to request your breakfast, but it's not clear how you fill the form out. Pro tip: just put check marks next to the items you want and write the number of each of the you want and remember they may have to make substitutions and you can note what you would want in that case (i.e. oatmeal flavor). Additionally, the posted hours for the water park and spa were not the actual hours (said opened at 9 on sign but actually opened at 12). Pro tip: ask the font desk person when you check in or aim for the afternoon as a safe bet. small thing, but kind of annoying, the bathrooms really lack places to hang towels. There are no towel bars or rings, just two little hooks on the back of the door. You would think there would be somewhere to hang a hand towel given that the rooms are pretty nice. the breakfast is good, but some people might be disappointed to find that the breakfast sandwiches are like the Jimmy Dean kind you heat up in the microwave (and they don't give you plates) we got the 2 queen bed room where everything is in one room, and I thought there was going to be a table with chairs, but there was a desk instead. The descriptions of the hotel and pictures don't make that very clear. Given that they bring breakfast to your room, a table would be a lot more useful, as you can only pull a chair up to one side of the desk. And we didn't want to go and ask to switch rooms due to the current situation. the water pressure is a little lower than you'd expect, but the shower head has settings so it's not bad on the highest setting the beds are hard, which for me was a con

Tips: this hotel is really only a good value if you're going to use the water park a lot and was a bit more than I was expecting in that area they will charge you like $1.50 per night on the bill for the safe in your room...i've seen others say hotels will remove it if you want, but we...

There were pro’s and con’s to our stay… however the overall stay was a really good experience. We would come back again

Cons: The chlorine levels in the waterpark were way out of hand. Looking back… there were other reviews with this same complaint. The water itself seemed fine but it was almost like the air was the issue… maybe the ventilation system wasn’t working right?? My daughter and I had a pretty good coughing fit and it made my 4.5 year old rather sick… to the point where she almost puked twice (it was not because of her swallowing water). It seemed the more we went up and down the stairs for the waterslide.. the worse it impacted us. When we were packing up because we felt it was dangerous to be in there, I noticed there were SEVERAL kids coughing… especially the ones that were also using the slide

When leaving… I was told by management that this happens because people aren’t showering before getting in the pool…and to just take a break and it will get better….but yet they have only 1 small shower in their public locker room that is unrealistic for all of their guests to use before and after. If this truly is the issue, they should have locker rooms that can support the appropriate amount of guests and they should also enforce the rules of their guests showering?

Pros: The hotel seemed renovated recently and the rooms were very clean and overall nice The hotel breakfast was well stocked and had great selection Several channels on the tv that were kid friendly The hotel staff was friendly and tentative The arcade room was fun! Good enough selection for toddlers and adults The newly renovated waterpark was really nice! Everything was very clean and it was perfect for our younger children. The toddler area was a huge hit! Nice to have food/water selections at their concession stand. Hot tub was actually hot and clean! The underwater passage was cool Overall the waterpark staff was great… said good morning and were friendly at the concession stands… but maybe could use a little more attention to detail while watching kids swim… a handful of times there were not any lifeguard at the top of the slides to give the ‘ok’ for...

I would not recommend this hotel. The room and front desk staff were awful! The room was dirty (popcorn under and around the living room furniture, bobby pins on the floor, spider webs in corners, dusty, stains, etc). I would have thought housekeeping missed it if the bed wasn't made and the bathroom wasn't set up. The living room furniture was frayed, had stickers and gum on it, had virtually no stuffing left in it which made it very uncomfortable, and was just gross. We had a separate bedroom from the living room area and 2 of the 4 lights didn't even work and one outlet built into the headboard was falling off. I went to the front desk and spoke with a mid 20s caucasian male with brown hair - didn't get his name, and explained the situation. He looked at my blankly and asked what I wanted him to do. I asked if there was another room we could switch to and after looking at availability he said no. I asked what my options were as I was trying really hard to be collaborative and he very coldly and rudely said "You can leave." I asked if that was his only solution and if he felt we should be paying full price for a room in this state. He coldly stated "Look, you can stay or you can go." No apology, no let's get housekeeping and maintenance out there, no trying to do anything, nothing. There is also no soundproofing. Our family - including a baby- was woken up in the middle of the night both nights (1:30am, 3am) to constant running and noise. I get it with kids, but when it is that loud from 10pm-6am, that's ridiculous, you need better soundproofing or intervention of other guests. We had to tough it out as best we could as this was a multi family vacation, but rest assured we will not be back and will not be recommending this place. Although the the location is great and water park was a lot of fun and my kids enjoyed it, the positives...