Dude Rancher Lodge — Hotel in Billings

I definitely do not recommend! We noticed as we were driving to the hotel the area was becoming more and more run down and homeless people were in the streets and sleeping against buildings. The hotel itself looked a little run down and the area around it was not the best looking either. Upon check in, I was told the air conditioners had "just gone out" and they were "waiting for a part that should be here soon", but the rooms weren't "too bad" and would "cool down real quick". I was also told if there was no parking available in the lot we would have to park on the street. This made me very uncomfortable because of all the vagrants hanging around. We were only staying one night on the way home from a longer trip to Yellowstone, so we weren't unpacking the whole car, we were just taking in one small suitcase. Despite all of this we went ahead and checked in. The room was clean and spacious. It does look a little run down and old, some chips off the wallpaper, etc. but nothing was dirty or broken. One thing I noticed I didn't like was the light switch turns off power to every outlet in the room, so there would be no way to charge a phone or anything overnight if you wanted the lights off. The room had to be at least 85 when we walked in. I opened the window, and while doing so I looked down on the parking lot. There were rooms on either side of the lot with an entrance/exit on the ends. I saw several sketchy looking people hanging out in the lot and going in rooms on the opposite side. I also observed several people using the parking lot as a walkway/pass through, and taking the time to slow down and look in peoples cars. There were also a few people just sitting against the buildings watching people go in and out. After seeing all of this, on top of the room being like a sauna, was too much for us. We asked for a refund and left. It's a shame, because I liked the feel of the place, the decor was really nice and I feel like it could be a really nice place. The reviews were all good on the site I booked on, but I read some from another site and saw several people complaining about the air conditioner being out going back months to a year. So the part about it just going out must have been a lie. I also saw someone mention where this was a known "party" hotel and hang out for locals, so that would explain some of the sketchy people hanging around. I recommend...

We booked a queen room at the Dude Rancher Lodge for our honeymoon. We did a ten day trip out west and needed to pass through Billings and thought this looked like a festive hotel for a night. We got in late, around 10 pm after driving for about 8 hours. When we arrived the lady behind the desk just kept reading her book. She finally looked up and asked us if she could help us. I informed her that we had a room under our last name and she said 'no you don't'. She grabbed her list and reviewed it only to reiterate that we didn't have a room. I pulled up the email on my phone that was sent to us directly from the Dude Rancher Lodge and showed it to her. She skimmed it, and quickly handed it back, grabbed her list and held it in my face then pointed at the computer telling me that I did not have a reservation if I'm not on the list or in the computer. I reminded her that we booked directly through the Dude Rancher website (not a third party) and that the email was FROM the Dude Rancher. She repeated that 'your name isn't on my list or in my computer - you don't have a reservation'. I asked her who would've sent the email and she again told me that we didn't have a reservation. I told her that it had a confirmation number, we reviewed the days and all of the information was correct. She put the confirmation number into her system only to state again 'see, it's not here, you don't have a room'. It was then that she offered up the last room they had which was two double beds, but still reminding me that we didn't have a reservation. We are reasonable people and absolutely would've taken this room had her customer service been acceptable. We understand that computers can often have minds of their own and have both worked with the general public before however she didn't offer a friendly smile, an apology, an explanation that maybe it was a glitch, etc. She just kept telling me that we're not on the list - we don't have a reservation. My husband and I were exhausted and ended up walking to dinner where we searched priceline for another room which we found and it worked out great. We refer to this hotel now as the 'Rude' Rancher Lodge and we hope that many others don't have a repeated experience. Call ahead several times to...

To start things off I called the motel to see if they had a parking area big enough for horse trailers, after some hesitation the desk clerk told me yes so I booked a room and our friend booked hers since the photos made the place look really nice. We get there and there is absolutely no place to park a truck and trailer so we ended up leaving it in the library parking lot next door and prayed nobody messed with it during the night. The first thing I noticed after checking in and going up the stairs is that the carpet was in dire need of a vacuuming and shampooing. We get to our room and notice there is barely enough room for the 3 of us to turn around. Our sheets had not been changed, our bathroom garbage had not been taken out and the used soap bar was still on the sink. Now on to our friends' room. She opens the door and is immediately greeted by change on the floor and 2 empty pizza boxes by the fridge. Upon further inspection there is a half empty Snapple bottle on the table, only 1 towel left in the bathroom and her bathroom garbage had not been emptied. The walls upstairs are thin and you can hear your neighbors tv on and them singing half the night. If we all hadn't been to the point of complete exhaustion from driving the whole night before, we would have marched downstairs and asked for our money back. And, for some reason the attached restaurant was closed and nobody knew why so we ended up having to walk 2 blocks to the nearest restaurant at 8:00 at night. Only good thing I can say is that the bed was soft (if you don't mind sleeping on top of the covers or on used sheets). I would highly recommend staying away from this place unless uncleaned rooms...