Salt Fork Lodge and Conference Center — Hotel in Cambridge

I would LOVE to give this 5-stars, but I just can't. So let me break it down.

The location, service, park, staff, facility, and everything else you can imagine are top tier. I've seen $1k/night resorts that were worse. Shout out especially to "Jennifer", in the restaraunt who went far above and beyond. When she heard us being sad that we thought the room had "keurig" based on photos, and couldn't use the coffee we brought, she had the hotel searched till she found one for us. We felt like royalty!

The view is gorgeous, the pool fantastic, the food great. And not just the fancy food, that was one of the best hotdogs i've ever eaten.

So here is the missing star. The "remodel" or to put it better the "downgrade"... what a let down. Do not let the virtual room tour fool you, that is not what you are getting. Luckily they did NOT alter the rustic would ceiling, but thats about it. Let me hit some of the highlights:

No rectangular table that fits the room so you can sit and eat or play a game as a family. Now its a round table you must climb over the bed to get to, has no lighting, and really doesn't work.

Lighting is also part of it, instead of a big room filling light in the corridor and the ceilign hung light, so you can use the small bedside at night... now the corridor is recessed, no ceilign light, and the bedsides are bigger and brighter so you can't use them at night once the kids are in bed.

The kids beds, again, a bad change. In the photo they are clearly wall hung, now that are free standing. To most this pry seems minor, but what this did was add more obstructions, more posts, to shrink the space. And since the beds are not tights to the wall you now have small gaps where all the kids stuffed animals, toys, or in our case LEG gets stuck. And you cant shift it closer to wall or it just bangs the wall all night.

Moving further down the room, instead of the recessed fridge/coffee/etc area, you now have a sliding door cabinet. One door? Really one... why? Nothing about it works. As your family is getting ready for the day mom cant open the fridge for juice boxes if dad has the door open to grab swim suits, its one or the other. And now the coffee (which is no longer a keurig, and is some generic gas station brew that upset are stomaches and you can't use your own at all) is sitting way over by the TV. No where near water to fill it? but atleast the cheap new pot spits coffee everywhere.

Across from the fridge is the rooms best feature. And absolute must for families, and one we look for on every trip. the 2nd or in-room sink. Absolutely vital. On parent can shower/bathroom/anything, while the other parent can still rinse a bottle, brush kids teeth. It gives an almost 2-bathroom home feel without much added.... well... ITS GONE. simply missing. worst decision ever.

Instead you get a remodelled bathroom I can only describe as "interior decorator vomit". Big mirror, nope, at 6'-4 I could use it, but this round monstrousity was so high the kids had to brush hair in the room as they never saw their own face. Room to stand, nope, now you have an epic counter big enough for a banquet no one needs. Rustic relaxing materials, nope. The floor is literally made of concrete core samples. I'm not kidding. I looks like ODOT leftovers. Every time I went in, i thought of work instead of relaxing. Well atleast there is a tub, NOPE. Thing is so shallow its unusable, you can't even sit on its rim to put on your socks.

Well, atleast once you've finished in the bathroom. You will live there forever. Because you cant get out. Nope, instead of a simple door, they have added a pocket door with impossible to use hardware. I have carpal tunnel. I HAD TO USE A MULTITOOL AND PLYERS TO LOCK/UNLOCK THE DOOR TO PEE. Not only inconvient but ILLEGAL. Completely against ohio building code. Only the 2yr old's hands were small enough to function it

I want to be clear, the WORKMANSHIP in the rooms was impecible. Wonderfully done. It just SHOULDN'T have been done, or atleast should have been DESIGNED by...

We were here for a family reunion and none of the family that stayed here WOULD EVER COME BACK AGAIN! I would have given only one star, however as I stated there were a few good highlights of our stay.

The absolute worst experience I have ever had. I would be more apt to understand the mishap had I booked the room online, however I booked the reservation over the phone directly with a lodge employee. Before hanging up, I specifically asked the person on the phone if there would be a sofa bed in the room and she said yes there would be. We get there, check -in, go to the room and it was not what I was told by the lodges employee when I spoke to her on the phone while booking the room. After moving to a room with 2 queen beds and being disappointed about the whole situation, we finally get into our room, throw our luggage in quickly because we are meeting the family in the lounge for happy happy hour (Cheryl who worked the bar was excellent).On my way to the bar I decided to stop by the front desk for one last plea to get the proper room since it was not my mistake and I was pretty much told by, Susan, the manager at the front desk, we are over booked and so we have to inconvenience you. I felt as though she didn't care one bit!

We planned on dinner for the group dinner at 730. We get seated, order wine from a local winery (the wine was spoiled tasted like vinegar), we ordered a different kind and it seemed to be ok, we then we order our meals, they come out pretty quick, however the mashed potatoes were instant and were not mixed properly they had lumps of instant powder throughout. We get our bills and see that the waitress charged us for the spoiled wine and had no intentions of removing it from the bill, we asked to see the manager, explained to her the situation and she did take it off of the bill, it is not as though we didn't drink we ordered a bunch of bottles of wine for the table, we head out to my uncles room to sit and catch up with everyone.

Finally we get back into our room to relax and shower when we noticed that the shower had not been cleaned and was filthy. I go to the front desk and explain to I think Nikki, or maybe Aleshia (I spoke to both ) she looked to see if there was some place else she could move us, she was unsuccessful. Although Nikki was very nice she never asked if we would like housekeeping to come to the room at the very moment and clean the room. She only asked if we minded staying where we were and move in the morning. We went downstairs to the front desk in the morning and asked if we could get the shower cleaned wile we waited to move rooms, they said they would send someone right up, 2 hours later no one came up and we wanted to shower we had been traveling the day before. Susan was back for the and didn't address us. Aleshia called Matt, he came and was a pleasant as could be and tried everything he could to give us the room that we originally ordered, however he could only give it to us for one night and then we would have to move to yet another room at this point we just wanted to take showers and grab some food (breakfast was good). At breakfast we decided that this place just wasn't worth the aggravation of having to move from room to room and went online and got a room at the Hampton Inn miles away for the next 2 nights of our stay. We would have left all together but they wanted to charge us for the room if we left so we spent the night and left in the morning. Since they were unable to accommodate on the final night Matt did agree to reimburse us for our lasts night stay!

I cannot express enough how helpful Matt, Nikki, and Aleshia were and yet at the same time how much Susan wouldn't help. Generally you lead by example and your staff is only is as good as the management, but thank goodness they did not follow in her footsteps.

It's a shame because the location is beautiful and we would have loved to have made this our yearly family vacation spot and add more family from the...

This is heart breaking for me to write and honestly in over 20 years in the wedding industry, I have NEVER written a poor review on a fellow vendor. But this I can't let go. I'm a coordinator and officiant. I was hired a year ago buy the couple for day of coordination. As a DOC I start reaching out to other vendors about a month prior. I introduce myself, I ask they give me insight on any details for the facility that I need, and to be aware of their policies to keep my clients within the guidelines. Closer to the wedding (about 2 weeks out), I reach out again to let them know who the other vendors are and when I will arrive and that I will share final timeline with them close to the date. About a week before I email my final timeline and ask they review it and get back to me with any comments, questions or concerns. I emailed, called and left messages, called the front desk who would transfer me to only get the voicemail of Christie the contract person for the weddings. She never returned any of my requests. I later found out she never returned and contacts from the bride, the bride's parents. It got to the point that the parents of the bride drove down 2 weeks prior and sat for over 2 hours outside her office waiting to speak to her, before a gentleman came along and intervened.

The banquet manager, I think her name was Freddie, I could be incorrect and apologize. Was so wonderful and easy to work with and checked in often to see if we needed anything and if things were running smoothly. She ran the reception without flaw.

From the housekeeper, life guard, bartenders and buffet staff the experience was great. They were all so friendly and great personalities.

I arrived the day before the wedding, check on was a little long but their were many guest checking in so it was understandable. The staff was amazing, Lisa at the front desk was an absolute wonderful person and employee. Huge shout out and kudos, you can tell she enjoys her job and knows it well. She goes above and beyond, as I dealt with her several times over the course of the weekend for various reasons. Each time she handled it with professionalism, friendly and quickly. She needs a raise!

All the stars are because of her and the quality of our room. I wish I could give a perfect score but I can not because of the treatment from Christie the wedding event manager. I've never dealt with someone who was so rude. I have done a lot of weddings, I've had since venue managers who were not so friendly or even nice, but not unprofessional.

You do not stand in front of another vendor or the bride and roll your eyes at their questions. You do not openly bad mouth or make comments about anyone within the party, especially when another vendor is within ear shot.

When needs that were prior arranged were not met and I had to go to her for these many things she was not only was unfriendly, unapproachable, she condescending but also rude. There is an "little something extra" advertised on their page, when I inquired about it I thought she was going come unhinged. Then tells me the Couple booked last year or wasn't offered then and it is for 2026, no where in there does it say that and that it doesn't apply to prior booked weddings. I screen shot it to prove it, she however informed me my couple will have to pay extra for the sandwiches and drinks to be delivered to their areas. Honestly if she worked for my company and treated guests that way she would no longer work for me. It isn't that they were asking for extras, they were asking for what they paid for, I was asking for information required to do my job.

I loved the venue but I'll be cautious about returning and dealing...