Far View Lodge — Hotel in Cortez

Aramark, you are failing the National Park Service, you are failing us as your customer, and you are failing every family who travels from near and far with a poor representation of what a United States National Park is, or should be.

Remember, you are paying for the location at Far View Lodge, plain and simple. The rooms have several great benefits, the location is first and foremost. New HVAC units in each room are excellent. Fresh paint on the exterior and new patio porches are clean and relaxing. Being greeted by the local horses, deer, rabbits, and chipmunks adds to your outdoor time around the lodge.

We were assigned room 167, a dog-friendly room "with a view." Let's start with the basics. The majority of the rooms with a view do not have a clear view of the park, only the "luxury" rooms have an unobstructed view, the other rooms will have shrubs and trees blocking your view either partially or completely.

The Aramark WiFi at the check-in lodge does not work. Yes, there is a WiFi signal, but we could not get an actual internet connection to send our family a message when we arrived. Thankfully, the NPS provides an actual WiFi internet connection when you explore the museum. You will also receive random AT&T cellphone service throughout the park, do not rely on the WiFi connection at the Far View Lodge.

Now to Aramark provided services. Starting with check-in, Ms. Linda, one person was responsible for greeting guests and getting the room assignments handed out. We were second in a line of at least eight to 11 families trying to check-in. She was overwhelmed with the problems most families experienced between the reservation expectations and the room assignment.

In the Far View Lodge there is a dinner menu, good for some families. But, the fitness center, entertainment room, and business center are each poor, dilapidated, and broken. Now to the smell, human urine is the smell in the basement of the Lodge check-in building.

Our room, again room 167, was so disappointing. From the moment we turned the door handle, and opened the door, we immediately realized the room was not clean and broken.

There was a layer of dust and dirt throughout the entire room on all of the flat surfaces. Countertops, lights, the floor, and nightstands, pick a surface and it was not clean.

Move on to the bedding, absolutely disgusting. Blood, female hair, yellow bodily sweat stains on the flat and fitted sheets, a used bandage between the sheets, and outdoor foliage where another couple put their dirty feet to rest at night. No, our bed sheets were not changed between customers, someone at Aramark decided to make the bed because it looked clean versus changing the linens. Look beyond the lack of quality control and you will find bedding that is passed down from other Aramark sites. Transparent cotton, holes, and queen sized mattress protectors on a king bed are three examples of what we found. When it came time to replace the sheets we had to change the linens because the house-keeping team was not available to change our linens, we also walked back to the Lodge to drop off the used sheet set and pickup a new complete set of sheets, cases, and bathroom linens.

Within the room the maintenance repairs needed by Aramark included and reported: Our window shade was wedged between the frame opening and not mounted/unusuable. The kitchen faucet drips continuously, the handles hit the backsplash. The backsplash needs to be caulked. The toilet does not flush properly. The exhaust fan in the bathroom does not work, which has allowed black mold to grow on the bathroom walls near the shower. We did not have outdoor chairs on the patio, the indoor chairs had broken wicker. The bath towels are frayed, something this simple should not be put our for guests to use. Safety issue, the landline phone does not work, how are you supposed to report an emergency, remember there is not cellphone service.

NPS, please consider revoking the Aramark contract if they do not fix their...

I arrive at 2 PM at the far view lodge in mesa verde and I find two women at the front desk : I ask if I can get my room now because my wife is a little bit sick: The older woman answers that the check in time is 4 o’clock and I have to come back at 4 o’clock and there will be no exceptions. She is not friendly at all and looks almost agressive like if my asking is beyond reasonable. Because of her tone I tell her that the check out time is 11 so there should be some rooms ready, but she said it’s like this. so I tell her that last year I was in Vietnam and I got my room at 9 o’clock in the morning coming from the airport and it’s pretty normal in Asia to get the room just when your plane lands and also in Europe checkout time is 12 and check in time is three but usually you can get your room a little bit earlier So she says in an angry tone that I’m disrespectful to her country and raises her voice : I answer back that I’m just mentioning how it works in other places and she gets even more infuriated She tells me “ we helped France and Vietnam and they yet did not pay us back. They still owe us the money we spent for them.” I believe she mentions the second world war for me because I’m French and I don’t want to talk about the independence war and the French and Lafayette helping the USA and the battle of Yorktown… because I believe this has nothing to do with the topic of getting my room a little bit earlier. But it shows how she considers foreigners : I do not want to escalate things and I decide to leave When I am outside I decide to put the lodge WiFi on and I hear all her negative comments on me and my country and she really makes fun of me with another employee … we come back at 4:30 and she’s gone and it’s a guy named Josh who gives me my room with a nice view I hope because I booked the deluxe view room I Ask him if the view is really going to be nice and he says yeah you’ll get a nice view , you are lucky I read some comments of previous guests and that’s why I am a little concerned … My view is terrible : view on the parking lot and the other rooms of the hotel even though the advertisement says it should be unobstructed for hundreds of miles The room is so small you hear the neighbors and the bed is hard, the pillow even worse: this room is just terrible. A nightmare / also poorly maintained with the coffee machine still with a used coffee pod inside I go back to have my dinner and I tell him about the view and he says it is like this because we’re renovating most rooms he cannot do anything about it : you should have booked two years in advance if you wanted a nice view because we have very few rooms with a nice view . A few minutes later he comes back to me and says : oh you don’t have the deluxe view. You have the normal view because you booked with national Park services and they must have sent you a mail to tell you you cannot get this kind of room because we are renovating them. I always check my mailbox and the spasms also and actually I never got a mail from them and I know he’s lying : maybe I got downgraded by the previous woman ? Then I go to the restaurant and the waitress is Samantha. Slow service and she asks me at the end of dinner if she can add the tip on my bill and I tell her no no no I will add it myself and she still brings me the bill with 18% on top of it : Which I decline mentioning that I wanted to add the tip myself : she blames it on the language barrier which is funny because I have a masters degree from an American university at a postdoctoral medical level. So my experience with this lodge is really terrible because the room was ugly and uncomfortable and the staff very unpleasant to say the least especially the woman that greeted me at 2pm: There is only one lodge inside the park so they clearly take advantage of this situation because there is no possibility to stay elsewhere And I apologize for my country not paying...

Believe the negative reviews. Half the rooms at the Far View Lodge in Mesa Verde NP are shuttered and condemned. All the facilities run by Aramark, the private concessionaire are dirty, unkempt, and neglected. Maybe one third of the staff great and the other two thirds rude and disrespectful or totally disinterested in their jobs. We stayed 2 nights although we had originally planned on 3 nights. I went downstairs in the lodge main building on the 2nd day to use the microwave to reheat dinner leftovers for lunch. Dirty, unkempt “game room” with warning signs not to use doors due to construction. Filthy bathrooms in main building on lower level with overflowing trash cans. Chipped ceilings and wall paint in our room. Dirty floors. Not at all like the photos. Room 138. On the positive side our room had a great view and fairly new windows with screens in very good condition. We were able to unplug the ac unit from the wall (even when not turned on it made a buzzing noise). We opened the large sliding windows and it was lovely to have fresh air. Quiet location. Beautiful sunrise view. The room stayed reasonably cool throughout our time there in mid-July. However, the unpainted and recently repaired wood framing around the balcony door made it difficult to open and close. Very small shower and bathroom. Sink with a faucet that was not aligned properly and gushed water over the bowl on to the floor when turned on with any pressure. Two dinners and two breakfasts at the Far View Lodge and the Far View Terrace cafe. Food was acceptable but not great. Good lattes at the cafe, a short distance away from the lodge building. So sad to see corporate USA cost cutting at work in what was once probably a beautiful facility. Bring as much of your own food as you can or camp at the campground. ||However, having said all this, the location of Far View Lodge is stupendous. The campground is located closer to the park entrance and the lodge is 11 miles further into the park and conveniently located to the important sites, museum, and trails. Our room was the least expensive room we’ve ever experienced within a national park but you get what you pay for. We enjoyed seeing the wildlife (deer and birds) and several wild horses roaming near the lodge. One evening we drove to the campground for a performance by indigenous people from a Pueblo near Albuquerque so be sure to check out what is happening in the evenings at the campground amphitheater. The performance and setting was amazing. ||To recap, Far View Lodge is located in a great location. Convenient to visit the cliff dwellings, museum, trails, and the cafe for catching a tour. Just in bad condition and some staff members are fantastic and others (like the woman who checked us in), treat you rudely. ||700 Year Tour was fantastic with a man from Texas as the guide. Highly recommend this tour. Sign up ahead of time. Well worth the price. Tour guide was great and so was the van driver. Can’t remember his name. Go in the morning because it’s cool and pleasant. The tour ends at Cliff Palace with a guided tour by a park ranger. In the morning you are in the shade. My husband opted to watch from the overlook because the Cliff Palace guided tour involves some narrow steep steps and ladders. I’m afraid of heights but it wasn’t scary or too strenuous but again, go in the morning. Gets really hot at Mesa Verde by afternoon.||As always the National Park Rangers were amazing. Smart, helpful, courteous, etc.||Aramark should be fired. It was so sad to see a National Park lodge in such a terrible run...