Whitefish Lodge & Suites — Hotel in Crosslake

My wife and I decided to stay at Whitefish Lodge & Suites for our honeymoon. Rarely do I go out of my way to write reviews about places. But this place really caught me off guard.

We purchased the Chiefs Suite, thinking to spend a bit more and get "The nice room" for our special occasion. The view was, quite literally, the parking lot, and the road. The window was right on top of the drop off parking ramp area, where we were frequently woken up at crazy hours of the night with people hooting and hollering, or in one case, a DJ throwing equipment into his trailer like some all pro quarterback, totally inconsiderate of the noise he was making, while yelling to his partner.

They claim that they have free WiFi. The suite that we were in was basically in the middle of the building, about 50 linear feet from the front desk. We couldn't retain a signal for the life of us while trying to watch some TV online at night. We gave up after being cut off every 5 minutes consistently for an hour. I also play clash of clans, and was disconnected in about the same time intervals. This is truly some of the worst WiFi I've ever experienced.

Amenities: They offer a pool, hot tub, bonfire area(never used) and, (specifically in our room)a Jacuzzi. The pool and hot tub are definitely one of the "Pro's" of this place, the pool temp was really nice, and generally the pool was not very busy. The hot tub, while it may have had an unintended mini sandbox at the bottom, was still very nice. The Jacuzzi, on the other hand, was incredibly small, fit well for 1 person, and another set of legs. 2 people was very cumbersome. My wife and I are not big people what so ever. I'm 6'2" and 170, my wife is 5'6" and skinny, and it was like playing the game of Twister in this thing, not to mention the mess of limbs and gymnastics required to getting in and out.

Within walking distance:

There's a super delicious sandwich shop named Rafferty's maybe 100 yards away across the street. Is it fair to say the best part of this whole stay was another business? This place is so good! Down a little was a chocolate shop, a hair expensive, but good. And a few other momento, and clothing shops.

All in all:

We got a "deal". Buy one package, get another half off.

The package: 2 day "romantic package" for somewhere around $430, the whole bill with the half off came to $650.

$650 was outrageously priced for what they offered. What ended up being a 5 day stay for my wife and my honeymoon was very nice..... because we ended up almost never being here..

I'm hard pressed to even give Whitefish a 2 star rating. Only because I feel, they actually could accomplish being worse, are they getting a 2 star rating.

Very...

Response Update: the response from the hotel to this review has errors. I did not book a room in 2023. I booked a room in 2024, and when it did not snow in Minnesota that year, I called to cancel the room. I was told that I could not get my deposit back but could move the date, so I did that for the following year (2025). Unfortunately, Crosslake did not have sufficient snowmobile-able snow in the area for that weekend and our club's trip coordinator needed to move the trip to a new location in Minnesota that had snow. I was hoping to move our reservation date out a few weeks, or even next year, when there would potentially be more snow in the area, but was told that I could not do that.

The club takes two trips a year and we've never had a hotel or resort not be accommodating because of snow conditions. The trails are legally open December 1, however you do need snow to ride. Not sure why the hotel thought to mention there's plenty of ice, we're not coming to fish. Since the hotel was running a Valentine's special, I don't feel that they needed to turn anyone away since they were still trying to fill up rooms. It's unfortunate that there isn't rideable snow, but as a club we need to plan a ride for our members and wanted to give other clubs and snowmobilers a heads up about the cancellation policy of this hotel.

Original post: Our snowmobile club reserved rooms here for a trip, however with no snow in Crosslake, we needed to move the location to a place with snow. Heads up to snowmobilers, they do not return your $82 deposit if you need to cancel, and they would not let us reschedule to another weekend. Our club normally reserves 30ish+ rooms and I found it strange that they were not willing to work with us. We will not be using this establishment...

Very, very disappointed in the customer service and professionalism upon checkout. We were staying for the St Patty’s Day town parade. When we checked in we were advised to reserve again for next year’s celebration weekend at the time we checked out if we wanted to be guaranteed a room. They would not let us rebook at the time of check in. We had to wait until check out. We were told that we would get first dibs at our reservation before it was opened up to everyone else. However, when we went to check out the story changed. We asked to reserve for next year and Kendra, the assistant manager, told us the rooms were all already booked. She was incredibly rude and disrespectful about it. When we asked why this happened she stated “many people were coming in asking about reservations so we just booked them yesterday.” When we explained that we were told we could rebook at this time she said “Well, that’s too bad. You should have come earlier.” She proceeded to tell me they allowed other guest who had come earlier to book 5 and more rooms at a time for next year. I told her that was very unfair and unprofessional. She looked at me, pointed to the door and said “you can leave now.” I have never been treated so poorly as a customer. I had just spent over $500 to stay there for a weekend and felt very unappreciated. Never once did we get any sort of apology for their mess up. I understand that is a busy weekend for their business, but I will certainly not recommend staying there that weekend or any other time of the year. Customers should be treated with respect. The rooms were decent and the rest of the staff was friendly, however none of that can outweigh being treated this extremely...