Cragun's Resort, Golf & Conference — Hotel in East Gull Lake

We spent 4 nights, 5 days at Craguns which without a doubt has an amazing spot at the lake. Its views are breathtaking, and during our time, also a great area to just relax. But the place has some serious problems that go from infrastructure to their personal.

The main lobby area is dreadful, it is dark, beyond outdated, and it has an awful smell of (old) moisture. Their signs (or lack of them) are also old and confusing. During check in, the front desk lady did not seem to know anything about the activities for the weekend that according to their website are scheduled each weekend. Either she did not know or she did not wanted to tell us that there was none, she simply refer us to call the next morning and ask. The excuse, "It is because we are changing stuff." but that seems to be the cover for any issues.

We stayed at a cabin, again, beautiful view of the lake but that was about it. The outdated theme extended to the cabin. The floor was like a roller-coaster, up and down. It had a nice size kitchen but with dirty (or stained from previous non cleaning) warmers. The kitchen had silverware, plates, etc. The floor heaters were very rusty, and the air conditioning units (2 in our cabin) seem like it needed some cleaning. The leather love seat in the living room area had some weird stains that were obvious body fluids (YES, beyond disgusting). There were 3 TVs (one in each bedroom and one in the living room); The bedroom TVs looked right in place: outdated, old, and in serious need of an update. The cabin had a lot to be desired considering what we paid. A cover for a street lamp was flapping in the air with the constant wind, we reported it twice and nothing was done and that was an obvious hazard due to the wind.

Going back to the main building (lobby), we decided to check it out because of the pool. We had seen photos online of the pool area which looked really nice, and I noticed something, the pool area could be fun depending how crowded it is. There is a reason the resort's page only shows a couple of people in the pool, it is on the small size not as big as the photos make it look. If you are going during a busy season thinking of the pool, I would think a bit more. Also, bring your own pool towels. They do have towels available but also a big sign that says you cannot take the towel out of the pool area which means that if you are in one of the cabins and have to walk a good distance you won't be able to have the towel with you. The path to get to the pool is scary, and those are the words of our toddler who after the tour did not care to go back. It is a dark, moisture smelling ramp which if you follow will be met by a door and the pure smell of chlorine (and that is before opening the door to the pool area). In the pool area there is a cafe/restaurant, and at the other side of it there is a corner which is their outdated arcade. The sitting area outside is beautiful because once again it has the amazing lake view but that is about it. The path to get to the pool is scary, and those are the words of our toddler who after the tour did not care to go back. It is a dark, moisture smelling ramp which if you follow will be met by a door and the pure smell of chlorine (and that is before opening the door to the pool area). In the pool area there is a cafe/restaurant, and at the other side of it there is a corner which is their outdated arcade. The sitting area outside is beautiful because once again it has the amazing lake view but that is about it.

The staff: The security guy (yes, it seems to be only 1) is rarely at the post as he is patrolling the whole resort which include the golf course area. The front desk never knows anything but it might be their, "I'm sorry, I don't know" game in order to avoid saying, "No." No one delivers get groceries on your way there. There is much more I could say about this place but Google has a limit of characters that prevent me from it. 2 stars for their view, 0-1...

The resort seemed to do everything halfway, it leaves you unfulfilled. Why stay here when there are so many other options.

We visited over New Years, 12/29 - 1/1, there were four adults and two kids, ages 9 and 13. We stayed in a cabin at the resort. Check-in is at 5:00 pm, we didn't get our room until after 5:45 pm. Mind you, check out is at 11:00 am.

The cabin was good, it accommodated our whole family and grandparents. It was warm and had a kitchen, this is vital, as there are very few food options. The only place to get food after breakfast is in the pool area. You can order at the bar, but it will be cold when you get it because it came from the pool. Breakfast is a buffet and is just a bit better than a chain hotel continental breakfast. If you stay here in the winter get a cabin with a kitchen and load up on groceries, or you'll be driving into Baxter every night.

It seemed as if the resort was understaffed and the staff that was working were being overworked. It was understandable why the staff wasn't very friendly they were doing odd jobs all over the resort throughout the day and into the night.

While there it snowed, this caused most of the activities to be canceled. The dog sledding, the horse trolley, the zoo animal visit. While it's frustrating, I can understand if vendors can't make it. That being said, why couldn't they still have hot chocolate and marshmallows or the other activities associated with the canceled activities? The curling was literally a guy dropping off metal balls with duct-taped handles and a hockey puck. They advertise a sledding hill with free sleds, this is a bit of an exaggeration, there is a hill, littered with beer cans, and broken pieces of plastic as sleds. No chance of snowmobiling as they are booked solid prior to arrival. There are only a few ice fishing huts available to rent, we were able to get a four-hole for four hours, we caught 2 good sized northern. If you want to nordic ski you have to rummage through a shed to find skis, then walk over a half-mile on the road, cross over into Maddens, and it's $10 per person, per hour. The giant skate rink is actually very small and not kept, I never once saw staff clearing the snow or slush off the ice, resulting in terrible ice conditions, the ice was not safe for skating. I actually never saw any staff outside cleaning or maintaining anything, the grounds were dirty, soda and beer cans littered the property.

We traveled from out of state to visit family, we made the most out of the visit, primarily due to enjoying time with each other. It met our needs for having a home base to spend time with family we don't see often. If we would have visited just myself, wife and kids, we would have left after the first day and found somewhere else that had snowmobiling, adequate ice for playing, and better...

2.5 stars. We recently stayed 3 nights in cabin 652, so a beachside cabin. As promised it was just steps from the beach and it was a gorgeous view. However the pictures were extremely deceiving. On the website it was a bright, more modern cabin. Kitchen had plenty of counter and cabinet space. The actual cabin itself was very dark and outdated. The “full kitchen” didn’t have a dishwasher or even a sink stopper to soak the dishes in (sorry housekeeping..) nor did it have paper towels or any cabinet space to store your food or related items (unlike the picture), and only one very small bit of counter. Also lacking were the obvious coffee filters for the pot. On a plus side, the bedding and beds were comfortable and tvs were updated. The bathroom was extremely small and had mold/mildew in the bath tub caulking. The owner shouldn’t find this acceptable..? I’m not looking for a jacuzzi tub but we want to feel it’s clean and sanitary.

Our toddlers loved the little playground and the build a buddy event. The resort does offer a lot of activities (many for a cost) and we liked that about it. The free kayaks were a plus. The outdoor pool was fine, and there was a little bar/food stand but it had extremely limited hours of 11-3. There was a disappointed group gathered one morning hoping for some breakfast. The toddler pool however was unusable as it was obviously not at all heated and was COLD. The only person I saw in it was a grown man trying to teach his teenage son about “mind over matter”(should tell you something?). We were very excited to find a resort that had a small pool sign for toddler so it was quite disappointing that we couldn’t use it. Another big damper on the trip was the amount of flies. I understand this isn’t entirely the resorts fault but there absolutely is more fly prevention or treatment that could be done. It made it impossible to enjoy a meal, not just outside but even inside. We were swatting dozens a day and it seemed like twice as many would come in the cabin. I’ve never seen anything this bad and we’ve stayed at many resorts over the years. All in all, we’d like to come back and we want to love craguns But for the price point of almost $500 a night, we thought that was much too overpriced. I think we’d have to have some kind of an additional discount or make sure that the room would be more updated and that the toddler pool will be working before we considered...