River Lodge — Hotel in Island Park

I wouldn't stay here again with my family. I'd pay extra to stay in West Yellowstone to avoid the long drive, ensure access to WiFi and hot water. But, if you're a family that enjoys typical amenities of a hotel, this is not the place for you. The staff did take good care of us, but no amount of attentiveness from the staff can make up for some of these issues.

However, if I was on a fishing trip with my buddies, then I wouldn't mind at all.

Good: Staff: They did a very good job, and responded promptly to all of our requests.

Beds: The best part about the room. Very comfortable and put us all promptly to sleep after long days of touring Yellowstone.

Aesthetic: The location looks great and gives you a strong rustic feel while also having some nice attention paid to décor. The view of the river at sunrise/sunset is fantastic.

Bad: Location: Not terrible, but still 45 mins to 1 hour away from the West Yellowstone entrance. Plan ahead.

WiFi: Horrible. It's 2019, and at this price point, the WiFi should work. The only time I was able to gain access was either at 5 am before everyone was trying to get on, and even then it was too slow to even plan the next steps of our road trip.

Breakfast: Advertises 'free' breakfast. Well it's free, but it's just a basket of cheap danishes that you can buy at Sam's or Costco for 50 cents a piece and lack luster coffee.

Showers: Take your showers early in the morning 5 am, or early after noon before 5 pm, if you want to ensure you have hot water.

Noise: It's an old cabin and every step echoes throughout the entire building. We stayed on the 2nd floor and I felt terrible for the people below me and my two young children. I would even tip toe around the room, but it would still make all...

Our room was supposed to have a stove. Our reservation was made specifically because the room had a stove MONTHS in advance at significant cost for a family vacation. We called a week before our stay was scheduled to confirm that the room had a stove. We were told it did. When we arrived, the stove was missing. They had no other room available. During our 5 day stay, we asked EVERY day to speak to a manager about getting a stove or another way to make this right. We were finally able to speak to a manager as we were checking out. He agreed to refund our deposit of $323, which they did the following day on my credit card. A week later they charged the $323 back to my credit card again! After multiple calls over many months, I keep getting the run around and they still haven't made it right. This place is a joke. In addition to this hassle, the room had a number of issues, including a lack of hot water at various times (or the water would go from freezing to scalding), the shower head was about 4 feet high, and there were a number of likely building code violations, including insufficient support for the deck on the second floor (deck boards bowed significantly when walked on), romex wiring stapled to the walls and ceiling, etc....

It was a nice stay. The cabin is very pretty, a bit snug but that may be because we chose a 2 bed cabin (not sure if there are single bed cabins here but that would've been a bit spacious considering all cabins are the same size). We arrived around 11.30 PM so it would've helped if the River Lodge sign was lit, easier to see it from the road. You need to devise a way for only the assigned guest to enter the cabin and not just leave it open for anyone else to be able to enter. We were assigned cabin 30. It was very annoying to find that someone else had already taken up cabin 30 when we arrived, after a long 4+ hrs drive from SLC, that too at 11.30 PM. Then we had to find an available cabin ourselves, which was cabin 31. Even though we informed the hosts that we're taking up cabin 31 we still had someone knock on the door the next night saying they were assigned cabin 31. All this confusion can be avoided if you just install a lockbox or something and give the code to the guest for the assigned cabin. Also note that this place is not all that close to the National Park as it may initially seem. After a long tiring day of hiking, sight seeing in the park the drive back to this lodge does...