The Suites of Lava Hot Springs — Hotel in Lava Hot Springs

Upon walking into our room the first thing we noticed was the smell. Like cigarettes, musky and old. I moved into the kitchen and noticed the coffee pot still had old coffee and grounds in it. Just past the coffee pot under the kitchen window was a big strip of black mold. I took a tissue and gave it a wipe, a thick glob of it wiped off like butter. Also there were no amenities or touches in the room. No welcome book, or info about Lava or anything. I would maybe think that's because of the pandemic, but this place didn't care about the pandemic. There's no hand sanitizer in your room, no masks being worn, no linens in plastic bags or anything. Theres a plastic partition at the front desk, but they don't stay behind that thing. This was our first impression of the place. It got worse.||||We opened the windows to combat the smell. The way you heat the room is a large wall heater in the living room that sounds like a small train. We had to shout playing board games. Also making board games difficult was the fact the main light in the living room was out. So why didn't we ask to have the light bulb changed? ||||The first morning my wife and son went to the front desk for another blanket. We were in room 9 which has a king bed and pull out sofa bed. My wife wouldn't sleep under the comforter in our room, it was old, had some holes in it. I just think with everything overall it was hard for her to trust it's cleanliness. Those things are hard to wash and we couldn't be sure. There is a ton of closet space in the room. They're pretty much bare except for storage items, old pictures, heaters, a vacuum, some extra rubbish. There was one thin blanket, very old that my son used that first night. Since we had windows cracked to combat the smell he was cold. My wife and son asked for an extra blanket and felt uncomfortable. The staff at the front desk gave them a full 21 questions. Did they see the one blanket they left in the room? Did they know where the heater was? When the housekeeper delivered it she wasn't wearing a mask or gloves, the blanket was just rolled up in her arms. We saw her cleaning rooms the entire weekend in this manner. Lava doesn't believe in masks or anything, there's signs on the restaurants there about no mask protocols and if you have a problem with that, kick rocks. But even without a pandemic the housekeeper's cleanliness was suspect. I witnessed her go right from cleaning rooms to delivering a blanket, no gloves, mask, the blanket wasn't in anything. And the blanket was gross, old, scratchy. We drove to Pocatello and bought my son some acceptable blankets. So when the light bulb didn't work we didn't ask to get it changed. We didn't want them in our room, and dealing with the staff wasn't great. They weren't rude but it was just awkward. I asked for clean towels once and didn't get questioned. But when my son answered the door for them he got the questions again. Me being a grown man maybe saved me from questioning, but I would rather be questioned then come back from loading the car to hear my family say they're uncomfortable. "These aren't pool towels you know that right?" "Are you using them in the pool?" No we brought our own towels for the pool, but you only gave us 4 towels and the three of us are staying for 3 nights!||||On Friday night I awoke to drunk shouts in the hall. No one's at the desk at night and the place is next to a bar. You can hear the bar at night, but these people were right outside our door. A guy named Jessie yelling about assaulting people. My son was sleeping in the living room. I sat in the chair between his bed and the door in case some random drunk guy burst through the door. I stayed up until about 3:00am when it was finally quiet. Super fun. The next morning police came and threw Jessie out. Not the hotel's fault, but not fun for us. We got a "sorry for the drama" on the way out, but I would have liked to see some sort of gesture. We were staying for 3 days, maybe half off that night, or a $25 gift certificate to dinner, tickets to the hot pools, something that just showed they cared. I told them and the police officer I was awake the whole night and my family was scared. They had plenty of time to make some sort of gesture. "Sorry for the drama" was all I got.||||We got back to Boise Sunday, I got a COVID test Monday, I'm now COVID positive and quarantined in my office writing this. There is no way for me to know where I got it, it could've been anywhere in Lava, that place does not care at all about the pandemic. We shouldn't have gone at all, I assumed it would be quiet and the pools would have some measures in place, I thought it would be like McCall that has put in tremendous effort this year to keep visitors safe. We stay in Hotel McCall, another old, quirky hotel. I love old and quirky, it's why I chose this place. But old doesn't mean dirty. Quirky doesn't mean unsafe. Charming doesn't mean uncomfortable. Visit at your own peril. I attached photos, see...

Do not stay here unless you plan on staying up as late as the bar next door is open. My wife and I ended up driving back home to Salt Lake City, Utah after Midnight. The hotel shares a wall with a bar that does not abide by the same strict noise ordinance the hotel claims to have. My wife and I have visited Lava for years and this year we went alone without kids, so we figured we would try a different place from where we have stayed in years past. We should have read the reviews first, we experienced the same issue many others before us did last night. We called the phone number in the hotel courtesy book and spoke with a lady who said WE should call the bar owner and please ask them to turn the music down, and if that didn't work we should call the sheriff. We asked why we should be the ones calling? She said that they would take the complaint more serious if we called, because we are guests and they would take the complaint more serious. The lady spouted off the phone numbers and names of the contact people as though this is a common occurrence. We did not feel comfortable calling the bar owner, so we called the sheriff and he asked if we wanted to file a formal complaint, we said no we would only like to have the music turned down so that we could enjoy a good nights sleep in our "NO PARTYING HOTEL". After about an hour of nothing changing we called the owner/manager again and asked for a refund because we had decided to drive back home, she said that they were en-route and would be there in 3 minutes to talk to the bar owner and try to get this problem resolved and they would contact us to report on the problem. After about 40 minutes and no phone call back we finally opened the door to see if anybody from the hotel was around, we noticed a couple sitting on the stairs in the hallway. We asked if they were the ones we spoke to on the phone, they said yes then the man began to tell us how this noise level is considered street level noise and there is nothing wrong with it, he seemed irritated that he had to even be there dealing with such a problem. I'm sorry did we keep you from your sleep? We asked if we could get a refund because we were leaving, they said no but if we wanted to write a letter to the bar owner to see if they would reimburse our expenses we could, but not to put any of this on the hotels website, because it was not their fault. The thing I find interesting is how the hotel makes it a point that this is not a partying hotel and guests will be asked to leave without refund if they can't abide by the rules, however they don't seem to care if their guests can't sleep because of the noise levels coming from the bar. No refund, No discount, No Apology. If you plan on staying here keep in mind that you may have to deal with "street level noise...

I guess we will start with the positives. These suites are within walking distance of everything there is to do in Lava. It is right next to the museum, and only a couple blocks from the hot springs. Although some guests complained of noise from the bar and train, we didn’t hear much noise from either of those. It is nice to have a full size kitchen in the room.

As soon as we arrived, the front desk clerk was not welcoming at all, she gave us the keys and we headed to our room (the family suite). At first glance, the apartment was very cute. Some of the blinds were broken. There is only one window A/C in the living room area, the other 2 rooms don’t have any air flow. Our party of 4 ended up sleeping in the living room all together because of how hot it was in the rooms. They do have ceiling fans, but in the heat of summer we were burning up. They do not have any maid service, which is very frustrating because we paid so much for the room. The walls had holes all over, and the pull out beds had dirty sheets. You could hear everything, from someone stepping on the ground to moving luggage. Not sound proof at all! The TV in the room is the size of a computer monitor. The WiFi they provide is very slow. The beds felt like you were sleeping in a canoe, not comfortable at all! The whole hotel room smelt like urine from the moment we walked in.

The front desk clerk is only there certain times during the day, but they leave the front and back doors open 24/7. They are very strict with their rules and require you to take out your own garbage. I have never been to a hotel that has guests adhere to so many rules.

Very disappointed for the price we paid for the room. I understand it is an older hotel, and I usually never write negative reviews. We will not be staying here next...