Wawona Hotel — Hotel in Oakhurst

My husband and I drove up from the valley to have dinner at the Big Trees Lodge (Wawona Hotel) restaurant. We arrived at 5:45 and were placed on a list, being told there was an approx. 1 hr. wait. We settled on to the porch, had some coffee and waited. After an hour our buzzer hadn't gone off so we check with the host who now said it would be "about 30 mins. more." What can we do? We have an hour invested in the wait and it's getting late so we waited. This process repeated again 30 mins. later and we were finally seated for dinner at 7:45. Now it was obvious to anyone present that one reason for the delay was the presence of a large wedding party and the lack of available wait staff. The waitresses working the waiting areas and porch appeared to be overwhelmed by the crowd (and the requests for service). One even chewed out a family on the porch for sitting at a table the manager had just opened saying, "if he opened it he can wait on you!" The manager (properly) apologized for the waitresses comment and comped the family's order after they complained. Now dinner at this place is usually very good - which is why we are willing to drive the 3 hours round trip - but this night was an exception. The trout was anemic and tasteless and rolls flat. After paying and while on the way out the manager filed in behind my husband and said, "I hope everything was wonderful." At this, my husband thought the timing was perfect from honest feedback, thinking the management of an establishment with the history of this one would be interested in positive patron experiences and the word of mouth reputation that comes from those (or lack of). My husband was calm as he suggested to the manger (Thomas Goodreau) that some training might be in order. For example: 1) schedule heavy when you have a wedding party coming in and have dedicated staff for that party. 2) have a list of folks you can call in if the working staff is being overwhelmed. 3) have your host get better at estimating time and give them the authority to offer drinks/appetizers to folks that are going to be delayed by at least double your time estimate. Don't want to offer the folks waiting any food or beverages then at least have the courtesy to contact them and let them know the estimate is being adjusted. It's a matter of courtesy. And unbelievably, as my husband was laying this out to the manager the host overheard him and started arguing that he (my husband) did understand how hard his job was. Really?? Wrong. Both of us have worked in food service and though it may be demanding, it's not that hard. A little good sense and a lot of effort go a long way to making the work more efficient and leaving the guests with the best possible impression. And neither of us would have started arguing with a customer that was talking to our boss - how in the world does anyone think that is okay? I don't usually complain on line, but in this case I hope our account will save those of you in the valley the painful experience of driving so far to...

We had a very bad experience at this place. I would like to take some time to write a clear review of our experience here so that others including the owner understand how we have been treated. We are a group of 4 people and we have booked this place for 1 night. The room description read that there will be 1-Queen bed, 1 -Single bed and 1-Air Mattress. We knew we would be arriving late, thus we called up and asked if we could check-in late or if there were any restrictions. We were told that the front desk will be available 24/7 and we could check-in whenever. On the night of our stay, we arrived at around 1:00am but only could sleep at 3:00am. We checked-in to the hotel room at the front desk. We could smell alcohol from the person who handed over the room key to us. However, he was polite and also told us about things that we can do around the hotel premises during our stay (in a little exaggerated way in-fact).

We noticed there was no air mattress provided in the room. So, we called up the front desk and asked for it. The same person (at the front desk) got an air mattress and left. When we tried to plug in the cord, we realized that there was no cap to close the mattress hose. The air was leaking and so, we called him again asking for another one. He initially said, there are none and then rudely said, we will have to sleep with the cord plugged in to the socket all night (Who the hell will sleep with the mattress cord plugged in?). He later got us another air mattress but no comforter to sleep. When I told him that we have reserved the room for 4 people and it is their responsibility to provide what is needed for 4 people to sleep in the room, At this point, he arrogantly replied saying, "you should have arrived earlier if you wanted all those. This is all you get now" and also sarcastically said, "How about I bring a whole new bed for you". That is when we knew nothing good was going to happen out of this conversation and asked him to leave us alone with whatever he got us. It took 2 whole hours for him to just leave us the air mattress with no comforter.

The next morning, when the lady at the front desk asked us about our stay, we let them know the whole story of the previous night and she offered us complementary breakfast. We agreed to take the breakfast but clearly told her nothing can compensate for what happened. This is absolutely not the way your guests should be treated. Firstly, we could clearly smell alcohol from him. Secondly, he was rude and sarcastic. For the money we paid for this room, what we got was just a nightmare!

Never ever staying or recommending this place to anybody!! This person who treated us this way has reminded us how mean bad...

We booked this hotel for 2 nights back in Feb of 2024 for our recent trip we just completed last week. We were CHARGED the customary 263.38 rate for the first night at the time of booking- it showed up on my Feb cc statement and was PAID for at the time.

Less than 24 hours before our trip, we received a notification that there would be no dining facilities or options at the hotel. As it turns out, it sounds like the government shut the dining facilities down. From what we heard it was because of a rodent infestation and health code violations. We are not sure when this happened, but given the proximity of the hotel to any decent food options other than frankenfood at the local general store and golf shop- had we been given more advance notice we would have booked different accommodations. We came across several angry customers who actually left the same day they checked in because of this issue- which they found out about only at check in. To be out all day and check in to the hotel with NO notice that there would be no food options was even worse- thus the anger at the poor management of this establishment.

My 1 star is not about the above- I understand things happen etc due to poor management and oversight at establishments (which hopefully they will correct by replacing those who are in the oversight positions).

What is irritating is that we did negotiate a credit for the 2 nights of 10% per night upon check-in that the hotel offered, authorized and assured us they would process, but a week later they still haven't. We had several follow up conversations during our stay after calling the credit card company to see if the credit was processed. The manager assured (argued with) us it would be processed and we'd see it when posting- they even showed us on their computer system the credit they were going to process on the day we checked out. Unfortunately we made the mistake of trusting the manager and foolishly didn’t insist on a paper print out of the final credit they promised. Presumably this was the managers plan all along - so we've had to dispute the charge with the credit card company and provided them with the initial documentation evidencing the daily credit the agreed to at check in that should have been applied to the final bill.

I guess I should have expected this is what they'd pull given the poor attitude of the manager when we bought this issue up. Classless at best, ...