Cacapon Resort State Park — Hotel in Paw Paw

Long honest review, with ups and downs. We came here for our wedding, rented out a cabin and the old inn, and venue. It was nice that they did catering and everything. For our small wedding it was perfect size. Plenty of places to take pictures. The lady we worked with to set everything up was wonderful. Went to eat for rehearsal dinner at the restaurant and was disappointed in the food, and instantly got worried about the catering. Day of is when things got fun.. they didn’t put any signs up so we had to make signs and put them on the door saying it was a private event going on and still had several hikers come in the building and just start walking around like it was open to the public. Like the wedding cake and full room of tables and chairs and decorations and people weren’t enough for them to realize that something was going on. That was disappointing and frustrating. But the catering crew killed it. It really came together. The two ladies working as servers were fantastic and on top of it the whole night. Hats off to them. The food was all fantastic and there was a ton of left overs. Full pans that never got brought in unfortunately.. we did a buffet style and I hope the trays of food didn’t go to waste that didn’t get touched. But it was all very good! Upside? They let us bring our own champagne, and kept it in the fridge for us so it would be cold for the toast. downside? I asked for two bartenders and only got one. I would have happily paid for two. Unfortunately, we got a school teacher that bartenders part time and wasn’t very experienced. He was rude to my grandmother when she asked if he could make a simple drink and didn’t know he didn’t have the stuff to make it. Couldn’t pour a beer without half foam. Keg was warm. Poured the champagne an hour early or more so it was all warm as well for the toasts. Drinks were weak, and I told them it was to be open bar, put all drinks on my tab. Bartender still made signs and put prices on it and had a cash bar which made no sense to me. Unfortunately, allot of this I found out about later in the evening after it had been happening for a while. My wife, the bride, asked him to make her something a little stronger and he blatantly ignored her and gave her another watered down beverage, then we hit our limit on bar and apparently turned people away or made them pay because I didn’t put it in writing to go to a different amount. If I’m already paying x amount of thousands of dollars to do this event here, why wouldn’t you just listen when I said put everyone’s drinks on my tab?? Turns out, we didn’t hit limit, they took the cost of the keg off the ballpark number I told them for open bar so we were still a few hundred away from what we originally spoke about. Rail drinks at 8-9$ a drink, I would expect there to be some alcohol in it. We asked for even Williams specifically to be there at the bar as that’s my wife’s drink of choice and when she asked for it, he said it was a different price drink and she had to pay for it. Overall, bartender and bar experience was terrible. Wonderful food, nice event, bar failed. Then it turned into a fiasco as I was trying to get the keys to the old inn before my wedding started and couldn’t, so I had to go there after taking pictures and they wouldn’t release them to me because they couldn’t find my contract and then needed my card to run it as they found I had reserved it but couldn’t find my card on file. So I had to run back, find my wallet and drive back over and pay for it and then go open the place up so we had a place to go when they shut down at 10. So I missed a good portion of my reception dealing with the staff that couldn’t get their stuff together. Old inn was nice. Very big with allot of bedrooms. Worked out well. Cathy was great to work with setting everything up and helping us plan it out, but getting the rest of the staff to get in gear on day of was very frustrating. If your going to stick a single bar tender in a wedding of 50 people, please make sure they have...

April 2019 - I was scheduled to conduct a training in one of the conference rooms and for an overnight stay at the resort lodge.

The resort is very quaint but if you have stayed at newer resorts, do not expect the same accommodations.

My training was scheduled after lunch so I got everything set up in the conference room and just as we are ready to start, I began experiencing problems with internet connectivity. This happens sometimes in rural areas so I am used to working around issues like this. What i couldn't work around was the construction that was going on for the renovations being done on the lodge. Construction workers began working on the wall just outside the conference room. The noise was unbearable. The staff is was training was unable to hear me. The resort staff was asked if they could speak to the construction crew and see if they could work on something else while we were meeting. They told us that they really had not control over the construction crew. So, training for that day was pretty much nonexistent.

We had dinner in the restaurant which was actually pretty good food. They have a nice selection of dishes and the service was awesome.

Rooms at the lodge are something that I wasn't expecting. Having stayed at Stonewall Jackson Resort multiple times, I had an image of rustic luxury in my mind. When checking in, I was given my keys. Yes, I said keys, just like back in the good old days. This actually didn't bother me since there is no doubt that a key will work when you get to the room. When i open the door to the room I felt as though I had stepped back in time. As you can see from the photos the rooms are a bit dated and small which would have been standard for the period the resort was built. The problem was that there was no working air conditioning which made for a stuffy night. I was offered a box fan to place in the window.

I believe I heard the front desk tell some other visitors that they are adding 79 rooms when the renovations are completed. I'm sure those rooms will be a major upgrade to the current rooms.

The thing that puzzles me about all of this is why management would even offer there conference rooms as an option while construction is underway. The rooms are ok if you want a golfing excursion and need a place to sleep but it is not appropriate for meetings until the construction has been completed.

Staff at the lodge were very nice and tried to be accommodating but lacked the authority to make it happen.

I apologize in advance for this review since it doesn't shine favorably on one of our state parks in West Virginia but I have to be honest in my experiences. I do expect the resort to improve after the renovations but until that happens, plan your business...

Booked reservations for a 2 night stay. Checked in and immediately after swiping my card and signing papers the front desk notified me that the pool was out of order and I would not have access to it. I thought that was terrible timing. I think that should've been made known upon booking the reservation in general, and especially before I paid the remaining balance of the reservation fee. I was even more disappointed because that was one of the bigger reasons we chose this specific resort to stay. I booked for a special occasion and was extremely disappointed upon arrival. Went up to the room after passing an out of order ice machine + vending machine that was also missing quite a bit of stock. Upon opening the door to the room, I see my "mountain view" it was the back of the resort roofing. The room was extremely small, which I felt like was not accurately described through pictures and general description. There were also large crumbs all along the edge of the bed on the floor. After about 30 minutes max being in the room I asked if I could cancel my check in and the lady at the front desk stated the manager would reach out to me to negotiate my reimbursement. Now I know what was agreed upon etc etc but I do feel like my reimbursement was unfair, a 20% discount on my next stay was all I was offered. Considering I don't think I would like to stay there after everything that transpired that day. With as much as I paid and all circumstances given I would suggest you just take your money elsewhere. I wouldn't recommend staying at the resort at all. I basically threw away $300, with nothing to show for & I feel as if management could have been more professional and customer...