The Highlands — Hotel in Pleasantview Township

2.5 stars for resort (and -1 for fee) but 5 Stars for Suite rebuilt/renovated in 2021. Boyne Highlands Resort main lodge building offers hotel rooms and suites, we stayed in full suite # 305 facing (well, when looking over and beyond construction equipment storage area just below) a great view of and beyond the 18th hole. From all points of building entry towards this partially renovated wing's newly finished rooms, hallways are torn up for construction that fortunately halts for weekends. Still, it's a shambles, in fact somewhat laughable -- or it would be, but for the 10% "resort fee" adding insult to injury. Honestly, the most offensive part of my stay is getting charged this penalty fee during a time when the resort is both torn up and remains at least 30+ years out-of-date. First off, wi-fi should be free at any luxury priced stay anywhere in the developed world, so no value there. The resort fee's purported other amenities could not be more irrelevant to a middle-aged couple experiencing the local towns via bicycles and enjoying a romantic luxury suite stay, as if we're really interested in smores at 6 and the Jumanji showing at 9. EXCEPT for the suite/renovated rooms themselves, then, the main lodge hotel building proper is a dated anachronism greatly limited by its public spaces and on site restaurants. Expect little modernity or luxury beyond the confines of your 2021 hotel room/suite environment. Laugh at the 40+ year old unconvincing execution of faux Swiss chalet atmosphere that age only makes worse. Back when, someone incorporated key design elements of pressed concrete stair steps and green tinted concrete exterior sidewalks. You'll step back to a time best forgotten when entering the dark and tired Slopeside restaurant (there's neither room service nor dinner in the main dining hall this season, at least, so you'll walk down and carry dinner upstairs as desired). The pool entry is flanked on one side by associated tiny changing rooms last updated over 30 years ago and on the other by public laundry machines. But, why bother with the pool unless you enjoy water dirtied by kiddies wearing trainers since their section is merely gated off from the overall too-small-for-this-crowd pool, not its own separate contained water. CAPacity appears limited to those hotel rooms/suites completed during 2021 as construction continues, but other nearby buildings offer "condo rentals" -- and further serve to mar the external environment as those occupants line their balconies with scores of wet, multicolored beach towels and swimsuits, just like at Motel 6, cheapening the entire experience with their tackiness (and providing evidence of overcrowding those rooms). Despite over emphasis on rules during the check in process, this resort fails to enforce its stated policies. THE SUITE, as the photos show, was lovely. See captions for more detail. Soothing colors and finishes of quality, truly a luxury suite planned and executed with attention to detail and not to price. Overdue fails to describe this upgrade, as photos of other official resort lodging options reveal spaces untouched for decades. Boyne Highlands Resort finally addresses its hotel rooms/suites with a full on, clean slate, gut to studs, renovate investment, it's entirely fresh inside the sleeping space. Outside the suite/room, though, remains another story -- at least pending many tens of millions more dollars and some years invested to bring the place overall into this 21st century, even if this takes place about 20 years too late. For my prior Highlands stay in June I rented a charming private vacation home on Heather Dr., where the new owners worked around dated architecture and hard features by entirely updating the look using all new furnishings and thoughtful design elements that played up the retro in a fresh manner. Boyne itself failed to do this over time. (Prior trip was for mountain trail biking & Boyne delivers, despite its way-too-limited chair lift hours. Kudos to Latitude 45 Bikes Petoskey.) ADDED: never got any...

No golf trip to Northern Michigan is complete without a visit to Boyne Resorts near Petoskey, MI. In my mind, no other Michigan golf resort offers the variety of golf courses that Boyne has. Golfers have the opportunity to play ten uniquely different golf courses; stay in a variety of accommodations designed to meet anyone’s needs and dine at some incredible restaurants.

Recently, I was able to play several courses in the Boyne Resorts lineup including two of my favorite Highlands courses, the Arthur Hills Course and the Robert Trent Jones-designed Heather Course. The Hills Course is one of Hill’s best efforts and showcases the beauty of the Northern Michigan terrain. Strategically placed bunkers dot the landscape in many of the landing areas and narrow approach passages lead to surprising yet subtle greens. Miss the fairway and you’ll find a lot of mounding on the peripheries of each hole. The 13th hole is considered by many to be one of the most spectacular holes in Northern Michigan.

The Heather Course was Boyne’s first golf course and is as challenging today as it was then. Having hosted numerous state and national championships, the Heather has earned its reputation as one of the finest championship courses in the entire United States. In 2019 it was named “National Golf Course of the Year” by the National Golf Course Owners Association). Number 18 is my favorite hole on the Heather Course; I can remember the first time I played it. It’s a long par 4 that requires a well-struck drive followed by a long approach shot over a lake into a green that slopes back to front. It may not be the toughest hole on the golf course but it sure is memorable!

Other courses at Boyne include the Donald Ross Memorial and the Moor at Boyne Highlands and the Monument Course at Boyne Mountain. The Donald Ross Memorial features 18 of the designer's best-known holes from around the globe. The staff at Boyne went to painstaking lengths to recreate each hole as close to Ross’ original specifications as possible. In 2018, Michigan-based course designer Ray Hearn went one step further and used the latest in design technology to better replicate each hole. It is arguably the greatest tribute to Donald Ross in the country.

The Moor is widely regarded as a members' favorite because it represents a fair but true test of the game regardless of ability. The course features nine doglegs and one double-dogleg at the 18th hole.

Boyne continues to reinvest in the infrastructure of their golf courses which will pay huge dividends down the road and have an immediate impact on their golf courses. For example, work was recently completed on the Central Irrigation installation on Donald Ross Memorial and Arthur Hills courses. This new system can be controlled remotely and is significantly more efficient. There were also upgrades to the pump houses and irrigation systems on several other courses and a brand new system that services The Heather and The Moor courses.

Other improvements include over five miles of new cart path on The Heather, Arthur Hills, and Donald Ross Memorial golf courses, and taking measures to speed up play on a couple of courses.

Perhaps the biggest news at Boyne this year is that during the summer of 2023, construction began on the Ray Hearn completely redesigned nine-hole short course which will be routed across a sloping site set among fescue grasses. Hole length will range from 8 to 120 yards. “Hearn will be recreating nine of his favorite greens from Scotland, Ireland, and England. With no formal tees golfers will have the opportunity to put tees anywhere they want so they can play shots from different...

-=UPDATE=- As of February 2020, you can no longer buy an all-day pass at one Boyne location and simply ski at the other any time you like. In order to go back and forth, you have to purchase multi-day passes, and they DO scan passes randomly at the lift. So if you want to ski both mountains in just one day you're out somewhere around $180, depending on when you ski which..

For me, this is a slap in the face. Considering it's only $25 more to ski some really nice, actual mountains in CO which have more vertical and way more acreage, I was only OK paying the $100/per day to ski at Boyne's hills because between the two locations there are so many runs and variety of scenery and terrain. Now in order to do that I have to get a second pass. For that cost and considering savings in gas, I can almost hop a super saver round trip flight AND ski at a bigger, better hill out west.

Also, the fact that a large portion of the hill containing some of the best runs were closed early so they could groom for the next day's race was absolutely unacceptable. It was only 5:30-ish pm, and a lot of other unlit runs had already closed, well, because they're not lit and were getting dark. Then they close a lift that services several lit runs right as many people were getting back out after dinner and ready to ski. If they had waiting until 9:00 to close the runs to prepare them for the next day, fine. That's at least understandable. But to cut out at least 4 hours of ski time was totally uncalled for and a total lack of respect for the skiers' time and money. The resulting crowds at the few remaining open lifts were obscenely long and I'm trying not to let it spoil an otherwise good trip, but for how much I spent I just can't ignore this.

These two experiences will prohibit me from returning. I will be making my annual ski trip and handfull of other day trips elsewhere with my 6-8 friends and not give Boyne any more of my money.

I suggest you look elsewhere if you come here to ski. If you want to pay exorbitantly to have fewer skiing options than you had originally, fine, got to Boyne. If you want to blow said money and fart around waiting in long lines because of needlessly closed runs, fine, go to Boyne. Which is so very very sad because Highlands USED to be the place to come to ski.

-Original post- Simply the best skiing in the lower peninsula. A lot of runs, ranging from long and slow, to narrow and medium, to steep and wide open.

The beginner area here is the best. Magic carpets and one small chair lift that takes you about halfway up. You can get enough speed to learn how to ski (and I imagine board) without being overwhelmed by a full-size run.

The cafeteria is decent but not cheap, and the lodge comfortable. There aren't quite as many things to do here: the focus is skiing, not the full village/spa/shopping/etc getaway, but the quality of the hill more than makes up for that. There is at least one terrain park. Skiers tend to be of a high caliber and more spread out so you can have more fun skiing and spend less time worrying about who else is around to crash into.

I'd say it's too expensive, but if you buy an all day pass, you also get into Boyne Mountain (and vice-versa) which is a 40ish minute drive away and also a decent hill so you can get a ton of skiing...