Best Western Plus Ponderay Mountain Lodge — Hotel in Ponderay

The good: clean, comfortable, fair price. Good view if you stay on the back side facing Schweitzer ski resort. Ample Parking, local restaraunt in parking lot.

It is not in Sandpoint, it is about 3 miles away, across the lake. The location is ok but not within walkig distance of Sandpoint.

The odd: air conditioner is tied into an energy management system (don't bother asking the staff, they would have no idead that is hooked up this way.) The temperature in the room was "ok" but you can set it cooler than it is preprogrammed. The temperature setting on controller is not what controlls how cold it gets in the room, you can make it warmer but not cooler. I like a constant fan for air flow and white noise, this was also controlled by the energy management system. This air conditioning system is a real nuisance.

The bad: WiFi - yeah, they can technically say they have WiFi. Like most hotels they call it "free" so that they don't have to guarantee it to work. The WiFi in our room connected but the speeds were like a dial up modem from 1994. It was unusable for even the most basic HTML versions of Yahoo or Gmail. If you plan to stay here for work, check the WiFi in your room before you unload.

Got there on a Thursday, the same pile of trash beer boxes left over from some ones party were stilled piled at the entry door when we left on Sunday.

Typical air heads working at the front desk.Did not know how to program the room key to work more than one day at a time. The solution? "You must have left it near something magnetic".

Some idiot parks his boat and RV at the front door, taking up 5 spaces including two handicap spots. They never made the people move their boat.

I give them an "average" because WiFi in todays world should be as standard as running water. Like many hotels that want you to reuse your linens, this hotel wants to control your air conditioning. Maintain profits while reducing value. (I am in favor of business's making a profit). Pretty soon they will have all of the "Good Value" things whittled down to minimal and they won't be any different than the cheap hotel...

EV Owners Beware!

First off, on the way to the hotel we called and asked if there was a charger available for an ev, they said yes and just let them know when we got there and they would unlock it for us. I thought that was weird, I never heard of locking a charger. But when I got there they made me sign a paper to check out the key and it would cost $10 an hour to use the charger.

We drive a LR Model Y, got to the hotel with 20 percent charge. It would take 9-10 hours to charge to 90 percent since theirs charges at 4 kwh (very slow).

4 kwh speed charging is very slow, a trickle charge. A drop at a time in a very large bucket. I attempted to explain to the staff and the manager how ridiculous it is to charge by time and not by amount of energy. It would be like charging for your time filling up an ICE vehicle with gas. That's not a thing, right? You pay for how many gallons you pumped. See the difference? Time vs. actual amount received.

The manager stated that this was a decision by the owners of the hotel.

They wanted to charge me $90 to charge up my car (9 hours of charging) For reference a tesla super charger cost from $12-17 based on amount received. At home I would probably pay $8 to charge from empty to full.

I have been to many best westerns and other hotels that all had free ev charging. It blew me away that they wanted to nickel and dime and gouge for more money because they saw an opportunity to do so. Very sad...

If they told me about the charge over the phone I would have topped off my car at the tesla charger before driving to the hotel. But they didn't. Very ridiculous.

Update: yes I was charged $20 because I complained how crazy it is to cost 90 dollars. If I said nothing I would have been charged 90 dollars. Also, I was only plugged in one night for 8 hours. Also, I was the only EV on premises those two days. Will never stay at this hotel again, staff...

WARNING: Hotel is NOT pet friendly. Both Priceline and the best western website had pets listed, but the website had a separate, tucked-away link, that stated that the hotel should be called directly about pets. No mention of this anywhere else on Priceline or the website itself. Clearly trying to get away with the legal minimum for informing customers

I was informed at the desk that my cat was not allowed, despite being cleaner and quieter than most dogs or children. The gentleman at the front desk actually had the gall to suggest I leave my cat in the car. Which would have been for 2 days In the summer. With no food water or litter. If I wasn't so stunned I would have chewed out his stupidity.

I was placed in a room right by an exit door and assumed the staff was giving me a wink wink to bring my cat in, that they had to follow policy but were trying to help. Except they called me a half hour later saying they watched me on camera with my carrier and I would be charged 300 dollars if I was "caught" with a cat in the room. Really? Watching me check in on camera? They could have just charged me if there were damages but they went that far?

I had to ask a family member to call in a favor to have my cat taken care of. But what if I couldn't? What if I couldn't afford to cancel the room without a refund and go to another hotel? Or risk the 300 dollar fee? What if there was nowhere to board my cat because local vet clinics were closed by the time I checked in? The whole thing was badly implemented and executed

The website has a picture of a paw on the amenities for pet friendly but hides that it is DOG friendly which is not the same. The whole process was shady and shameful.

2 stars because the room was mediocre, but fine, the breakfast buffet was good and the view was great. But the whole situation was a complete mess and there was no effort by hotel staff...