Big Pines Mountain House of Tahoe — Hotel in South Lake Tahoe

UPDATE: Responding to “owner” comment here because I asked front desk for owner contact info a day ago & have not received a reply!

I finally heard back & have been corresponding with someone from the office, I imagine.

Owner, I would love for you to contact me directly, please! I asked for your contact info a day ago & have yet to receive it!

Whoever I have been corresponding with has done nothing but make excuses for every issue & avoid a sincere apology and any true effort to make the customer happy or try to retain our business!

Each issue I presented was clearly contradictory between my WRITTEN emailed confirmation, from your direct website & the front desk person that my daughter and son-in-law had to deal with the day of check in. These specific issues……ignored!

She basically said if I wanted to reserve through your lodge and want to pay for the and additional deposits not disclosed to me, I will have to go to a third-party booking website to do so!

She also said that they are not allowed to charge a card that is not present at the front desk due to fraud. i get that, normally would make sense EXCEPT they charged my card the $25 pet deposit at the front desk without my card present but refused to charge the additional deposit that was not disclosed, and made them pay in cash!?!

So seems acceptable resolution from her perspective was to apply a $41.80 credit to my card!

NOT an acceptable resolution to rectify the fact that they refused to honor a written booking confirmation & left my daughter and her husband almost penniless for their birthday trip!

I think worse of all, being a customer service manager, I did not receive an apology that was sincere, admit they screwed up or tried to truly fix the situation and keep our business! I don’t need a $41 credit back to my credit card after paying almost $170 for the room! maybe comp a night for my daughter and son a lot to come back and try again to have a good experience? It was their trip that you ruined!

ORIGINAL POST: Before posting we gave the staff & management time to rectify the horrible experience! I booked for my daughter & son in law as birthday gift. Second time in past few years, have had same bad experience with the service & communication. They have stayed with here a total 3 times.

They choose this place because it is dog friendly & close to action. Every time they check in they are met with issues.

This time they went on 12/10 & were met with more trouble. At front desk they were told 1) no pets allowed! 2) check in at 4! 3) An additional $100 deposit would be due at check in, cash only on top of the disclosed $25 pet deposit.

They said they would charge my card the $25 pet deposit but could not charge my card the $100 additional deposit but needed that in cash!?!

I booked the room through the actual website & nowhere on booking form allowed me to pay pet deposit.

I double triple checked every fine print on my confirmation and it definitely said up to two dogs allowed in the room $25 deposit per night for each dog and nowhere did it say there would be an additional $100 cash deposit due upon check-in .

My confirmation also said check in at 1pm, (website says 3pm) & Front desk told them 4 PM! They were not financially prepared for that $100 cash deposit cost! They physically showed the front desk the confirmation email and they just brushed it off that there’s nothing they can do and that they need the money!

Their birthday trip gift started with a nightmare for them.

I immediately contacted my booking representative listed on my email confirmation via email because the front desk was not budging, and that was yesterday afternoon as my daughter was checking in, trying to hold on to what little spending money they had. Have not heard back as of this review.

We need some explanation & ways we can avoid these issues IF we stay again, also how are they going to make things right. I will update if I get a...

Overall, this is a good (enough) place to call your home for a South Lake Tahoe vacation. You won't get some of the amenities at other higher-priced locations, such as a free breakfast or a communal hot tub. However, the location near the border casinos and Heavenly Gondola at this price point makes this hotel a great option to consider.||I encountered a couple issues with the room that the staff repaired when notified. The TV was inoperable, and the heater did not come on. You definitely need a heater when snowfall comes. I also noticed the shower would drip even when turned off (so I closed the bathroom door when going to bed), and the blinds were partially broken (so I hung a towel to block views). A small black bug appeared on the table on one occasion, too.||Parking is a hot commodity once slopes close and new guests start arriving into town. There is an overflow lot to accommodate additional cars a short distance away. The walls are thin, as I heard two different guest groups in the next-door room rather clearly during my stay (first group checked out, then the new guests for my last night). Beware what you talk about here! I had an end room, so I can imagine if I were in the middle somewhere, I'd hear voices on both sides. ||We got about four inches of snowfall at lakeside on my last full day here. The on-site team worked to clear snow using a snow blower, and a truck came through the lot to plow snow during the afternoon. I had no trouble exiting the property on check-out morning, though I was parked in the front area near Cedar.||The room has a microwave, refrigerator with small freezer shelf, and coffee maker. There's no phone to call the front desk, so you'll have to trek over if you need something. The king bed was a little soft, though I slept adequately. You may want to bring blankets if you want more than a thin top sheet and a thin blanket over you.||It's possible another person would rate this a two- or three-star experience. My thought is you have to adjust your expectations for each stay, and consider how the hotel remedied things when they come up during your stay. I'd say they came through the best they could with my requests and the snowfall during a busy...

Pretty sure that every bad review here gets countered with a hacked Gmail account from someone who has never done reviews or been in a motel.

I stayed five nights in a double queen kitchenette.

Tl: DR Dirty and run down. 5 star reviews have got to be fake.

I was bummed the kitchen lacked any utensils and only had two old pans and no pots, no bowls, a few plates and only two cups. Basically I paid extra to look at an electric stove and oven I couldn't use. No toaster or toaster oven, no paper towels, sponge, etc. Mini fridge worked solid though.

As others point out the floors are quite dirty. Tahoe dust. Never saw housekeeping with any vacuums, brooms or mops the entire time I was there. We used a wet towel on the floor to mop it clean and it got black all over.

The mattresses felt quite worn. My back was sore every morning and I tossed and turned a lot at night trying to get comfortable. We looked under the sheets and saw that one of the mattresses had been treated for bed bugs.

My blanket had a large cigarette burn on it.

We had a rough time getting the air conditioner to cool us. Turns out whoever last used the room left the heater on a very low setting so it still ran a little. It looked like it was off so we figured air from outside was blowing in. I didn't realize it was on until I touched it and my skin burned when we were leaving. Ughhh

One obvious trait around the hotel was broken things and incomplete DIY fixes or "improvements." The flooring vinyl tiles was laid by someone who obviously had never done it. The rush job of spray painting the walls without doing any prep resulted in the green carpets in walkways having white paint all over. The walls in our room had wallpaper painted over rather than removed to paint the wall, etc. Reminds me of an overwhelmed worker with OCD with unfinished projects.

Looking at the progression of pictures I see the before and after effect of years of serving so many people and so many rooms with so few staff and the degradation of the property.

Best of luck with this one. It was quite busy all week long. The guy at the front desk was polite...