High Country Lodge — Hotel in South Lake Tahoe

Imagine my surprise when I arrived to check in with my kids and found the lodge closed. There was a nice sign on the door that told me to go down one block to the Apex Inn and check in. I got there and although all the signs said ‘open’ and ‘vacancy’ on both motels no one was at the desk. I rang the bell and waited for someone to come. A woman walks out and opens a little side window. She says ‘we are closed’. I said, ‘really, I had a reservation’. Here’s where things go wrong - she becomes slightly hostile at the window. ||I would like to point out that I understand the amount of stress and anxiety the media is pushing on people with COVID-19 and I am sympathetic towards their psychological need to remain in their home with no outside contact. There are ways to handle that. I was standing back from the window so as not to freak her out and I am not, nor is anyone in my family, in anyway sick. ||She said ‘I emailed and tried to call you two times, but you didn’t answer’. I apologized for missing the calls and emails. I explained that I was diving. She just looked at me like this was still my fault. I said ‘ok, you’re closed. Where should I try instead?’ (My thought being that she would know who was open and who was closed in town.) She said ‘we are closed’ and shut the window. Yikes! ||First of all, I was driving - I’m part of a rare cohort of people that doesn’t check my phone while driving! :,-) Secondly, when I got back to my car - there was no email stating they were closed (just one asking if I was still checking in that day) and no missed calls or voicemails. And remember all of their signs said ‘open’ and ‘vacancy’ which are signs that they were not closed and invited anyone driving down the road to stop and request a room . . . . . . . . ||A simple ‘My family and I have decided to shelter in place and you were the only people staying with us so we canceled your reservation’ would have worked better. ‘I am not sure who else is open in town right now. Sorry’ would have been a good answer to my sudden homelessness that your choices caused. I can understand the hysteria and panic this family was feeling - the media is selling a lot of fear right now. I am truly empathetic to that. I get it. The part that is concerning about this experience is the lack of customer service. That’s what made me post this - I would hate for another family to come along (after COVID-19, of course) and have a miserable experience because the family that lives on sight and manages High Country Lodge and Apex Inn are really not nice people. ||Safe travels out...

First of all, understand it is like a motel 6. it is an L shaped building where you park in front of your door. You cant back in to your spot. dunno why. but its a step to get to the door and another to get in the door. it would certainly be a lot easier if you could back your trunk up to the door.||second - its clean and neat. but its OLD. the walls look like they were built 50 years ago and patched and painted and painted patches. there seems to be heat but we never figured out how to turn it on. there was no air conditioning that we could find. and no screens to open the door or window. oh and the bolt on the door did not work from the outside so when you left you just had a simple door handle lock to protect your stuff. meaning also no safe in the room. oh and there's no one at the front desk till 4 pm or after like 11. so dont have problems or come before or after that! the guy in the office was very nice and helpful, but to get pillows that were not flat we had to get 4 extra. and they gave us 2 small thin, rough,bath towels -errr shower towels - no bathtub. which was ok for us but if you have kids, ask about that in the room. the doors in the bathroom and entrance look like something was chewing at them. they have a tiny microwave, a dorm sized fridge, and a 4 cup coffee maker. and a 3 drawer dresser that looks like it was in my grandmothers house. no closet, just a place to set your suitcase and hang clothes outside the bathroom across from the sink, which had no vanity. all in all its a spartan but clean place that needs rebuilding.||and their free wifi is like being on a plane, sometimes it doesnt work and the rest it works slowly.||the cleanliness and the graciousness of the front desk are why it didnt get one star from me. have to also say it was one of the most comfy beds i've had in a hotel. i didnt read the map right and it was further from stuff than i expected but it was funny to see "watch out for bears" signs...

The hotel itself is a little bit of an upgrade from a Motel 6. A few things could have been cleaner and we found a couple large dead ants in our bed when we pulled back the cover. The wifi is practically useless and cell coverage is spotty. Not an issue if you don't need to be connected much.

My low rating is based on the service we received under a very rough circumstance (other wise it would have been a three). We booked three nights but were only able to stay one night. We were evacuated from our home right before going to the motel and had to take our cat. We arrived late and I didn't even think about the cat until the next morning. We let the front desk know we had the cat and we'd kept him mostly in the cage and in the bathroom, and were immediately kicked out. Not just asked to leave, but yelled at to check out right then. We explained we'd been evacuated and well understood being asked to leave since the motel had a no pet policy. We were charged for the full three nights we'd booked plus a cleaning fee. It worked out to five nights of charges for a one night stay (and the rate was a summer rate). We requested that the two additional nights we didn't stay balance out the cleaning fee but that wasn't conceded. While we do recognize our part in this, I could have lied and just kept the cat out of sight for the three days. I'm mostly really disappointed in...