Meramec River Resort-The Original Birds Nest Lodge — Hotel in St. James

The good: Our group of 6 stayed in the cabin called "The Hawk" over the weekend. Very reasonably priced with the cabin, two canoes and two kayaks totaling $470 for two nights. At the very begining, we felt welcomed by the owner who greeted us as we pulled onto the property. Other experience with the staff was the same, welcoming, well mannered and very nice. We wanted to take advantage of the fire ring outside the cabin, and the staff brought all the wood we wanted to our cabin for us, albeit at a pretty steep price of over $5 per bundle of 5 pieces of wood. But, when we said something about how high the cost was, they threw in a bunch of extra wood for free. The store inside the main office reminds me of a country corner store with lots to choose from. A cooler case full of lots of beer to choose from, liquor, food and snacks, other miscellaneous items, and even water shoes if you forgot to bring some. The firewood box and bagged ice sits out front. Two young men seem to do most of the heavy lifting around the place, they brought our wood, handled the canoes and kayaks, drove the bus to the drop off point and did some running around, including a door to door wellness call and tally of what watercraft was wanted, how many miles and what departure time was desired. We ran out of trash bags and forgot lighter fluid for the provided grill, so we went to the little store they have, but they didnt have any. So the owner drove to town to get it for us! All of these things, and more, made the experience here a good one, and we will be back. When we go, we are sure to ask for (he told us to say this, im not being mean) fat boy - he made our stay even that much better! He made a special effort for a group of Army and Marine veterans. So now heres the not so good: Our stay was during the busiest time they have had since they bought the place less than 6 months ago. So the organization and timeliness involved with getting our canoes loaded, us on the bus, and down to the drop off point, left a lot to be desired. We chose the 9am departure bc we wanted to do the 12 mile float, so we didnt want to feel rushed to get down the river. Landing point is actually right there at the property - no buss to get back to the cabin. When you get out of the kayak, you're already there. So instruction was to drive a car to the landing point so we didnt have to trek the hills back to the cabin (about 100-150 yards), and to arrive a few minutes early. We did, all 6 of us, at about 8:50. Im not really sure what happened behind the scenes, first time planning things for heavy business volume perhaps, but we waited for an hour and 10 minutes before we got on the bus at 10am, which the owner drove himself. Not once was any of the staff rude or otherwise unwelcoming, they were all apologetic. But we were ready to get on the river!! The other thing the owner needs to address is rodents and cleanliness. I did not see any rodents, but there were droppings behind the toilets and on the ledge to the left of the stairs going to the lower level. I say cleanliness because had our cabin been cleaned the way we were taught to clean, that would have been caught. But the cabin was not filthy - the furniture, bedrooms, kitchen, fridge, and dishes were all clean. Overall - I give 4 stars because of the rodent droppings, but the trip was a great success and the owner and his staff went above and beyond to make our stay an excellent one.I will go back again, no...

We booked The Falcon July 21-23. ||We arrived and check in was fairly easy, everyone was nice. When we got into the house we noticed everything was sort of dirty… cob webs on every corner of every door frame, floors looked like they hadn’t been properly cleaned ever. The fire place had a large spider hanging out on a web over a pile of soot, and chimney debris covering a piece of paper that we assumed was trash left from another guest, later we realized it was a sign management had put up that read “do not use”. We knew the bed situation was going to be odd going into it since the house slept 24. But here is my complaint with the beds, all of them except for the two bedrooms down stairs were up on top of one another so much so that it is safe to assume that it made cleaning around them difficult to impossible. The house was pet friendly as long as you consider mice poison out in the open in almost every room, pet friendly. You have to make your own beds and upon doing so we discovered that the bed my husband and I had chosen smelled like death. We had seen the poison so it was safe to assume it was a mouse. We decided to flip the mattress and box spring and remove the mouse as it smelled like it was behind the head of the bed. The box spring was ripped all over on the bottom but we didn’t pay much kind. Under the box spring was a very dead mouse decaying on the floor. We removed him and cleaned. The smell persisted. We looked again and discovered a chewed up mess of a mouse nest within the box springs along with another decaying mouse. We removed him, cleaned and thought okay, that’s it. But oh no, then we find a spider that looks suspiciously like a black widow, on the side of the box spring, right where our heads would be. We removed the spider and put everything back together, began to make the bed. Everytime you would put weight on the matress the stench of decaying mouse would burst out of the mattress. We didn’t get to the house until 7ish, the rest of our guests arrived between 8-9. We didn’t discover the mouse until after 10 and I wrote an email at 11 because the office was closed. Never got a reply to the email. I slept in my car the first night along side by husband. Saturday morning I went to the office to let them know, they said they would send someone to clean. Great! I was told I needed to come back after the float trip in the evening to talk to the owner. We returned back to the house after the float and they had put new sheets on the bed and sprayed some air freshener. Once again when you laid down on the bed decaying mouse would waft out at you. I did not go back up to the office that evening because honestly, I felt like it wasn’t my responsibility to need to check in again. I stupidly thought that someone would surely reach out to me, I booked the stay, and sent an email. There had obviously been some|money spent on fixing up the old house but it was like money was spent on a large amount of live edge wood feautures- not new mattresses, box springs, a bathroom door that locks, kitchen counter tops that dont fall in when you open a kitchen drawer, a shower head in the large bathroom that doesn’t feel like needles hitting your skin. We paid somewhere around $900 for the weekend stay and gladly would’ve paid a little bit more if they needed to charge a cleaning fee to actually clean the place. The float was wonderful but I would not recommend staying here unless you’re bringing...

I have camped in MANY places and my standards are not super high. That being said, this was not a “resort” for primitive tent campers, especially if you have kids in tow.

The pros: the staff is a huge asset here. Everyone I talked to was very nice. Their resident dog, Charlie, was pretty sweet, as was their orange tabby cat. Access to the river was within eyesight, which was nice. We paid for camping and the shuttling of our kayaks, and that went flawlessly, as did our float. The old bridge they have at this resort is gorgeous and it’s a beautiful setting, especially first thing in the morning.

The cons (especially for primitive campers)- there are no picnic tables. I’ve never camped somewhere that didn’t offer this (even in foreign countries where things are vastly different), so bring a table or prepare to use your cooler as one. The showers/toilets were not very private for women. The windows in both sections were wide open with no shades/curtains and they looked onto the path that men take to go to their restroom, so at any given time, they could see directly into the women’s restroom/ shower area. The toilets did not have doors- they had shower curtains for doors. One “stall” didn’t even have that- it was just a wide open toilet.

According to my bf, the men’s restroom was disgusting. He said all the toilets were backed up and piled high with excrement. He said he felt dirtier after showering in the shower than he did after spending the day on the river, and this is a man who can backpack for days without showers at all.

The showers do not have hot/cold settings, they are basically like fire spigots from the ceiling. There are hooks outside the showers, but nowhere easily accessible to set things like soap and shampoo except on the lip of the shower, so be prepared for that. If you want privacy, you have to dry off while you’re still in the shower because of the open windows right outside.

Many of the campsites are right up against a shallow creek, so bring plenty of bug spray or other means to keep mosquitoes away from your camp.

Overall, the float part was amazing and perhaps our experience would have been better if we’d stayed in a cabin, but we enjoy being outside. We paid to have basic amenities, like a bathroom and shower, and they were subpar. We would never bring our kids here for the bathroom issues alone. (We ended up taking our kids to camp at Meramec State Park the next weekend because we fell in love with the river, but not this particular...