The Inn at Holiday Valley — Hotel in Town of Ellicottville

Email confirmation states 3pm check in. Got there 315pm Was told by front desk check in time was changed to 4pm due to Covid & room not ready. Will call me when ready. Why wasnt I told of the change? We wouldnt have gotten there when we did. Where are we supposed to go? Desk clerk said GM was making calls to guests to update of check in time. We rec'd no call/email. I can guarantee the people in line at same time as me, & people behind me were also uninformed because I overheard MULTIPLE conversations/complaints going on at the same time besides just mine. She told us she would let us into the pool area right away so atleast we had something to do with our kids while we wait for our room to be ready. So that was really nice on her part!

Since we were on the subject about the pool, I asked about the pool reservations we made a week prior to check in. Over the phone I was told we had 5p-630p. She said our swim time was actually 545p-645p. Jeez...glad I checked. I asked about the next day we booked 3p-430p. She said we have 3p-4p. Omg. What the heck is going on?? Why are all of the times different? No explanation.

We get into our room at 420pm after it was "cleaned" & made available for us. Its 63 degrees in there. Holy cow lets bump it up. Settling in and its not getting warmer. Come to realize the back door was left open! We didnt realized because the curtains were half closed and we honestly just didnt walk over there. (And no, none of us went to the back of the room and opened the door. It was like that when we got in there.)

We open closets as we unpack & check things out.There is a pile dirty towels at one end of the closet and another pile of sheets on the other side! So we call house keeping to come get the dirty stuff.

Next, one of us goes to use the bathroom in our room. All thats left of the toilet paper is less than what one person would need to go (and only if doing #1!) & nothing more! So we call AGAIN & ask for toilet paper!!

I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. Im sure busy cleaning to Covid-19 standards & they're rushing. But at the end of a long day around town, one of us decides to hop in the shower. This was the 1st time the bathroom was really looked at aside from the tp issue. Omg there's hair ALL OVER the floor (along with a small hunk of tp in the corner on the floor near the tub), some hair on shower wall & a nice gob stuck to the bath mat that's laying over the tub railing. So not only did they NOT remove dirty towels and sheets, and did not provide toilet paper they definitely DIDNT sweep/clean the bathroom floor after the last group left. After all that I dont trust this room to actually be cleaned appropriately. Luckily I brought LOTS of disinfectant wipes with us and now get to clean the room on my own (for $350/night!)

Day 2: We were near the lobby so I decided to pop in with a couple questions I had. At check in, the person handed me 2 card keys, and another physical key on a big green keytag labled with a letter. I didn't think about it til later, but I had no idea what the big green keytag key was for. So when I stopped in I asked. It's for a locker outside your door to put your skiis in. Oh, that may have been nice to know when we checked in - yes I did tell them we were first timers, having never stayed there before.

The other question I had - We had leftovers from night before we wanted to have for lunch. No microwave in room so we ask front desk if there's one anywhere that we can use, like maybe in the room where we grab breakfast? Front desk said we can rent one for $15/day. OMG. $350/night and we have to PAY for a microwave? I laughed & walked away.

After all of this we wont be back anytime soon. Def not worth the money for this place. Sucks too since this could've been such a nice little family weekend away option. Next time we'll find a different place to stay. By the way, our tub faucet leaked & there were also ants in the lobby women's bathroom...

It’s taken me a couple of weeks to be able to write this (it’s a long one so stick with me!) and as I’m starting to type, I can feel my heart racing and blood starting to boil…

My family and I stayed 2/19-2/22. I booked a slopeside room back in September and was given a room number. Upon check-in, I was told that room wasn’t actually mine and that they “don’t assign rooms”. We were originally assigned a bottom floor room for ski in/ski out access but were actually given a second floor room. The whole point of paying extra for slopeside is for the ski in/ski out. (I’m not paying extra for the peepshow into my room from the chairlift!) When I questioned why I didn’t get the room I was assigned I was told “they don’t assign rooms ahead of time”. I mentioned how that didn’t make me very happy and was told “people are either happy or mad during ski season”.

At this point I asked for the manager. A not-so-friendly gal appeared and I was then told they “had already given that room to someone on Sunday” (the day before) and “its first come first serve and we are fully booked tonight so we don’t even have a different room to give you”. I accepted the defeat and we lugged all of our things up the stairs to our second floor room. Upon entry into our second floor room, we were greeted with explicit drawings on our door leading out to the deck. I was too tired at this point to even bother letting anyone at the front desk know.

Fast forward to the next morning at the lack luster breakfast (yes I understand it’s complimentary but come on), we run into some friends. In discussing rooms etc we learn that they were in fact assigned the room we were originally assigned. To my surprise they arrived 2 hours before we did to check in and NOT the day before as I was originally told. Now I’ve been lied to which doesn’t make me happy at all.

I went to the desk. Asked for the manager and Allison (I think was her name? So sorry!) appeared. She was delightful! She listened to me explain all the things and said she’d have someone come clean our window right away. By the time I got back up to my second floor room, someone was already knocking on my door! The phone rang and it was Allison saying that “although I didn’t ask for it, she was going to discount 2 of our nights”. I thought this was a very nice gesture and thought “why didn’t they just do that from the beginning?”.

It’s now Thursday and time to check out. I was happy to see the not-so-nice manager there so I could let her know she was caught in a lie. Before I could even say anything, she was so rude from the moment I walked in the door to the point where I informed her she lied. She responded in the sassiest tone that she “heard all about it…our friends were in the room…” Life lesson: don’t lie. Always comes back to bite you in the butt!

I looked over our bill and discovered we were discounted like 10%. I appreciate the gesture but I don’t even think that’s the difference between a non-slopeside and slopeside room rate. In my option you should only charge a “slopeside” rate if it’s ski in/ski out.

This is actually the second time this room debacle has happened to us. Another family member booked for us 2 years ago and the same exact thing happened (not the lying or window art)! They were told they had a certain first floor ski in/ski out room and we were given second floor rooms. I haven’t even mentioned how another family was supposed to be on this current trip with us and had to cancel. Would we have even been assigned the adjoining rooms we were promised??

I come from a logistical background and it boggles my mind how you WOULDN'T assign rooms upon booking so you know what’s still available?? This current process reminds me of one of those puzzles that’s missing a square and you’re constantly sliding it to make it work.

When booking, Bonnie was the BEST! She should train the front desk in...

We stayed in July of 2021, and had a great time! ||PROs: The rooms were nice sized, and well laid out. We had a second floor, overlooking the golf course, and it was quiet and relaxing. We LOVED the mountain coaster, ski lift (Blue Festival) and the pool at the hotel. Visiting Ellicotville was a delight, it's such s vibrant little town! I highly recommend the sculpture garden. Breakfast at the Inn was nice too. Staff was friendly, even if they were unaware of things that were going on.||||CONs: it is so hard to talk to an actual person. Noone answers the phone, and if they do, you are put on hold and bounced from person to person. You have to email and then be called back. The staff does not communicate with each other. We had questions about the festival (posters all over), but no-one could tell us anything about it, except where to get tickets. We had questions about the mountain coaster too. We found out later, from another guest, that our reservation included a few coaster passes. The front desk staff was unaware.||Reserving a pool time is not necessary, but we were told it was. We reserved, but then the pool was so crowded we couldn't find a spot to set our towels. When we asked about it, we were told "Just go back after some people leave. It doesn't matter when you reserved for."||We also had an issue with the clothesline in our shower. I had pulled the line out, but before I could put anything on it, the part that was "attached" to the wall broke loose and hit me in the arm. It left a bruise. Luckily, it didn't hit my head, or a kid, because it would've really hurt someone. It looked like it had not been screwed into the stud, just in the plaster.||I informed the front desk, asking to have someone come fix it, as it was now dangling with sharp screws into our shower. It was not fixed while we were there. I mentioned this to the desk employee when we checked out, and she said she had no idea it was broken. Later on, I emailed to ask about something I believed to have left there, and asked about the clothesline again. The person who responded to my email said (again) they had no idea the line had broken. ||||Despite the obvious communication issues, and possible attacks by clotheslines, we will go back. Just be aware when you book, that these are issues you may need...