High Peaks Resort — Hotel in Town of North Elba

Full Review of High Peaks Resort: Overview of Rooms: We stayed for a week at this resort last week and everything was spectacular. The resort features 3 buildings: the main resort, the Lake House and the Waterfront. When booking your reservation, the main resort has 5 levels with an indoor and outdoor pool and an indoor hot tub. The Lake House has 2 levels with an indoor pool and hot tub and the Waterfront has 2 levels with an outdoor pool. All properties are within a 2-3 minute walk of each other and can be accessed using your room key. We stayed in a superior room on the 5th floor which overlooked the lake and the mountains. Our room was very spacious with a couch, a balcony and a large bathroom. The room also had a small refrigerator a desk and a Lavazza coffee maker. The one thing lacking from the room was a clock! The other thing to take note is the window blinds/shades. There are no curtains in the main resort and the blinds are old wooden slats...so get ready be be woken up early from the sun. The Lake House appeared to be an older structure with smaller and darker rooms. Think of this building as a cabin like structure. If you are staying at the Waterfront, you are staying in a converted house with several floors of rooms. There is no front desk and you are removed from the main resort. The only benefit is you are on the water and close to all the water activities. Overview of activities: There are plenty of activities at this hotel. In the main resort, they have a full gym, board games, indoor & outdoor pool and an indoor hot-tub. You are also located right on main street which provides easy access to all the restaurants and activities. In the Lake House, there is an indoor pool and hot-tub along with a game room which featured billiards, foosball and many other games. There is also an area outside for a firepit. At the waterfront, this is where you will find all the outdoor activities such as an outdoor pool, paddleboards, kayaks, canoes and other water sports. The nice thing about this resort is everything is included in your stay! Overview of food: We ate at Dancing Bears restaurant and was impressed. The food was very good but the prices were a bit high for a hotel. $20 for Chocolate Chip Pancakes is a bit high. Then again, this appears to be the average price for food at Lake Placid. The hotel also provides hot beverages complimentary every morning and snacks and cold drinks such as lemonade and water in the afternoon. This was a really nice touch. When checking into the hotel, we also were offered a glass of champagne. Can't remember if I have ever been greeted like that before so that was a nice surprise. Overview of staff: For the most part, everyone appeared to be friendly and courteous. I will say during check-in, the gentleman who was processing our check in was unfriendly and was unable to speak English. This was our first time at the resort so we had lots of questions on where to eat and what the hotel offers and he couldn't understand what I was saying so he had to get the manager to explain. Other than that experience, we didn't have any issues with the staff or housekeeping. Tips:

1. Parking is free and there is an attached garage.
2. There is a Lake Placid trolley stop right outside the hotel. It is free and will take you to several excellent restaurants around town.
3. This is a pet-friendly hotel (dogs were everywhere)
4. Bring an alarm clock!
5. Ask for extra sheets to cover the window blinds.. Reason for 4 star review: As I mentioned, everything really was spectacular with this place. However, we noticed that there was some cleanliness issues with the towels and throughout the areas of the hotel. I would also encourage management to ensure that the front desk members are helpful. They are the first people that guests come in contact with! Other than that, we will be back and appreciate everything this establishment has done! It was an excellent stay and probably one of the best 'vacations' we have had! Thank you High...

We booked this hotel as a couple's get-away for the week after New Year's. We would not recommend this place to others.

Pros: The hotel is located in the center of Lake Placid, within walking distance to Mirror Lake and the main street cafes/shopping. Parking was easy on the hotel-owned lot. The view from our room was superb, directly overlooking the lake.

Cons: Our room was pretty substandard. Not sure whether it technically qualified for a four-star experience but it was not all pleasant to stay in. We had booked a king junior suite in the hotel's "waterfront collection", a number of rooms directly overlooking Mirror Lake and advertised on the hotel's website as "the ultimate guest rooms to experience lakeside luxury at High Peaks Resort". For starters, the room (724, then 725) was not as we had expected from the description or the pictures on the website. The interior was dated and tired-looking. The furniture was old and worn and visibly chipped and the overall design came across as 70-s motel room, with the wall paper coming off. Same in the bathroom, with tiles falling off... Not that it matters but why advertise a "rain shower with an additional handheld shower head" when this is simply not there?

We did move to a slightly better room after there was a water leak from above. That second room had a gas fireplace, which was sufficient to heat the room (in the first room, there was only a noisy split unit). Otherwise, it had the same issues (see pictures).

More importantly, the rooms were not and did not feel clean. We had to request for someone to make up the room EVERY DAY when the cleaners had not shown up after 3/4 pm. There were spots on the wall, the carpet was never cleaned (as evidenced by a lone peanut sitting on the floor since before our arrival). Reception made a haphazard effort to address these issues and we did receive one breakfast voucher -- but we'd rather stayed in a clean room. (Plus: the restaurant also did not feel clean, with crumbs and dirt on the window sills and the floor -- and this in the morning). One day, when we asked for housekeeping to make up the room, we returned, only to find that our door had not been shut but kept open with the latch -- everyone in that building could have walked in. Obviously, that made us highly uncomfortable; thankfully, not much time had passed and all our things were still there.

Finally, there were no glasses or cups in the rooms, just paper/plastic cups. What about environmental sustainability, apart from the fact that this is supposed to be a four-star hotel that should not feel like McDonalds.

Other issues: the rooms were barely insulated, we could hear people talk in neighboring rooms and could hear every step that the people took above us, mostly early in the morning. We had to sleep with earplugs.

The amenity areas were sub par -- the pool at the Lakehouse Building complex looked unclean; the pool in the main building was somewhat unviting -- there weren't even deckchairs or lounge chairs. Nor were there bathrobes provided in the room for use.

Overall, staff seemed to be overwhelmed or not properly trained how to handle situations like the water leak or our complaints about the lack of cleanliness.

Given the price point (we paid about 280/night incl taxes), this hotel is not up to the standards that should be expected. We would definitely not come back and would look for different places to stay in...

My recent stay was less than grand. I have been a returning patron for five years with my family and we’ve all agreed that this was the worst stay yet, that we decided we will not be returning customers and will take our business elsewhere. It all started with check in, I went to the desk checked in and provided credit card for my reservation. Heidi, guest services, explained that there was a “new program” where they require 5% or $50 for incidentals per night. I was paying $110 per night for my stay so paying half of my room rate was a little outrageous. She continued to talk down to me as if I was a child because I didn’t understand how I would be paying half my room rate. She then proceeded to tell me that my card would not be charged and that the $150 (because I was staying three nights) wouldn’t appear on my card at all. After checking in, I checked my credit card app and the hotel had a pending charge of over $500. Completely outrageous because I specifically budget for this trip every year, I went back in and told her that I would like to speak with a manager because this is ridiculous and she kept saying “let me explain this to you” at that point just for her to let me get a word in edge wise I had to keep talking over her. The front desk manager, Melissa, came out to see what was going on. As I’m trying to explain to her that my credit card was my entire trip funds, Heidi kept mumbling under her breath and giving me dirty looks. I explained to Melissa that although on their end it was a pending charge it was charged to the card and now I was only left with $300 for the rest of my stay. Melissa claimed that she was going to help, she was on the phone with my credit card company that stated that they couldn’t help because it was a pending charge so it had to be done on the hotel end. Melissa did a manual reversal, which never showed up on my card. She told me that we would settle this problem at check out. I tried for two days to get in contact with Melissa to let her know that there was no refund and what my credit card company had told me on a separate occasion when I called this trip, and she was unavailable each time. I have never received a call or a reply back to an email I sent her. At check out, a different front desk person proceeded to tell me that my card was declined. I explained to him what was going on and he stated that he wasn’t sure why the credit card was charged as a debit but will contact Melissa to call me that same day to resolve. Still haven’t heard from her. For that, this resort lost my business because Heidi charged my credit card incorrectly and management did little about but lie and tell it would be fixed just to get an upset customer away from the desk. My entire trip, every time I walked passed the front desk, I received dirty looks galore from Heidi and her whispering along with others. This place needs customer service training and an attitude adjustment. I think they forget that they aren’t the only hotel in town. The contract that they have customers sign at the front desk states that debit/check cards would be charged an additional $50 per night for incidentals. Funny, because I used a discover card that is neither...