Gray Wolf Inn & Suites — Hotel in West Yellowstone

I’m giving this a 4 star rating based on the fact that it is a 2 star hotel. Overall, our stay was very good. We loved the extra touches of the s’mores kits to make at the fire pit. We also loved the free ice cream every day. You have a choice of chocolate or vanilla ice cream cups or ice cream sandwiches. These items are all in the main lobby.

The staff was friendly; some more than others. One gentleman in particular was very friendly. He asked me multiple times how we are enjoying our stay. (I wish I got his name).

We were personally disappointed in the breakfast. They do tell you that it’s a cold breakfast, but I guess I still hoped for more. What they have out is oatmeal packets, packaged muffins, cereal bars and cereal. They do have coffee, hot chocolate and juice always available which is really nice. Most hotels won’t have those items outside of breakfast time.

We stayed in a 1 bedroom suite. It is very spacious. There is a TV in the living area as well as the bedroom. The kitchen is fully stocked. A couple of things that I didn’t understand is that the room will sleep up to 6 people, yet there is only seating for 4 and 4 forks for eating. (Dining area in room is pictured) I think they could add a couple of bar height chairs to the end. My parents were staying a few rooms down in a regular room without a kitchen. When we chose to eat dinner in, we didn’t have enough seating or forks for everyone. We even thought of going down to the dining room to see if they had any plastic forks. All they had were spoons.

One thing I really loved is that there is a vanity area with sink outside of the bathroom. If someone is using the bathroom or taking a shower, you have the freedom to get yourself ready outside of the bathroom with a sink. Most hotels don’t have that. There is also full sized shampoo, conditioner and body wash from Bath and Body works which I also pictured. If you like that brand, don’t worry packing those items! I will say though, if you have more than 5 hairs on your head, you will need extra time to blow dry your hair with the blow dryer provided. It works, it’s just not very powerful at all.

There are a few things in need of repair in our room. The bathroom has some cosmetic issues and the cabinets in the kitchen were very worn looking. The living room window had constant moisture. It looks like it probably should be replaced. I don’t know if other rooms have this issue or not. The beds are firmer than what I prefer. I don’t think the beds are bad, I just prefer a bed that is less firm. If you are a fan of firm beds, you will love it.

This hotel, as well as a few others in the area, are part of Yellowstonevacations.com. I highly highly recommend booking upper and lower loop tours if you haven’t already done so. (They pick you up right at the hotel) Our guides on both tours were very very good. The tours are both amazing! It was pouring down rain during some of our lower loop tour, but our guide still made it very enjoyable.

The location of the Gray Wolf Inn and Suites is spectacular. You are walking distance to everything. It’s right across the street from the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center. You can sometimes hear the wolves howling from the hotel which is so fun to hear. It’s also across the street from the IMAX theater. We had received tickets to see a show there as a part of the package we booked through Yellowstonevacations.com.

There is a lot of very good dining easily walkable from the hotel. A special shoutout to Wild West Pizzeria which is on Madison Ave. Their pizza was so good.

If you are adventurous, the Yellowstone Aerial Adventures - Zipline adventures is a close walk. If you go to the Grizzly Wolf and Discovery Center, you will get a $5.00 off per person coupon the there.

One more thing I should mention is that if you fly into the West Yellowstone Airport, you can get a complimentary shuttle ride to and from the hotel. We were picked up in a Suburban.

We did enjoy our stay so despite the negative things I listed, it’s still a very decent hotel. I would...

I don't get the 5 star reviews. We paid a price on par with the Beverly Hills Marriottfor and yet it was the dirtiest hotel room I've ever rented in 60+ years! This hotel is price gouging Yellowstone tourists on price, yet it's just an average hotel, with dirty carpetin and filthy furniture.

That's right, the rooms are dirty, so brace yourself for that. Our room had filthy dirty carpet that hadn't been shampooed in the past 2 years. I even found a long lost Bissell vacumn nozzle lost way back behind the headboard, next to the BED BUG MONITORING DEVICES.

The couch was so filthy, it should be tossed out or burned, it looked like something you'd see at a homeless wncampment, and was also worn out. I was immediately uncomfortable about gwtting bed bugs just sitting on it.

The scratched up coffee table looked like something you'd see at the curb for the garbage men to haul off.

We arrived late and had to pay in advance, so we couldn't change hotels. The mattresses were very old, but so-so. The suite was roomy and had a fridge, microwave.

But the CON was we had to check the beds for bedbugs, as the dirty room screamed "bedbugs". One queen mattress had a zip-up cover, the other did not (why?), and thankfully no bedbugs. Instead, we found wall-mounted electronic BED BUG MONITORING DEVICES installed at the head of each bed, thus confirming our suspicions to check for bed bugs.

But, one of the two repeller devices mounted at the head of each queen matress was unplugged?? Again, why? And for how long??Why buy and install electronic bed bug repellers and leave one unplugged? Wary of bed bug issues, we made sure to set our suitcases on the racks, and in the tub, off the obviously dirty and long-overdue-for-replacement ugly brown carpeting.

A major CON is that there is only one elevator and it's located at the far rear end of the entire hotel, which caused us headaches.

What really pissed me off is that after gouging me with the highest hotel room fees I ever paid in my life, they tried to charge me some junk amenity fees on check-out: $15.00/night amenity fee??? For what amenity? The bottled water? The bed bug monitoring?

I paid for a suite and got a grimy dirty suite with old worn out furniture and dirty carpet, a joke of a breakfast and non-functional bed bug monitors, and they wanna sneak in an extra junk charge on checkout, without a word about it on check-in?? It's just too much. How greedy!

I made them reverse their sneaky amenity fee, and you should, too. After all, you'll need to do your own bed bug monitoring, and if you expect clean carpets, you better just go rent a carpet shampooer, cause these folks don't give a damn about the cleanliness of your room.

This hotel needs new management, new carpeting, new furniture throughout. And a better breakfast. I'd never stay there again. We loved Yellowstone but we'd never...

Overall the Gray Wolf Inn was a decent place to stay, but there are definitely some issues with the aging property. The beds were comfortable and the main part of the room seemed to be cleaned well. However, the bathroom could use some work as it smelled strongly of mold/mildew. Likely because it was growing all over the ceilings and walls. We informed the front desk of its existence early on in our stay, but nothing was ever done about it, nor were we given any updates as to whether they actually looked into it. Most of the problem is likely caused by their automatic timers that are set on the fan and heat lamp switches that don't run for very long (probably an effort to save on electricity bills, but it definitely has negative impacts on the health/satisfaction of their guests).

They do have some cool amenities that our kids enjoyed such as an ice cream cup/bar from 4-6 and S'mores kits each evening. The downside is that we hardly got to utilize most of the amenities since we were usually in Yellowstone from early morning until late evening, and they charge $15 per day for the extra amenities. It's also supposed to include things like walking sticks and binoculars, but the camp host that we're required to get them from doesn't open until 8am. If we waited until after 8, we would have had an extremely long wait to get into the park itself, so it wasn't worth the trouble.

The breakfast was alright for what they advertise it to be, but it could use some variations from day to day, especially with longer stays. They typically had bread, pre-made waffles, mini muffins, yogurt, bananas, apples, oatmeal packets, 3 different cereals, hard boiled eggs, and some type of fried breakfast taquito with egg, sausage, and potato in it. The first issue was they only had one breakfast attendant who was hardly ever able to keep things stocked during most of the breakfast hours. The second issue was that they don't have a big enough area for the amount of people so it's hard to find a table or squeeze by people to get to the breakfast items.

The front desk people that we saw or interacted with all seemed to be professional and kind. Some were visibly exhausted dealing with all of the requests from guests for things like towels or restocking S'mores kits as there was usually only one person at the desk so they would continually have to get up and go somewhere to retrieve whatever was needed.

As a side note, the elevator towards the front of the property could use some maintenance as it would almost always refuse to open the elevator door when it got to the appropriate floor without having to press the open door button. Both elevators are fairly slow moving.

Overall, I'm not sure if we would choose to stay at this location again unless there are some fixes and...