Spring Mill Inn — Restaurant in Indiana

My husband and I really looked forward to our July weekend at Spring Mill Inn, and it ended up a big disappointment. For context, we spent our honeymoon there in 1977, and renewed our marriage vows there with our children and grandchildren on our 40th anniversary, so it's always had a special place in our hearts. |Our room rate was over $200/night, but having read that the inn had just been through a big remodel, we figured all the rooms would be nice, and worth the expense. I requested, if possible, to have a room AWAY from an ice machine and the elevator, and I made mention we had spent our honeymoon there. |As a former travel agent, I am fully aware that requests can't be guaranteed, but the room assigned to us was right across from an ice machine, and our windows looked out on to two port-a-potties and a trash dumpster. I did go back to the front desk before we unpacked and asked politely if there was another room with a better view they could put us in. The young woman at the front desk flippantly told me the only other room still available had the very same view. She was not in the least apologetic. And this was an hour before their official check-in time.|There was TERRIBLE internet service in the Inn. Being at a state park, we didn't expect to have good internet reception outside, but in 2025, travelers expect decent internet service inside hotel properties. We were there with another couple, and the four of us had no way to contact each other by text or by phone to make plans to meet up. We didn't know each others room numbers, and we were on different floors. Our friends complained at the front desk about the poor internet service, as did many others. Again, no real apologies, only that the inn was having problems with it and someone was going to be coming out to check on it. There was no visible room phone in our room. We just figured in this day and age of cell phones, the park didn't install room phones during the remodel. But, we finally spied a room phone in our room as we were ready to check out--it was shoved underneath and to the back of a nightstand--obviously the missing phone had not been noticed by housekeeping. |The only electric outlets in our room were on ONE side of the bed. Our friends said it was the same in their 2-Queen bedded room. We couldn't believe that freshly remodeled rooms only had outlets installed on one side of the beds. In our room there were NO other outlets to use, other than in the bathroom. I use a CPAP machine, and we needed outlets on both sides of the bed. For $200/night, we were frustrated. We have spent less per night and had more amenities at nice Hampton Inns, which we've stayed in frequently while traveling. |FYI: the nice indoor/outdoor pool that used to be at the inn has been replaced by a splash pad that's designed solely for toddlers and young children.|When we got up on Saturday morning, we decided to cut our stay short by a night, and we checked out around noon. My husband asked me not to make a fuss, so I didn't, but I did let the young woman working the front desk know that we were checking out a day early. She did not ask why, or ask me if there had been any problems with the room. If she had asked, I would have politely told her that for $200/night, the inn did not live up to its reviews or our expectations. The cancellation policy at Spring Mill Inn is four days prior to check in, so we didn't expect to get any money back, but at the very least, it would have been a nice gesture if the front desk staff had asked why we were departing early. |We planned our weekend as a short respite after losing my husband's mother. Instead of a restful experience, it was a lesson in frustration. As much as we've enjoyed the Spring Mill Inn in the past, we will only do day trips to the park in the future. I do plan to write a letter to the Spring Mill Inn manager. |Food at inn was acceptable. Wait staff were friendly, but the restaurant was...

Been going since I was a child. Was very excited to have it re-open. | There are both positive and negative aspects to my review. |On a positive note, beds were a huge improvement over the old beds and were extremely comfortable with six pillows! |However, the furniture in the room wasn’t comfortable at all. We had the deluxe room which gave you the option of two chairs with a table and a sofa and coffee table. The sofa was not comfortable at all, and the two chairs were unbearably uncomfortable because they had Velcro, which kept coming off, which was holding the pads on. The table was tiny. In the regular rooms they have a little bit of a bigger table and just one chair. We have always enjoyed having the old tables and chairs where you could play games or have a meal. That is not possible with only one chair in a room. And they don’t have the cute lodge decor that they used to have. Actually, there’s no lodge decor at all in the room. It’s extremely modern looking. I really miss having the wood lodge, type furniture and pictures on the wall and even the lamp looked too modern now. I would like to point out that if you have any mobility issues, it was a very, very, very low toilet and it was extremely close to the shower. Some rooms apparently still have bathtubs so you need to ask when checking in what the layout is if you need to have a walk-in shower. Or if you have a problem with with a very low toilet, you’ll need to get an accessible room. unfortunately. On the second floor the ice machine wasn’t working and we had to go to the first floor to get ice. And the thermostat was ridiculously hard to use, and we were either burning up or freezing. So the biggest positive to the room was that the beds were extremely comfortable. Other than that, I was very disappointed with the decor and the comfort of the other furniture. The main area when you walk in is nice for having a ramp, but the check-in desk is in the middle of this big room and the poor people that work there have to stand the whole time they do not have chairs and the desk is a little bit low, so some of them have to bend over quite a bit. there are only two rocking chairs at the fireplace so that makes it impossible for a lot of people to enjoy the fireplace. The dining room is basically the same, but they took down a lot of the decor on the walls that made it look like a lodge. They had a buffet, and this salad bar on the buffet was amazing, but the regular buffet didn’t look as great and is extremely expensive at $25. salad bar was only 14.99 and it was delicious. Fortunately the best waitress Remy is there. She was making some of the fresh salads and they were very delicious and the staff in the dining room was super nice. The staff at the front desk doesn’t know how to use gift cards and so I was not able to use my Christmas present gift card to pay for the room. I had to charge it to my credit card. But they just need more training and we’re all very nice. | The obviously need more training and to add some cute lodge decor. | The beds were the best improvement. Staff still super nice. Park still great. | They did not clean our room so there wasn’t enough coffee, but the addition of the Keurig was nice. | It’s still a great place. Abe Martin has renovated rooms but kept the lodge decor. | I still love Spring Mill, but I wish they’d kept the charm. | Outside still...

While the stay was plesant, I'm writing about the things that need some work, or at least a heads up if you're staying.

First, we called a couple days out and asked if they had Pack-n-Plays. I got a few seconds of dead air on the other end. After realizing they may not know what a Pack-n-play is, I refraised and asked if they had cribs for babies. They said they think they did. Did I need to reserve one? No. After that confident conversation I just had, we brought our just in case. Once we arrived, I asked if they had pack-n-plays. No, they didn't think they did. Cribs? No, they didn't think they did. Alright, guess we're bringing ours in.

Since the rooms were newly redone, the room was clean. Had no issues there, and they put an actual door, with no window in it for the bathroom door! That was a relief. SOOOO many hotels are doing glass barn doors for the bathrooms. Why?

We'd gotten a single King sized bed. One thing to note is, bring an extension cord if you and your partner want your phones charging next to you. This was a very basic oversight. Only one side of the bed had outlets. There wasn't a single outlet close to the otherside. I had to charge my phone by the TV.

There were two light issues. The smoke alarm had a super bright green light that flashed every 10 seconds. It was so bright, it looked like lightning filling the room. I could see it with my eyes closed. This drove me nuts and I could not sleep since it was right over the bed. I figured out a way to block the light. I'd suggest bringing electrical tape. You only need something the size of a pencil eraser.

The other issue was that they used commercial office phones. These had a LARGE screen that produced a lot of light. We had to unplug it.

TV's were nice and large, and it looked like they did not use the purpose built hospitality ones which restricts being able to use a device plugged into the HDMI port. We were able to use my Google TV streaming device and watch a show before bed. So that was nice.

And I feel in the last 5 years, thermostats have become more of a placebo in hotels. Despite it being 10 degrees outside and the temperature set to 70 in the room, the room continuously rose in temperature throughout the evening. It ended up getting up to 76 degrees in the room. Lowering the temperature did nothing.

The restaurant was okay. The food was pretty good. It was a limited selection buffet style. I'd wished it wasn't so much per person though. Upon walking in, there was a sign that says "Wait to be seated." There were 5 staff members waiting behind the counter, all talking to each other. After about 30 seconds standing right there, one said "you can find any table." as if we should have known. After sitting, it took a while for anyone to take our drink orders. Being our first time there, we weren't sure if we needed to do everything ourselves. They will eventually come around.

Obviously there are kinks that need to be ironed out. The first few staff that we encountered needed to show a bit more enthusiasm, we felt they didn't want to be there. I'm confident things will get better. Just wanted to let people know of our experience just a few weeks after...