My bluff cabin had no ocean view!
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 07/20/09
Bottom line: I would not recommend this place given the price. I stayed in two different bluff cabins and was disappointed with the view, service and food given the nearly $300 per night I was paying to be there.
This lodge is run by Aramark, a multi-national corporation headquartered in Pennsylvannia. Reservations are run out of a central locations call center so the agents you are speaking with have never even seen the lodge. I called several times prior to my stay and was given misinformation on each occasion.
I was told that I would be in a two bedroom bluff cabin with a fireplace. I ended up in a one bedroom cabin with no fireplace. Most importantly, I was told that every cabin has a full view of the ocean and sadly, this is not true. Some of the cabins do, but many do not and since you can't reserve a specific cabin, it is completely hit or miss. The cabin I was in on the second night had no view of the ocean because the weeds/shrubs in front of it had grown up too high. When I complained, I was told by the staff that Olympic National Park prohibits them from trimming anything so it is outside of their control. That is fine, but I resent paying for a cabin I was told had an ocean view and only seeing bushes. When I complained to the staff about the misinformation, they said it happens all the time because central reservations are run out of Arizona (or some far off place) and they were "working to fix it." Not much consolation.
I had a cabin on the inner edge of the bluff and still had no view. Many of the "bluff" cabins are set back much farther to begin with and certainly don't appear like they could have a view.
The cabin's "full kitchen" was not well equipped - no coffee filters, no tea, no paper towels, no dish towels, no potholders and barely any cookware. Since the cabins don't have phones, we couldn't just call the lobby to bring these items out to us - we had to get dressed and walk up to the lodge to secure the filters we needed to brew our morning coffee.
The quality of the entrees (dinner) in their restaurant was also quite mediocre given the price, although the view from the restaurant is beautiful.
I would not stay here again and would not recommend it to anyone. When I mentioned my experience to a coworker, he said I should have stayed at the Oceanside Resort run by the Quileute Nation in La Push (just outside of Forks). He said the ocean views are stunning there and the rates are more reasonable. I wish I had known about it earlier as I would have given it a try. The location of La Push is also much more central to the things I wanted to see on the Peninsula than the far south Kalaloch Lodge which added a lot of extra driving.
I would not stay here again and would not recommend it to anyone. When I mentioned my experience to a coworker, he said I should have stayed at the Oceanside Resort run by the Quileute Nation in La Push (just outside of Forks). He said the ocean views are stunning there and the rates are more reasonable. I wish I had known about it earlier as I would have given it a try. The location of La Push is also much more central to the things I wanted to see on the Peninsula than the far south Kalaloch Lodge which added a lot of extra driving.