What a difference 40 years makes…read more
I was at the Salish Lodge on a business trip for a week in 1989, and it was one of the most lovely experiences I've ever had. By the end of the first day, every valet and front desk person knew all of us by name, and they bent over backward to be helpful and treat us like valued guests even though we were working an event and weren't the ones paying for the rooms. (Our company had bought out the entire lodge, which was much smaller at the time.)
All the guest rooms at that time faced the river and had a beautiful view of it. Not so anymore, as they've renovated the lodge and many rooms have either no view or a view of trees (definitely beautiful) but not the river. The latter was our experience. There was a tiny glimpse to be had if you peered far off to the right, but otherwise our view was the trees. This was disappointing simply because we didn't know the place had been added on to and now had non-river view rooms. My husband, who had given me this trip as a Christmas present, was very disappointed and asked if there were any river view rooms available instead. Sure -- for $700. (No thanks.)
We stayed in our $400+ tree view room instead, but honestly, this room is about $250 overpriced. For that price, one would expect everything to be in perfect condition, plus a large-ish room. Not the case in ours. It's smaller than the size of a standard La Quinta or Comfort Inn type of room, has no dresser or drawers to unpack your clothes (unless you remove the iron from the 6"x6" drawer it's stored in), and the "closet" is an IKEA-like unit in the entryway of the room. There's a fireplace, a TV, and a small desk, plus two chairs crammed into the corner, and a narrow balcony outside to listen to -- not see -- the river.
The bathroom has a shower with two rain-style shower heads, so bring something to cover your hair if you don't want to drench it every time you shower. (The hotel doesn't provide shower caps -- only a small bottle of lotion and some Q-tips and a make-up removal wipe that doesn't remove makeup. It's just to keep you from getting it on the white towels.)
As to the room's condition -- There are lamps on each side of the bed. Mine had a wonky switch that had to be jiggled just so in order to work. It's supposed to be dimmable, but mine was either on or off. There is also a reading light built into the headboard. Mine didn't work. Also, water was shooting out the side of one of the shower heads where it connects to the pipe in the wall. I did tell the front desk the next morning, and they offered to move us to another room. I didn't want to have to pack up all my stuff and move to another room that may have had less of a view than we already had, so I told them we were leaving for the day and asked that someone come in to fix the issues. They did, but about six hours after I put in the request, my husband received a text asking when it would be convenient for them to come in. Needless to say, communication between the staff isn't great.
As of this writing (getting ready to check out on Day 4), now the fireplace isn't working. It stopped last nigh
