We signed up for a place at Sun Valley Cottages, but because their website is misleading/unclear/intentionally obfuscating and does not actually include a single obvious photo of their accommodations at "Cedar Lodge", we were surprised to see a hotel that doesn't look like it's been redecorated since the early 90s. The site has a ton of photos of their nice properties' exteriors, but nothing of this one - just the pool. There's a reason they're hiding this one.
When we went to pick up our keys (at Sun Valley Cottages), the guy at the counter just handed them to us and expected us to know what the heck was going on. We had to ask where we were actually staying or how to get there, because he didn't seem ready to volunteer the information. All we had was a number. Turns out we were staying a mile down the road, but we never would have known. Anyone we'd spoken to was equally unhelpful.
Smoking and non-smoking rooms are just kind of piled on top of one another, with no regard for why anyone would actually want a non-smoking room, so we smelled smoke all night. They also don't tell you that if you book a "half suite," you're basically sharing a room with strangers. You and whoever-the-heck are only divided by a thin door that's an inch off of the ground, so there's absolutely no hope of any sense of privacy or peace. We had to spend our whole vacation whispering, and with the TV volume barely audible, which really, really sucks. On the other hand, we woke up to our suitemates having a super cool conversation about their warts and German doctors, so at least we didn't have to buy breakfast after that. This is after we woke up to someone playing with velcro at 5AM. I really have no idea how they can charge money for this. There are times when we couldn't even hear our TV, and the neighbors weren't even speaking loudly. Would have been nice to be able to sleep in on vacation, though.
The room has two light switches that simply don't work. Maybe they're not attached to anything, or maybe the bulbs blew out and no one tried to fix them. We can't tell. We can also hear a bathroom fan, but I guess someone tiled over it, because there's no fan in the bathroom. There's also a third light switch that apparently controls the electricity in some other room, because it didn't do anything in ours.
We didn't pay over $100 a night to share this space with strangers. Don't waste your money unless you're really sure that you'll be comfortable rooming with whoever they decide to cram into these spaces, and want to hear every word your neighbors are saying, at all hours. Cedar Lodge, and by extension Sun Valley Cottages, did not even meet a minimal expectation for privacy, which is why an identical review is posted to both. In short: goddamned ridiculous. read more