Wawona Hotel

I booked two rooms for next year through the National Parks Reservation Service and within a month I was notified that the hotel was cancelling all reservations after December 2024 for the future. National Parks Reservation Service was of little help to me in obtaining the refund of the deposits I paid. I was told to deal with the hotel. Aramark who manages the hotel assured me my credit card had been credited for the deposits. I checked with the credit card company this was not true. Again neither NPRS nor Aramark were any help to me. The credit card company is now dealing with Aramark on my behalf. On top of this NPRS is keeping the "service fee" they charged -10% of the price of thr entire stay- even though the hotel cancelled the reservation. They did nothing to assist me. BEWARE if you use this preditory organization.

This is a scam hotel. After take my deposit. Then they cancel my booking. NOT WILLING TO REFUND THE DEPOSIT. How can a hotel do such thing What a terrible service this is. everyone who saw this review please don’t book this hotel. 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡

My favorite part of our stay was relaxing on the second floor porch in our chairs sipping wine and eating take-out food from the general store. [Their dining room was closed. We could picture/imagine the horse and carriages dropping people off in olden days. Yes, you have to go down the hall for a shared bathroom, but that is part of the charm.

I booked a two night stay at Wawona, and a few days before we were due to arrive, I received an email to inform me that due to renovations, the kitchen and dining room were not available, and offering a refund. I took up this offer as it would not be acceptable to stay there without having access to somewhere to eat. Two weeks later I have still not received the refund, but have had 3 emails from the company stating they overpaid me $17 when processing the refund and demanding that I repay them. I am not prepared to send more money to an organisation that didn’t provide me any service, left me searching for alternative accommodation and now are harassing me. Avoid at all cost.

We were notified a few days before we left that the kitchen had been closed and were disappointed, but when we got there we were relieved that we hadn't eaten there. There was a health warning sign on the door to the kitchen that denied entry without protective gear due to bacteria, etc. The entire place is in deep decline. The hotel was encased in scaffolding and we learned that the roof was being replaced because it had partially fallen in. The porch on the building we stayed in (Washburn) was lovely and the chairs and small tables were in good shape, but the trim was visibly rotting and the railing had a warning on it telling you not to lean or sit on it (obviously it was no longer sturdy.). The room was clean and nice, but the lobby of the hotel was dirty, worn and outdated. It could have been charming if the carpet and upholstery of the furniture hadn't been so dirty and worn. It is really tragic that a historic place which clearly could have been wonderful has been so neglected.

Two days before arrival we received an email that the dining room would be closed at the hotel. Bummer. There are NO rear by restaurant options, so we brought a cooler and some provisions. I understand the closure was unforeseen, but the hotel did not go out of their way to make any other provision for meals except to lay in a few extra grab and go options at the golf shop. This was a fairly significant inconvenience and we were not compensated in any way for that. We were not made aware that there would be construction going on during the period of our stay, scaffolding, hammering, etc. I appreciate that they must maintain the hotel, indeed it needs a tremendous amount of maintenance, I just wish we had been made aware so we could have taken that into consideration when making our travel plans. The rooms are small, but functional and there was plenty of hot water. There are, however, lights on the veranda outside all the rooms that stay on all night and shine through and around the roller shades. Our bathroom window had no shade at all. Yes, this is a historic hotel, and we expected it to be antique and without modern fixtures, etc. So you shouldn't expect luxury. To sum it up, the setting is pretty but not very convenient. There's a level of deferred maintenance here that we didn't expect and found disappointing. We felt that the hotel did not do the minimum to accommodate guests for the inconvenience caused by the dining room closure and the staff displayed a lack of warmth or friendliness that made me feel they were not happily employed. What did we like? The veranda in the evening with a glass our own wine was lovely. Was this worth $300 a night? No, it was not a $300 a night experience in the least. This could be a real show place if they really put the time and money into properly maintaining the buildings and keeping the porches swept, fountain cleaned of weeds and so much more. Not worth the cost of the stay.

We booked the hotel mainly because it was our only option with a pool - We were told upon arrival that the pool was closed for the past 3 weeks and they did not know when it would reopen. When I said it was a shame because we booked it for the pool (we travelled with a 20 month old) and that it would be nice to send a notification to coming guests about it, I was simply ignored. The lady at the reception did not even looked at me, she looked at my friend and said "you have room #X". This made me really upset. How hard is it to says somthing like "We are so sorry for the inconvenience. We offer that type of service instead or there is a pool available at X Location"... you know, just something. Do not just ignore your guest, that is a very bad start. Over the stay, we found out that it was not only that lady that was unprofesional, but the rest of the staff. Not necesaarily bad, but not friendly, nor helpful, at all. The food is very average but prices are not cheap, and the service is not good. We had to wait over 45 minutes every morning to get our breakfast... Then the room was okeyish but very old. So old that it can feel a little creepy and dirty. Everything is and looks old. There is no fan on the ceiling so it is really hot in the room and no air comes in from the window. Plus, if you leave it open, prepare for hearing the noise from other guests. The shared bathroom is ok though but we used it only one night as we paid extra (90USD per night!!) for a room with a private bathroom... which was nicer because it had a bathroom, but was still old and hot! It is a shame though cause the place is so gorgeous, and, as soon as you leave the indoor area, it feels magical. But the staff and the hotel itself is really meh. I have been in better hostels in the past... But yeah, I guess it is ok if you don't stay longer than 2 nights. By the way, there is a free pool in the Yosemite valley and it was perfect to be there while our friends were hiking.

In short, take the other negative reviews seriously. While we LOVE the location and calmness during the day, the rooms are TINY and BASIC. They are so old that they have begun to feel unclean in my view (eg things like carpet, bathroom, shower curtain etc). You just don’t really want to touch anything(!). Also, VERY noisy at night with paper thin walls (could hear the neighbour’s snoring v clearly and the outdoor generator). The communal restrooms are clean though. Internet patchy. Pool v small, dining basic and expensive. We found the food average. It really needs some proper money spent on it. A real shame because it could be a real gem. That said, if you go with low expectations for a day or 2, it’s conveniently located if you’ve had a long drive to get to the park. We will probably stay again for just a night for that reason. We found service mixed but mainly friendly. And the 9 hole golf course is basic, but cute and worth a go!

Hotel in Yosemite NP, this hotel is about 1 hr drive from Yosemite Valley. It is near Mariposa Grove. The hotel looks nice from the outside, the rooms are very basic and very noisy. The hotel has a restaurant. What I found very annoing was the absence of WiFi. It is stated there is internet, but it doesn’t work. Currently this is not acceptable anymore, especially since mobile service is also not working in this remote region. The pool was closed at the date we stayed here. Prepare to pay a lot of money to spend a night here.

First of all, the hospitality that the hotel offerss is nule. What it cannot be is, when a customer gets to the hotel at 20:55 after a tired day of visiting things, and wants have dinner, the restaurant manager cannot say that the kitchen close at 21:00 and they cannot offer nothing to eat event to take away. The only solution he gave me was to go some miles out of the park to have dinner. Please, try to inform the guest about the times where the restaurant closes. He also said, that the park obligates them to close at 21:00. That is strange, because the next day we saw in other restaurants inside the park that the close time was at 22:00. We tryed to open claim right there with the recepction, and she did not have any claim form. She offered a piece of paper to write down the claim. I don´t now if that is even legal for an audit, but it was very funny (just to say something, because of course it was not). We wanted to cancel our second night at the hotel, but we could not because the WiFi it was not working. The reception girl told that some times the people wait more than 2 hours to get connectivity, that doesn´t make any sense, but the situation was what it was so we went to bed without nothing to eat. Of course, I would had any kind of connectivity we would find out a better please to spend that vacation day, better that at Wawona Hotel. The room it was very poor and old for the cost per night that we spent. The price was disproportionate for the quality of the room and accomodations. There was not even a cooler or coffe machine, so we could not have food just in case. You have to get in mind, that the hotel is in a place where there is no facilities to buy. It is very sad, when you want to spend the vacations with excitement in a foreing country and you find all that.