we"reofftoneverland
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2015
We recently spent a night at the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel and took the train to the Grand Canyon the next day. I wanted to post some feedback on this, because I did not find a lot of accurate reviews on it before we booked. Trip advisor reviews are mostly favorable which is an unusual but major miss for me. I find most of their reviews to be accurate overall. I also wanted to post feedback because this hotel looks very nice on the website but is very different in person. This hotel is really subpar, so I wanted to caution people thinking of spending their hard earned money there!
We did a two week cross country road trip to Disneyland at the end of May/beginning of June and stayed in many different hotels along the way. This hotel was easily the worst hotel we visited, and it was one of the more expensive. We stayed at Paradise Pier in DL, which was the most expensive, and the GC Railway Hotel was second in terms of price. We also stayed at a variety of Hyatt, Marriot, Hampton Inn, Wyndom, and one La Quinta (second worst hotel of the lot but no choice in the location).
Problems with the hotel:
1. Worst beds we have ever slept in. And we travel a lot. I don't usually even notice beds as I am not picky like that.
2. Hotel has not been properly cleaned-- maybe ever. Visible dust EVERYWHERE. Awful musty smell in lobby and room. Sprayed an entire can of air freshener in the room and it still smelled. Never experienced that before. Glass entry doors visibly dirty, extremely so. Someone please tell them about Windex because I do not think they know about it. Carpets filthy, stained and not vacuumed. I commented to DH that the lobby area reminded me of a fraternity house after the weekend. He said, that's exactly it. The place seemed totally spent.
3. The hotel looks like a series of inexpensive apartments. Online it looks more like a lodge, much more impressive. In person, there is a nicer entry tacked onto a series of very cheap buildings. Very strange set up.
4. There are many signs saying park at your own risk. I wish I had taken a photo of one of these signs, because the way the sign was worded and the number of signs they had displayed actually made me worry about our car. We know this is true at any hotel, but did not see this kind or extent of unnerving signage at any other hotel.
5. The people working here seem pretty miserable, which makes sense. Someone behind the front desk instructed a maintenance employee to clean up something while we were checking in and he gave her pushback about doing it. Later that night, after I had been to get something out of the car, the same employee was sitting around talking to another employee in the lobby, like they were hanging out. It was just weird. We prepaid our entire reservation, but I noticed on the paper I was asked to sign that we had also already put down a deposit of around $270. I asked what that meant and the employee said, I have no idea but don't worry about it. The people at the front desk were not warm at all.
The railway preshow:
This show was also subpar. Many reviews on line said it was cute, etc. Not at all, it was actually tacky and mind blowingly remedial. The guys doing it could barely remember their lines- and they were lame lines at that. This is nothing like Disney, just so poorly done. At one point in the "show," an "actor" points to the audience and calls them "rich tourists" they will "rob" later on the train, aka demand tip money. You could tell he really did look upon the audience scathingly. The entire thing was so strange. They did later walk through the train cars "demanding" tip money. DH was about to loose it. I wish we had just headed home early instead of bothering with the GC. It was our last stop.
The train ride:
The train itself was pretty cool. Your typical Thomas Day Out type of train ride. Except there was a "service attendent" tied to your car, and the guy on our car reminded us repeatedly that we needed to tip him. He was very annoying and talked over an intercom for almost the entire ride. Ugh.
We have train loving kids, so we thought it would be fun to take a break from the car when we went to the GC. I might consider taking the train and staying in another hotel. But the shake down and supposed service attendant make even the train experience exhausting.
As an aside, the Grand Canyon itself was a bit disappointing. Not sure if others feel the same way. Of course it was beautiful, but I felt a bit like Chevy Chase in Vacation and wanted to just get back in the car. lol. Only we were stuck there for 3 hours and had to take the train back to our car (another downside of the train). We visited other national parks and saw other vistas on the trip and were in awe at other parks, but not this one. On the way back in his constant chatter over the intercom our "service attendant " told us that most people only see the GC once in their lifetime. I though, yeah, especially if they see it with the GC Railway. No repeat customers for sure.
We did a two week cross country road trip to Disneyland at the end of May/beginning of June and stayed in many different hotels along the way. This hotel was easily the worst hotel we visited, and it was one of the more expensive. We stayed at Paradise Pier in DL, which was the most expensive, and the GC Railway Hotel was second in terms of price. We also stayed at a variety of Hyatt, Marriot, Hampton Inn, Wyndom, and one La Quinta (second worst hotel of the lot but no choice in the location).
Problems with the hotel:
1. Worst beds we have ever slept in. And we travel a lot. I don't usually even notice beds as I am not picky like that.
2. Hotel has not been properly cleaned-- maybe ever. Visible dust EVERYWHERE. Awful musty smell in lobby and room. Sprayed an entire can of air freshener in the room and it still smelled. Never experienced that before. Glass entry doors visibly dirty, extremely so. Someone please tell them about Windex because I do not think they know about it. Carpets filthy, stained and not vacuumed. I commented to DH that the lobby area reminded me of a fraternity house after the weekend. He said, that's exactly it. The place seemed totally spent.
3. The hotel looks like a series of inexpensive apartments. Online it looks more like a lodge, much more impressive. In person, there is a nicer entry tacked onto a series of very cheap buildings. Very strange set up.
4. There are many signs saying park at your own risk. I wish I had taken a photo of one of these signs, because the way the sign was worded and the number of signs they had displayed actually made me worry about our car. We know this is true at any hotel, but did not see this kind or extent of unnerving signage at any other hotel.
5. The people working here seem pretty miserable, which makes sense. Someone behind the front desk instructed a maintenance employee to clean up something while we were checking in and he gave her pushback about doing it. Later that night, after I had been to get something out of the car, the same employee was sitting around talking to another employee in the lobby, like they were hanging out. It was just weird. We prepaid our entire reservation, but I noticed on the paper I was asked to sign that we had also already put down a deposit of around $270. I asked what that meant and the employee said, I have no idea but don't worry about it. The people at the front desk were not warm at all.
The railway preshow:
This show was also subpar. Many reviews on line said it was cute, etc. Not at all, it was actually tacky and mind blowingly remedial. The guys doing it could barely remember their lines- and they were lame lines at that. This is nothing like Disney, just so poorly done. At one point in the "show," an "actor" points to the audience and calls them "rich tourists" they will "rob" later on the train, aka demand tip money. You could tell he really did look upon the audience scathingly. The entire thing was so strange. They did later walk through the train cars "demanding" tip money. DH was about to loose it. I wish we had just headed home early instead of bothering with the GC. It was our last stop.
The train ride:
The train itself was pretty cool. Your typical Thomas Day Out type of train ride. Except there was a "service attendent" tied to your car, and the guy on our car reminded us repeatedly that we needed to tip him. He was very annoying and talked over an intercom for almost the entire ride. Ugh.
We have train loving kids, so we thought it would be fun to take a break from the car when we went to the GC. I might consider taking the train and staying in another hotel. But the shake down and supposed service attendant make even the train experience exhausting.
As an aside, the Grand Canyon itself was a bit disappointing. Not sure if others feel the same way. Of course it was beautiful, but I felt a bit like Chevy Chase in Vacation and wanted to just get back in the car. lol. Only we were stuck there for 3 hours and had to take the train back to our car (another downside of the train). We visited other national parks and saw other vistas on the trip and were in awe at other parks, but not this one. On the way back in his constant chatter over the intercom our "service attendant " told us that most people only see the GC once in their lifetime. I though, yeah, especially if they see it with the GC Railway. No repeat customers for sure.