Last summer while visiting the Canadian Rockies, my husband and I stayed at Alpine
Meadows Lodge for few days. We had a great time, the lodge is very clean,
comfortable and the owners/operators are very friendly and hospitable. The
view from the back of the lodge is fantastic, also the location is close to
every where. The accommodation is good value for the price. We will go back in our next holidays! I strongly recommended to any body looking for quiet time in a friendly environment!

Having read all the recent reviews, I thought nowhere can be that bad, so decided to see for ourselves. Arrived on a rainy dull day - road up to the lodge wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it is a long way from the road with very few signs. Nobody met us at the door - signs everywhere in the vestibule about not wearing shoes inside - Irv came into the hallway eventually and said he had room 10 ready for us - I had specifically booked room 6 (it costs more for the view, which is good!) - he remembered once I reminded him. Out came Maria, not much of a welcome really from her as she was harping on about wearing shoes inside - we already got the message from the signs and I explained that we always do the same at home, which she didn't acknowledge. The lodge was cold and dark, all (lovely) wood and organised chaos with books and magazines everywhere. Lights were finally put on as we got help upstairs with our suitcase and Irv showed us the room, which was clean and tidy, if slightly clinical and cliched with bears on the quilt-like bedspreads. Signs again, all over the place - e.g. no alcohol or food in the hot tub, rules and regs everywhere, which is not very professional - it is possible to be subtle with certain things as in other b&b's we had stayed in . Irv said he would put a fire on, did we think it a good idea (you betya, it should have been on for our arrival!). We unpacked and looked out over the landing and indeed there was a fire on! I went down to see about dinner - they advertise a licenced bar and home cooking, but no mention of that, just where we should go out to eat - so we got ready to leave and on coming downstairs we noticed no sign of Irv or Maria, or the fire, it had gone out. On returning from the Mad Trapper downtown (our second visit to this quiet but great bar, with nice food - we had eaten there a week before) we had picked up some cans of beer as there was nothing in the fridge in the recreational area, it was unplugged and the vendor fridge was empty, so I asked Maria on getting in could we have some heat on as we were going to play cards. With some reluctance the heating was put on and I plugged the fridge in and put our cans in. There were only small glasses in the coffee area, so I got a tankard from the sideboard - Maria came in before I could use it and took it away and brought us some glasses saying we were obviously not Canadian as we didn't drink out of cans! Maria complained about the lack of guests, blaming it on the recession, 9/11 and Americans not coming and when they do they always want a discount. We stayed up till around 9....after being disturbed by Irv as well - and then went to bed - the lack of atmosphere was chilling and the heating was ineffective. Sleep was fine, after reading all the signs again - but the towels were like sandpaper - I went first and then noticed some nicer towels in the closet - my husband had a nicer dry off than I did. Breakfast was adequate but nothing special - pancakes were made from a mix (very salty) and the scrambled eggs had caught in the pan, so had brown in them - but we ate them ok. We heard some disturbing stories at breakfast which I will not repeat here, but obviously the only other couple in the lodge who were from the US knew the same stories as Irv. I joked with Maria about a discount for cash when paying the bill, which didn't even raise a smirk....she wanted her full whack of £124, which was overpriced for the service(?) we got and the complete lack of atmosphere. When packing the car and coming in and out, my husband remarked that even though he had removed his shoes, Maria could not resist a glance down at his feet to make sure! This is a superb property which despite (or maybe because of) its remote location should be heaving with people and atmosphere - the bar could be lively and even if there were just a couple of choices of home cooked food for dinner, any other enterprising couple would make some money on these things. I feel like every other person who has written a review on this place: wonderful building, terrible hosts and no atmosphere. Maybe they should take some time off and go and see their competition in Golden - if we could have we would have stayed at the Auberge Kicking Horse again on our way back to Vancouver, unfortunately it was fully booked!

I was part of the family reunion who stayed here in June and wanted to add my own few cents to clear the air for future guests who consider staying here. Hotel prices in the Canadian Rockies are fairly steep by my standards so from that point, Alpine Meadows was very good value. The wooden lodge style was very warm and welcoming, the mountain views out the front were excellent. The secluded location was also nice. I think quality of sleep depends on which room you have. We were in the upstairs of the Chalet, with parking lot view. The room was nice and large, a double with a futon sofa so my daughter & I had space and no complaints. My sister downstairs complained that her door rattled all night long. We had more hot water in our shared tub - yummy. I loved my hot baths. Other family members didn't have hot water in their rooms, but they had nice rooms with views.

As for the owners -- they are difficult. The breakfast room is cute, with nice views. There is a kettle with tea bags and mugs set out so that you would think you can serve yourself tea whenever you wanted except that whenever I asked Maria to put water in the kettle she would complain about people taking the coffee mugs off to their rooms and there wouldn't be enough for breakfast. Breakfast was another adventure that became arduous and by the end of our stay I was ready to skip it all together because it was such a hassle. If you are with a small group and it's not crowded this might not be such a problem. But Herb played the waiter and Maria was the cook. Herb ran around taking people's orders, but did not write them down. He relayed them to Maria who may or may not remember what you asked for. The choices were things like how many pancakes, how many eggs, and how did you want your eggs. When the servings came out of the kitchen, it was never clear that what you asked for was on the plate, and we'd have to ask around to match whatever was on the plate to whatever someone might have ordered. Due to the extreme confusion, by the end of our visit some us came to breakfast with a pen and pad and started writing down the individual requests and then checking them off once they were delivered. That was helpful. Maria is not flexible. She complains a lot. Herb tries to make nice but he was not very organized. The amount of food was hearty enough though -- there was cereal, juice, bananas, coffee & tea set out buffet style, nothing special but adequate. The eggs, bacon, pancakes, french toast would have been more enjoyable if we didn't have to wait so long to get it. Maria was also very fussy about where we sat -- wifi was available, but the tables were small such that you couldn't really use your laptop and read your email at the same table as 3 other people, but if you moved to an empty table for the purpose of being productive with email while you waited for the interminable breakfast to arrive, Maria would yell at you about sitting in a place that wasn't set.

The common areas were very cozy and nice with the exception that Maria & Herb were constantly interrupting and puttering about. Since we were a family reunion, we were with cousins and siblings we hadn't seen in years, and it seemed just when I was settling into a nice chat with a cousin, Maria would appear and say she was turning off the lights, or it was time to go to bed, because quiet time was 10pm. Well, if our family was the only people staying there, then it seemed there should have been some flexibility as to letting us sit on the sofa and chat.

As for the railroad noise that others have mentioned here -- the railroad runs all through the Rockies in this area. There was some distant noise from freight trains and workers in the railyard. However, I would like to point out that if you stayed in the town of Golden itself, or in the charming town of Field (which was full of much more expensive B&Bs) the railroad noise would been much worse. You won't get away from the railroad in this area.

So my advice is that this place is still a good value but just don't expect it to be one of those "I can't wait to come back." experiences.

As as aside, we went up to Kicking Horse Resort and ate dinner at the restaurant and visited the Grizzly Reserve and that was really fantastic. The food was great, the view stunning, and the remote feeling quite exceptional. There were very accommodating to our group and the off-season ski shops, playground, climbing wall (small) around the parking lot made for a nice way to end the great lunch and visit to the grizzly bear. Oh, some of saw the grizzly bear when we were on the cable car up to the restaurant. We bought a package ticket - cable car, lunch, chair lift to the grizz and I thought it was a good value since I'm picky about good quality food, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

We had 10 rooms at Alpine Meadows - 6 in the lodge and the 4 bedroom chalet. We had 22 people in all for a family reunion. We liked the location - it was quiet, the views were pretty, and it was close enough to many activities. The lodge is spacious; we liked all the exposed wood and windows. We have to agree with the other reviews that the owners are a little "different". This is the first hotel/lodge we've been to where we really tried to avoid them because whatever you were doing (trying to get some work done or catch up on Email, or reading or visiting), they constantly interrupted you for random discussions about themselves and each other. They tended to complain about each other to us which was pretty weird and unprofessional. They also need to work on their plumbing - we had problems with lack of hot water in some rooms, lack of water pressure in some rooms, and the owner switches off the jacuzzi jets at a certain hour. The place lacked warmth (could use come carpets and could lose some of the signs telling you what to do and not do) and the common areas had quite an echo. Things seemed as cheap as possible - we bought berries and yoghurt to add to the marginal breakfast - the owners make it very clear that they are trying to save money. Even though we repeatedly told them to serve breakfast for 22 family style, they insisted on serving each person individually (it's cheaper) and since Maria apparently has no idea how to cook for a group, breakfast became a pretty drawn out and frustraing affair each day. But we thought the price was fair, the place was at least moderately clean (just don't look under the furniture!), the beds were comfy enough and the chalet kitchen was well equipped and served our needs.