Wapiti Lodge - Motel in Durango - 21625 US-160 W, Office, USA

For the price this is a comfortable and clean hotel. We ended up needing to stay an extra night on a recent trip and were looking for somewhere budget friendly. I give 4 stars on ease of check in, cleanliness and location. The bed was a little firm for my taste and there was no hair dryer. We were only one of three rooms occupied so it was super quiet but you can hear road noise (faintly) so if it had higher occupancy it might mean you hear other guests.

Great little place. Rooms are renovated and nice, every tho the outside looks a bit dated. Floors could have been cleaned a bit better, as there were sticky places that hadn't been scrubbed or cleaned well. I appreciate that it's pet friendly!

A disaster for us. The door to our room looked like it had been broken into and not fixed or replaced very well; it was still loose. So I had to put a chair up against it at night. Did not feel secure. Because it is self-check in, there was no one to address this issue. Cheap coffeemaker with no coffee supplies; nothing. There is nowhere to hang up clothes; 2 plastic hangers are hanging off the ironing board on the wall. Bizarre. The positives: beds were comfortable, shower was good, and air conditioning worked.

I booked directly with Wapiti Lodge because I needed to know about accessibility for my wife who has limited mobility. When I called Steve his voice mail answered and said he would call me back in 24 hours. This is the same message you get when you call him before and after you check in. After about one hour Steve called me, and I asked if the room was handicapped accessible. He said the rooms are very spacious and my wife should have no problems navigating in the room and bath. He said nothing about “Self-Service.” Problems: • Checking in is a hassle unless you have a computer and printer. • I had to go to one of Steve’s other properties (he is said to have four total) to get checked in. • The keypad is difficult to see, and you must hold the lock/unlock button for several seconds before it activates. During the day it is difficult to see the tiny activation light. • The room has no closet or a closet rod to hang your clothes. We hung three items on the TV wall bracket that wasn’t attached to the TV. • The bathroom had no towel racks. The towels were in the bedroom under the sink. • The A/C was located about 6.5 feet above the floor and the controls were at the top of unit. I’m 6’1” and had to take a phone photo of the control panel to turn on the unit and adjust the temperature. • When the A/C activates it sounds like an electric leaf blower. • The motel did not have a vending machine for drinks. • The vending machine for snacks was completely empty. • No ice was available. • The room had no phone. • The room had no smoke detector. • If you ran out of towels, toilet paper, or anything you would expect a “Lodge” to supply you must guess how to attain these items. No instruction was available. So, by this time I ventured around the property and found a cabinet that contained such essential elements. • The poor housekeeper had the room spotless when we arrived. There we no entry rugs or floor rugs and the floor was sandy and gritty before we left. • Each evening these large delivery trucks arrived and checked in. Early the next morning, they were very efficient at signaling with their back-up warnings they were leaving. This experience was a cross between staying at a truck stop and camping in a tent. You can buy a tent at a sporting goods store and pay a minimal fee at one of the many beautiful campgrounds and have the same service as provided by the “Wapiti Lodge.” Thanks Steve for the lesson learned.

The automated check in process here is absolutely infuriating. The hotel requires that guests scan a driver license or other government issued ID before being issued a room code. That’s fine, except when the website doesn’t work. I tried multiple times to no avail, tried calling their help number (which itself took time to identify, as it is displayed for about a half a second during an instructional video that lasts for several minutes) about a half dozen times and got no answer. After switching browsers from Chrome to Safari, the website finally allowed me to take a picture. Yet the door code they sent didn’t work for about five minutes, creating more frustration. Another guest arriving just after us hadn’t received a code and similarly struggled to contact the manager to resolve the situation. This is not the kind of customer service I’d expect after paying $142 for a single night’s stay. But I’m glad that the self-service system is saving the owner money. Good for them.

Perfect. The Wapiti was perfect. The room was perfectly clean, the digital key worked flawlessly, the bed was fantastic, sink and toilet were new, location far enough off the road that it was nice and quiet. We will definitely return

You have to know what you are getting into before deciding to book here. We stayed here because it was a last minute trip, we needed a workspace, we wanted a kitchen, and the price was reasonable. What we found was that the usefulness of these things was negated by the condition of the place and lack of amenities. Turns out the work desk was the only desk for the entire suite and the kitchen was hardly usable, which I'll get into below. So, here goes...||The front door - it had about an inch of open space at the bottom and didn't fully seal on the sides. When we contacted management they said we could use a blanket to try and seal it - at least that is what they did in winter. This was July. Moths were literally flying back and forth underneath the door. The amount of bugs that got in was unbelievable. I was stepping on bugs, they met their end in the soap, they napped in my towels, you name it. The ants were kind enough to help remove some of the bodies. I'm just glad nothing larger made its way in. This is simply unacceptable no matter what their excuse.||The kitchen - it was disgusting. Be prepared to bring anything you may need because I wouldn't trust anything they provide. We were provided a used sponge, but no dish soap. The drying rack for dishes was sticky, coated with grime, and actually had long hair on it. There were a few other tacky feeling things and I stopped looking after that. The kitchen was also not part of the remodel - the sink faucet was broken, the fridge didn't have a light, everything was very old, came with a patina of oil and was not in good condition.||Even though this was a 2 bed suite with a kitchen, there was no place to eat, nor any place to set your things, etc! We were told to use the work desk, which was the only desk in the room, to double as a dining table (which defeats the purpose of a work area). There is no coffee table, nothing. The good news is that the cool looking sofa in the pictures is not fabric - it is plastic! So, you could try to eat there without as much concern for stains. Each bed had 1 nightstand, one of which had an oily substance spilled in 2 of the drawers. For the entire suite there was only 1 garbage can, which might not seem like the biggest deal until you have to remember to bring the garbage can with you should you, well, need it. ||Noise - the road noise from highway where the lodge is located is significant and constant from about 5am until 11pm and it is very much heard in the room. In the suite there was a door for the master bedroom that could be closed, and that helped reduce the noise somewhat.||Contact information - no one responded to the email, chatbot or phone number listed on their website for days. You need to text the number they send you the reservation confirmation from. They don't even have voicemail for the number listed online.||24 hour guest registration - they don't tell you they require you to upload a copy of your ID and fill out an online form with some additional policies in the 24 hours prior to your arrival. We were traveling in areas with basically no service and ran into issues with this - thankfully we finally got it resolved with the help of management, but not without a bit of back and forth and some stress.||On a positive note – there was hot water! So hot in fact that after a few seconds the water was so scalding hot that even touching the faucets would get you burned. There was plenty of space everywhere other than the kitchen, including ample parking (which seemed to be used by non guests for random activities). The location is a nice half mile or so with a sidewalk along the highway, to the Animas river trail and from there a short walk to downtown. The interactions with management were pleasant, if severely lacking in a basic level of product/service that should be provided. I will give it to their marketing team – their photography and remodel language really had me thinking all the other reviews must have been old!||Overall – I don’t think this place met the basic level of expectation when it comes to what a hotel room should be, self service or not. It is pretty laughable when the options available to guests in their “pantry” include condoms but there isn’t soap for the kitchen, there are manufacturer stickers on the windows, the hole in the wall for the AC is much larger than the unit, the pole for hanging things in the closet is at an angle, indoor lighting is lacking, there is extra trash lying outside the dumpster, amongst all the other things mentioned. All the slapstick things are on par with how our whole larger guest experience played out. I had read a lot of the reviews on Expedia and saw that new management was responding, making it seem like all the complaints from before had been addressed – but nope! Our experience was with new management, with the “remodel”, and the problems definitely still exist. They may have changed the flooring and bedding, and put some lipstick on the pig, but major problems remain. If you just want something cheap to get you out of the rain for the night, this will work if you like hard beds, but don't expect anything more.

Self service check in was a headache. No one there to help, all on your own! The room we paid for did NOT smell clean. When we opened the futon a bug greeted us. The futon was supposed to accommodate the 5th person which we paid extra for and super uncomfortable 😫 The worst place we stayed at during our vacation in Colorado. We got what we paid for!