Hit And Miss With Shenandoah’s Lodges

Part of a national park experience is to spend a night or two in a national park lodge, if there is one. Since Shenandoah National Park in Virginia offers three different lodging choices, I chose to stay a night or two in each of these overnight options during a recent early May trip to this park. I can now say from my own personal experience that Shenandoah in-park lodging - currently operated by concessionaire Delaware North - is hit and miss.

Skyland Resort

Built in 1895 and originally named Stony Man Camp, today’s Skyland Resort is located at the highest point in Shenandoah National Park (3,680 feet/1,121.7 meters) with a broad view of the Shenandoah Valley. This lodging outfit offers family-sized cabins, rooms in historic cabins, and motel-style rooms in large one-story units.

Based upon previous cabin experiences in other national parks, I thought reserving a historic cabin might be fun for a few nights’ stay. In my haste to reserve an available spot, however, I misunderstood the resort website’s description, and what I thought was an entire cabin was actually a cabin room for $229.63 per night at the Senior Rate, including taxes and fees. Never mind, I thought to myself. The website’s photos of the cabin room looked cute. Closer inspection of the room upon my arrival changed expectation to reality.

Now, there's rustic - such as a room at Many Glacier Hotel in Glacier National Park - and then there's really rustic, like a cabin room at Skyland Resort. Sure, I stayed in a piece of history where visitors in the late 1800s and early 1900s spent their nights, but as noted above, reality did not meet 21^st century expectation.

Here is what I got:

There are three little cabins (Ash, Hemlock, and Dogwood) side-by-side plus a larger cabin set behind me maybe 100-200 feet. These cabins are all on a hill between modern motel-style units above and the larger family cabins and other motel-style units below. Looking at the photo I took of the Dogwood cabin exterior (I stayed in the cabin’s right-hand side), one would think these historic little jewels are pretty cute. On the outside, from a distance, they are.

The three steps getting up to the teeny tiny porch and the cabin door were narrow and uneven. These cabin rooms are not ADA accessible. While the cabin interior looks roomy, thanks to my wide-angle lens, it’s really rather small. My room came with two chairs but no desk or table; there’s not enough space for a desk or table. I needed something on which to set my laptop so I dragged the tiny table from the porch into the room.

The cabin walls are darker than they appear in the photos. During the day, natural light provided by the windows dispel the darkness. At night and during the pre-dawn hours, to dispel the gloom there are electric lights in the form of a couple of lamps, a light over the sink, and an overhead room light. There’s also a combination light/fan in the bathroom, but I rarely turned it on because the fan is noisy.

This cabin is old and on the unkempt side. The floorboards are rough in places and near the closet do not fit together well; I could see through to the sunlight streaming onto the crawlspace below. To prevent creepy crawlies from crawling through these floor openings, I covered the cracks in the boards with a tall dusty standing fan I'd pulled out of the closet.

The windows are dirty upon closer inspection. The wood looks rough or decaying with very dusty sills populated by spider webs and a live hornet. What looks like dark green or brown paint is smeared along the edges of the panes, which didn't look like they'd been cleaned in a long time.

There’s a window in the bathroom that opens out onto a screen. The screen doesn’t cover the opening very well, though, and a second hornet entered uninvited.

The room's door was ill-fitting, with cracks large enough for creepy crawlies to enter. There is an antiquated door lock with a chain lock above it. I didn't discover until the next morning as I was preparing to leave for the day that the door lock wouldn't lock and the only protection I’d had that first night was the chain lock. There are no phones in these rooms, so I repacked the car and drove to the main office to voice my concerns. About an hour later, maintenance arrived.

Large, dusty, wooden plantation blinds cover the windows … mostly. None of the blinds were equipped with cords or strings for raising and lowering, so some of the windows were only half covered by the blinds. I had to pull firmly on the bottom portion of the blinds to get them to lower all the way down (while hoping they would not fall completely off the window in the process). I have no idea how the blinds were raised nor did I care at that point. I just wanted a little more privacy. I tried using one of the towels to cover the rest of the window, but that didn't work and I only had two bath towels to begin with, so I figured I'd better save them for actual showers.

The heater looked a little dated and needed a bit of cleaning, so I didn’t plan to use it until I woke up in the middle of the night feeling the effects of a very chilly Shenandoah spring.

I always worry about space heaters – especially this room heater. Anticipating a worst-case scenario, I searched the room for an extinguisher. It wasn’t until I looked outside the next morning that I saw attached to one of the other cabins a red box with the words “Fire Ext.” So, while it was not within quick reach, at least Skyland Resort did provide an extinguisher.

Although it looks cute in the photo, the tiny bathroom appeared like an afterthought and the shower – a somewhat modern prefab stall – was the size of a coffin with very little room in which to move (I'm 5'2" tall). At least there was hot water. The bathroom slanted a little. The towels were thin; one hand towel had a thumb-sized hole in it and another hand towel had some sort of large stain embedded within its fibers.

The resort provides neither fridge nor microwave for a cabin room (not enough space for either nor enough outlets), but a Keurig-type coffee maker with coffees and accessories was present.

The bed was ok - I guess. I had to brush off a small spider from one of the pillows. I had no intention of sleeping under the covers after pulling down one end of the cover to view small stains and some other small something stuck to a corner of the bedspread. Instead, I slept on top of the bed.

Very limited cell service and internet are offered at the resort. I managed to send texts but could not open a webpage on my phone or laptop. Perhaps the Preferred and Premium room styles at the resort fared better, but my advice is to not expect to be streaming anything over your phone or laptop.

I blame myself for my room choice. I didn’t follow my own advice and read the room descriptions thoroughly. At the time, the price for what I thought was an entire cabin (and not half a cabin) sounded relatively reasonable, because in-park cabins are usually expensive affairs (I’m thinking of my cabin stays at Kalaloch Lodge in Olympic National Park and at Zion Lodge in Zion National Park).

My ultimate opinion is that this bit of Skyland history is overpriced; my cabin room was definitely not worth $229.63 per night. I did not pay that much money to have a cabin room with a non-working door lock, holes in and stains on the towels, ill-fitting doors, a tiny shower, and what seemed to me to be an overall negligent cleaning job. But I guess it's what the market will bear, right?

If you ever decide to stay at Skyland Resort, don't choose a cabin room. Go with a Premium or Preferred room and be willing to pay more.

Big Meadows Lodge

This lovely lodge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a hop and a skip from Big Meadows – a high elevation meadow surrounded by trees and lush vegetation. The lodge offers the same room types as Skyland Resort. For two nights’ lodging here, I selected one of their Preferred rooms, so I’m not certain how Big Meadows Lodge’s cabin rooms measured up to Skyland’s cabin rooms.

Here is what I got:

As different as night from day, my Preferred room in the Crescent Rock Unit was palatial compared to the Skyland cabin room - over twice the size. It was certainly more modern. The lock worked, the blinds worked, and the windows were clean.

I had a full-sized bath/shower and the bathroom was huge. While the room is not listed as ADA accessible, it did have handrails in the shower and around the toilet, and the bathroom appeared large enough to accommodate a walker or small wheelchair. The nightly fee for this room cost $331.28 (taxes and fees included) at the Senior Rate. FYI, the fire extinguisher was front and center on the wall next to the bathroom.

Everything about this room, from towels (no holes, no stains) to toilet was a huge upgrade. There was even a fireplace (with wood and matches provided). I tested the in-room television but couldn't get anything aside from static. It's just as well I didn't want to watch TV anyway, but I’m letting you know it’s there for those who maybe do want to watch (and know how to use a Direct TV remote).

A cabinet housing a small fridge as well as the standard Keurig-type coffee maker and coffee/cream/sugars rounded out the amenities. There were far more electric outlets and a nice little table with two chairs sat next to the large window overlooking the porch. The walls were light and bright and the heating unit was modern and very quiet (did I mention the noisy heater at the Skyland cabin?). There were a few spider webs here and there, but after the previous cabin room experience, these minor details I could deal with. Thankfully, no hornets waited to greet me.

While available, cell and internet services are extremely limited. The internet did not work for me at all, and the only decent cell service I managed was while sitting in the large room next to the lobby in the main lodge building.

Compared to my Skyland cabin room, I found no real issues with my Big Meadows Lodge room. My dining experience in the lodge’s Spottswood Dining Room, however, was a different matter.

Of course, I stayed there only five days after the lodge had opened for the 2026 season, so I understood it might not all be smooth sailing.

It took some time for the server to bring my coffee order (just coffee and cream) and I was not offered water. The few other tables occupied that morning all had water-filled glasses. Maybe I had to ask about it? I saw no signs indicating any water conservation measures in the dining room.

The server brought my coffee, apologized for the wait, and informed me the entire dining and kitchen staff were new. She was surprisingly calm and assured, having only just endured a vociferous complaint made by another diner near me unhappy with the length of time waiting for her order. While awaiting my breakfast order, I did wonder how much - if any - training the staff received prior to lodge opening. I also had the impression they might be short staffed, since the woman acting as dining room hostess did not ordinarily work that position.

Forty-five minutes after ordering, my server came to apologize; they lost my ticket.

The eggs Benedict and side of asparagus arrived swimming in Hollandaise sauce and the food was warm, not hot, which caused me to wonder how long the plate sat before my server eventually brought it to me. At the end of the meal, as the server picked up my plate, I suggested she mention to the kitchen staff there was no need to ladle out so much sauce next time. I opted to not eat dinner in the restaurant. Hopefully by the time of this article’s publication the dining kinks will be ironed out.

Lewis Mountain Cabins

The website photos make these cabins look quite nice, but I still felt a bit of trepidation about staying here. Why? Because a quick drive to this place the day prior for photos of the adjacent Lewis Mountain Campground showed the cabins were the exact same make and model as the Skyland Resort cabin in which I previously roomed. Even if it had not been too late to cancel, I felt it necessary to complete the trifecta of Shenandoah lodging with a night’s stay here.

Unlike the Skyland cabin room, this cabin came with two double beds at the regular (not Senior) rate of $203 for one night, taxes and fees included.

Here is what I got:

Like the Skyland cabin, the Lewis Mountain cabins are divided into two separate units. Unlike the Skyland cabin, my Lewis Mountain cabin had a shared bathroom and not two separate bathrooms. A double bed sat in each cabin half. Yes, the bathroom is shared, and the Lewis Mountain website indicates it's a shared bathroom. So, when you reserve a cabin with two double beds, you get the whole cabin. Who you have stay with you is entirely up to you (friends, family, just yourself). You won't be sharing the bathroom with a total stranger in the other room because the website doesn't sell the cabins that way. As a side note, there are also one-room cabins, so I am assuming - but don't know for certain - that these one-room affairs are like the cabin in which I stayed at Skyland Resort: a room in a cabin with its own bathroom separated by a wall from the other side of the cabin, which has a room and bathroom of its own.

This time, there were four hornets in my room, thanks to so many places from which they could have entered. I also noticed a hornet nest under the eaves near one of the cabin entrances, but didn’t see any hornets … they were probably all in my cabin.

While my photos of this cabin make the place look quite nice, close inspection indicates otherwise. The cabin walls next to the ill-fitting door had chinks large enough to see daylight stream through, so I plugged the most egregious of them with tissue. I also used a bath towel to block the opening at the bottom of the door closest to my bed, although that was probably more for my psychological benefit than anything else, since there were other places for uninvited “guests” to crawl or skitter into the cabin.

I could see daylight coming from all sides of the two cabin doors. At least the floorboards fit together well enough and I detected no cracks through which I could see the crawlspace. Oh, and the locks worked.

The heater was a bit more “modern,” but it was just as noisy as the one at my Skyland cabin room.

A Keurig coffee maker and flat covered box containing coffee, sugar, and powdered creamers sat upon the desk.

There was not enough lighting - just an overhead light/ceiling fan combo and a single nightstand lamp in each room, so even with the lights on in the early morning and evening, the rooms remained dim and gloomy. One side of the cabin had a desk and chair, but there was no lamp to light that area. Most of the outlets were accessed from a single box attached to the wall slightly above the desk, sort of like a surge protector, but definitely not a surge protector as evidenced by a little note warning the cabin occupants not to use too many electric appliances at one time.

The blinds worked and let in a nice amount of daylight through the less-than-pristine windows, which were about the same condition as the Skyland cabin windows. There was no way in hell I would have opened those windows up since the screens covering the windows didn’t fit well, were filled with webs and other creepy looking "dross," and had hornets crawling around the screen interiors.

The bathroom was not on a slant. The aging vinyl flooring beneath the sink was warped. The same prefab shower "coffin" completed the bathroom facilities. I found interesting little critters in the bathroom the next morning (millipede on the wall and a large-ish spider hanging from a thread beneath the blinds), but these creatures had the grace to hide themselves in the available cracks and crevices once I began moving around.

When I’d registered at the campstore, I was handed a printout with do’s and don’ts regarding food and other aromatic items: cover everything up and keep it all off the floor. It was incumbent upon me rather than Housekeeping to remove my own recycling and trash to the bear-proof bins set between my cabin and the next cabin.

Speaking of food, there is no restaurant, but the campstore offers a limited selection of grab-and-go items as well as canned and bottled drinks.

Cell service only works at this location, and while I could send and receive texts easily, trying to open a webpage proved slow and tedious so I just gave up.

Lewis Mountain Campground and Cabins is only about six miles (9.7 kilometers) south of Big Meadows Lodge, so my advice is to skip the cabins at Lewis Mountain and instead reserve an extra night in a Premium or Preferred room at Big Meadows. You’ll pay more, of  course, but your comfort level will improve drastically.

Summing It All Up

Part of the park experience is being able to enjoy your stay in park lodging. I know these lodges are not going to be the Hyatt Regency (even though park concessioners charge high-end hotel prices), so I don’t expect much in general. That said, there are still some things I want for a (relatively) enjoyable brick-and-mortar stay:

• I want a clean room in which I feel safe and don’t have to do battle with large hornets, carpenter ants, millipedes, and spiders.
• I want a working door lock for my safety.
• I want a clean bathroom with hot water, a working toilet, and a shower in which I can turn around without hitting something.
• I want my room windows to be clean and to provide privacy. I’d also like those room windows – if they open – to have well-fitted screens allowing in the breeze and birdsong while keeping those hornets/spiders/other creepy crawlies out.
• I want a clean bed and clean towels that don’t have holes in them or stains on them.
• I want to see a fire extinguisher somewhere nearby for my safety.
• I want more than just two working outlets.
• I wouldn't mind having a desk or table and chair since I bring my laptop with me on all the trips taken so I can work on photos and write articles for the Traveler. This is more of a “want to have” rather than a “need to have,” although most modern lodging facilities do provide chairs and tables/desks.
• While some people enjoy the capability of turning off the outside world by not having access to cell service or the internet, I personally appreciate decent cell service since I – a solo traveler - like to let my family know where I am and that I am safe.

I was going to title this piece Delaware North Needs To Up Its Game at Shenandoah but I found out from a recent Shenandoah National Park Instagram post that ExplorUS - under its subsidiary Shenandoah Hospitality LLC - has been awarded a 15-year contract taking control of all concessions (lodging, waysides, camping, retail, and dining) for Shenandoah National Park starting January 1, 2027. This new concessionaire will also be responsible for $10 million of deferred maintenance upgrades for campgrounds, restrooms, and lodging. After spending time in all three of the park’s lodging options, I’d say ExplorUS aka Shenandoah Hospitality LLC has their work cut out for them.

FYI, the issue with keeping up lodging maintenance is not a new thing. It's been going on for awhile, as evidenced by the 2012 Traveler articles below.

Featured in the National Parks Traveler

National Park Lodging: Who's Taking Care Of These Buildings? Part I

While many national park lodges are on the National Register of Historic Places, not all lodges reflect the preservation and well-maintained appearance you might expect for such properties. In a two-part series, the Traveler looks at the highs and lows of upkeep in the National Park System.

Rusting fixtures, cracked tiles, wood rot in advanced stages, beams warped and rotting, mortar around fireplace hearths and chimneys cracked or missing. If you found some of these maintenance needs around your home, you'd likely tackle them right away.

After all, better to get your hands dirty, wield a hammer, spill a little paint, or do some plumbing to fix a small problem now rather than be overwhelmed by a massive, and expensive, repair job later, right?

But if you spend any time in the national parks, you'll find weary structures that need attention ranging from a coat or two of fresh paint to more substantial structural fixes.

Why is that so?

To read more of Part I, head over to this page.

National Park Lodging: Who's Taking Care Of These Buildings? Part II

Concessions Backlog

The National Park Service has struggled to keep up with its concessions contracting. Back in 1998, Congress directed the agency to rewrite and update the 1965 concessions regulations. While that work was being done -- it wasn't finished until 2001 -- many long-term contracts were placed on a hiatus of sorts, and parks worked on a year-to-year basis with concessionaires.

"The '98 law basically has put in place a much closer attention to what the capital investments are, what the conditions are, and has funded a training program for personnel to pay attention to that," explained Dick Ring, who ended his Park Service career as associate director for administration and business programs with oversight of concessions and now works for the National Park Trust. "But it’s taken a while to roll all 600 of those contracts over. And the bigger they are, the more complicated they are, and the process to roll and renew a contract has been .... it hasn’t been quick, let’s put it that way."

Jeff Olson, a Park Service spokesman in the agency's Washington headquarters, says the current backlog of concessions contracts needing to be brought into compliance with the revised regulations is down to about 20 contracts. While that's a great improvement from 600, the outstanding contracts can prevent some businesses that need long-term contracts from obtaining bank loans for improvements.

To read more of Part II, head over to this page.