The only reason we stayed at this hotel was so we could get an early-morning start the next day for our hike to Supai. When I booked the room in February, I got the last nonsmoking room in the property as they were already full because of Elderhostel.
The problems started when we were trying to check in and they had no record of our reservation. Turned out that the lady I spoke with on the phone had put it in the book for the wrong date. We got lucky, though... Elderhostel wasn't there on that particular night so we were still able to get a room.
On to the room. It was spartan and ancient, looked like it hadn't been renovated since the 60's. I didn't notice the cleanliness problems until several hours later when I got back to the room and was getting ready for bed. The toilet tank had a significant amount of dirt and hair on it. The underside of the bedspread had interesting stains on it and needed to be washed. The remote control did not work for the TV. We could hear noise from other guests and the singer in the bar across the courtyard (more on him later). The window in the room rattled nonstop whenever the AC unit was on. We checked out the pool, which had toys and ropes laying around and looked like it had been ignored for an indefinite amount of time.
When I tried to use the phone in the room to check about trail conditions for the hike to Supai, I couldn't get a call to go through. I called the front desk to ask about it, and they said that to use that phone, I would have to give them a $20 deposit. My other options were to walk out to the service station in front of the hotel and use that pay phone, or I could drive to a hill a couple of miles down the road and possibly use my cell phone if I had Verizon or could otherwise somehow get a signal. I opted for the service station pay phone, which was pretty staticky but at least it worked.
We had to eat dinner so we drove to the Inn's restaurant, which is a mile or two down a road on the Inn's property. Why they chose to place a restaurant in this obscure location, I have no idea. It looked like a country bar inside, which was kind of fun, but the music of Beyonce and Timbaland didn't exactly fit the atmosphere. The menu was pretty much like your local greasy spoon.
We noticed a few fliers hanging up that were advertising "Rafael" on Friday and Saturday nights in the Inn's lounge. Since there is absolutely nothing to do in the area at night, we thought we might check him out. Upon our return from the restaurant, we walked in the front doors of the Inn, heard the music coming from the bar, looked at each other, and groaned. Rafael was a one-man show on the synthesizer. He played the Beatles and other assorted songs that should never be played on the synthesizer. It got even worse when he actually sang. The bar was empty, of course, except for a little later when my husband peeked in and saw a couple of three-year-olds dancing together.
The only good things about this place were the friendly staff, free internet access in the lobby, and I actually did sleep well once I was able to simply fall asleep. I came to this motel with fairly low expectations given the past reviews and the pictures from the motel's website. I knew not to expect the Ritz, and because of that, I was able to laugh off what we found. I think that it's crucial to keep your expectations low if you do book your stay here!
I would stay here again because there is only one other choice for accommodations in Peach Springs and within an hour of the trailhead to Supai, and when I called them for reservations, the clerk argued with me about their rates and didn't even try to be professional or polite about it, to put it loosely. She refused to give me the $79 rate posted on their website, stating that I was wrong and the rates had changed to $99. When I called her back and read to her directly from the hotel's webpage, she changed her story, said she knew about it, but that the website hadn't been updated and that maybe someone would give me the $79 rate if I printed out that page and brought it with me when I checked in. Then I found out that that particular hotel also sat directly on a train track, with a train that blew their horn every 17 minutes all night long, and sleep would be impossible. No thanks!! For those reasons, the Grand Canyon Caverns Inn would still be the motel I would recommend, dirt, Rafael, and all.
