We stayed in the cottages, adjacent to the hotel....was rustic, but the view is what you are there to see. The hotel is majestic, the staff is friendly if you engage them. The main dining room, has amazing views, the staff are retiree"s how work for the company who mange the property.

if you want 5 star service, stay in the city limits. If you want to stay in the valley floor of an amazing national treasure, this is the place. Although a bit on t,he expensive side, just think about your contribution to sustaining the National Park system for generations to enjoy.

I'm with most other reviewers on this. The Ahwahnee is/was magical. They will charge a top price and stay booked, supply and demand; but what a shame the folks running the thing don't feel a sense of duty to the history of the place to get in character, but then this is CA - the land of envy and forced egalitarianism. One thing to watch out for. We booked through the main www site, and got signed up for some high dollar nature hike each day w/o authorization. Turns out we were not alone in this. The check in gal got it reversed, but keep an eye out. In any case stay here is you can swing it, but think of it as a museum tour rather then an real time experience.

Four of us (two couples) stayed here 3 nights. Rooms are small and a bit run down, but the location makes up for it. What we found very poor is the main dining area. The service is slow, the servers inattentive, food expensive and not good value and we felt that we were doing them a favour by eating there! We had a dinner & breakfast there & our friends two dinners & two breakfasts - and the service was consistently poor. I did provide feedback to the Dining manager at the time - but would be surprised if that made any difference!
Apart from the Dining room, found the front desk, housekeeping, in room dining, concierge, bar staff all very pleasant and helpful.

Wife, daughter and I stayed three nights in The Ahwahnee in the course of an October Yosemite visit. The public areas are beautiful, the rooms are small and worn. The restaurant is fine for one dinner but the menu is not extensive and nothing changes from night to night. The breakfast buffet is very good and it is impressive how they succeed in mass producing high quality Eggs Benedict. The hotel staff is typical Yosemite -- good people who know their stuff. The dining room staff is a bit of an anomaly as I am seldom served anymore by folks who are older than I am ... but no contest here! Maybe my expectations were too high but I just was not impressed by The Ahwahnee. Yosemite Lodge is a better choice for in-park accommodations. As an aside, the park was lovely in October, the weather was great and some of the falls were still running.