My wife an I stayed at Yosemite in dec, 2009 and we choosed the Wawona Hotel by web and friends references. Well, the Wawona is one of the best hotels I ever saw: vintage and cute room with own bath, awesome breakfast (you must taste the chocolate, it's just delicious!), kindly staff, good pianist, nice christmas decoration... The hotel it's located at the beggining of the park, just 30 minutes away from the base of the Upper Fall, I guess. And the hotel staff brings us all the tips about the Yosemite and Mariposa Grove parks.
We will return at Wawona asap!

My husband and I stay at the Wawona when we visit Yosemite in September. The hotel is historic and as such there are no tvs or air conditioners in the room. My husband and I love this! We always have been fortunate to get a room in one of the small houses that contain four rooms each (similar to a condo I suppose) and we have always had our own bathroom. The hotel does have rooms with shared baths but I have to put my foot down on that one! The food is pretty good and the grounds are wonderful. We always grab a cup of coffee in the mornings or a glass of wine in the evenings to sit on the porch and watch people as well as nature. We seem to always see deer roaming on the grounds.
Also, there is a golf course on the property as well as several hotel-wide events on the weekends including a barbeque (that we always seem to just miss but see them breaking down the food).
My suggestion, if you enjoy a little bit of history and a chance to get away from it all without staying in a tent or paying A LOT more for the other hotels in the park I would definitely suggest the Wawona. We always have a wonderful stay!

I would not stay here again if I had the choice, but if it is your only option for staying in Yosemite, then suck it up and stay here. It's probably way better in warmer months, but in October it was downright unpleasant. It's quite a far drive from Yosemite Valley to the hotel, and the roads are a bit nerve-wracking, so because we didn't want to make the drive in the dark we made sure we were back at the hotel by dark...which was more or less 5 pm. That presents a problem because hen there is absolutely nothing to do. There are no TVs in the rooms, which is fine, but then they only had wi-fi in one room - a "lounge" at the furthest point from the lobby. The only entertainment option is sitting in the old-timey lobby listening to an old-timey pianist play songs from the 1920s. If that's your cup of tea, cool, but I suspect it's not for most people. When it's mercifully time for dinner - I say mercifully because at least that's something to do - you have to put your name down then wait for a table. And wait. And wait. Some advice: don't wait until you're hungry to put your name down. Actually, here's some better advice: buy some sandwiches, crackers and hummus, fruit and cookies in the camp store to eat in your room instead of braving the dining room. That's what we did our second night at the Wawona after our first night experience in he dining room. I suspected we were in for trouble when our waitress described the soup of the day as being "gai-er" soup. I wondered if she meant gruyere and asked what else was in the soup. "That's pretty much it," she replied. "And cream." I ordered the one other soup, the pork soup, and when the "gai-er" soup was mistakenly placed before me I discovered it was indeed just a soup of gruyere cheese and cream. When I got my pork soup I wanted the bowl of cheese and cream back. The pork soup looked like dog food and didn't taste much better. So that was an adventure. But my real issue with the Wawona came later. The rooms have radiator heat, which is fine. But they were only turned on between 7 and 9 pm and 7 and 9 am, which is less fine. There was quite a cold snap when we were at Yosemite and he frigid rooms made the stay really uncomfortable.

But, all that being said, the park itself is spectacular. If you're in California you really must see it. It was breathtaking. So, in sum, if staying at the Wawona is your only option for visiting Yosemite, go for it. Just be prepared.

This was a good hotel to stay at in Yosemite. It was probably about 40 minutes from the valley, but was still inside the park. We had a room without a bathroom and used the shared bathroom which wasn't an issue for a couple of days. I liked that this hotel felt like a step back in time, it was very refreshing. We were busy around the valley for a couple days but were very sore our last day there and spent a lot of the day relaxing in the hotel and it was a great place to do that. The bar/drink service on the porch and lounges was excellent, the dinner was just ok and a little expensive.