Everyone needs a place to lay their weary head. For travelers visiting El Portal, Yosemite View Lodge is an excellent choice for rest and rejuvenation. Well-known for its family-friendly environment and proximity to great restaurants, Yosemite View Lodge makes it easy to enjoy the best of El Portal.
The rooms offer a flat screen TV, a refrigerator, and air conditioning, and getting online is possible, as internet access is available, allowing you to rest and refresh with ease.
Yosemite View Lodge features a 24 hour front desk, a picnic area, and a convenience store. In addition, as a valued Yosemite View Lodge guest, you can enjoy a pool and an on-site restaurant that are available on-site. Guests arriving by vehicle have access to free parking.
During your visit, be sure to check out a popular El Portal ribs restaurant such as The River Restaurant & Lounge, which is a short distance from Yosemite View Lodge.
There is no shortage of things to do in the area: explore popular historic sites such as Yosemite Valley Railroad.
Yosemite View Lodge is sure to make your visit to El Portal one worth remembering.
Just outside the gates of Yosemite this is the place to stay. Units are basic but clean and accommodating. Staff made us feel welcome and in light of circumstances we could not be happier (actually we could not be happier in normal times) highly recommend!!
I booked this hotel and came here knowing what I was getting myself into. First by fully acknowledging that Yosemite View Lodge is not a five-star resort, I was able to appreciate it and enjoy it for what it was! This is a clean hotel, beautifully located next to the Merced River (most rooms have an awesome river view), just a few minutes from the west entrance to Yosemite, allows dogs, and a pretty decent restaurant and bar. Though not in tiptop shape, this place had everything that I needed in place to enjoy Yosemite for the day. I love that the rooms are equipped with a kitchenette (and stove!), dual showerheads, and hot tub/bath. The service at the pizza restaurant and lounge were also great but I'll leave a separate review for those. We split our time between this place and another a bit farther out from the park, each with its advantages! Yosemite View Lodge takes the cake for most convenient, which I think is worth it at least for one of your nights best Yosemite.…
I came here with low expectations, and they were definitely met. Bottom line-- you stay here because of *the location*. It's safe and clean enough and the staff were polite, but don't expect much more. Yosemite is a beautiful place but it's annoying that there are few lodging choices close to the park, unless you stay inside the park. This place is basically the closest outside-of-the-gates hotel (20 mins to Yosemite Valley attractions). (Also, if your dog is traveling with you, you basically have no choice in hotels. Tenaya Lodge is an hour to the south but costs 2-3x more, and there are some hotels in Oakhurst even further south like the new Holiday Inn Express that allow dogs.) If you stay here, don't expect anything to work properly. We had a river view two queen room on the 1st floor, and in our room, the fireplace was broken. One of the ceiling lights was burned out. The 2 burner electric stove--- well, it turned on, but it barely got hot, so it took 2-3x longer to make anything. It took 30 minutes to boil some water. I had to boil water in the microwave as a last resort (oh, and the microwave is weak and takes a long time too). The stove does get hot enough to cook eggs, but expect it to take 20 minutes. If you search on Tripadvisor, several people have complained about the slow stoves. Apparently it's due to low voltage in the rooms. I'm shocked the management thinks this is ok and doesn't bother fixing it. The WiFi was slow but fine; as noted by others, you have to pay $9.99 for two devices. We were worried about noise from adjoining rooms, but we never heard any sounds from the room next door even though there were 4 people staying there. Maybe they were just super quiet. There are some pools and tubs scattered around the property, but they all looked like they hadn't been cleaned or maintained in some time (lots of leaves in the water and grime and and it looked like no one was using the pools). Now, I paid only $149 for my room during midweek low season. I'm not one of those people on Tripadvisor who complain about motels in good locations charging $200-$300, because it's basic supply and demand and the motel will charge whatever price people are wiling to pay. *That said*, I'd be miffed if I paid $200-$300 to stay here and everything in my room was broken. I think there's a basic standard of decency for a hotelier to at least maintain their rooms in good working order if they're going to rake in $200-$300 a night. It feels like the owner/management here are just coasting. Also, I noticed some of the cleaning staff were not wearing masks. That said, the woman who checked me in at the front desk was masked and was perfectly polite and helpful.…
Filthy place is a big turn off. Wifi was patchy. The only good thing is that location is the best. Food we had in restaurant was also very nice. A well appointed renovated rooms would just be great!!!
Stayed 2 nights the last week of October. Was a very nice stay . Had river view room with 2 "hotel queen" beds. Location is just a few minutes from the Yosemite gate and the Yosemite valley. Very nice size room and kitchen had everything we needed to prepare lunch for yosemite and in room breakfast and dinner. Nice patio overlooking river to enjoy wine after a day of yosemite hiking. Beds were comfortable. Room is dated with large 2 person spa/tub in bathroom. Room had no indications that any special attention was given to cleaning specifically for covid (eg no santized sign on door, bathroom fixtures, kitchen utensils). The only other hotel I gave stayed in since covid was one that had a sticker on the door indicating time room was last entered, and indications in room that things were sanitized. No big deal - It is just comforting to think there is an extra level of hygiene vigilance these days. Front desk staff very helpful and friendly. Nice gift shop in lobby and a decent selection of snack food, milk, beer, wine, etc. The Pizza place in parking lot was open for takeout but we brought all our food to prepare in room. We had read restaurant was closed. I think they might have offered a breakfast somewhere - not sure. Kitchen in room was bigger and better equipped than we expected. We had 2 significant issues during our stay : (1) The room walls are VERY thin. The guests in the room next to us work up before 6AM both days and we could hear them opening and closing cabinet doors, making breakfast, talking, banging things around until we would finally have to give up on sleeping and get out of bed ourselves. Luckily I don't think there was anyone above us because I could only imagine what that might sound like. Not sure what hotel could do about it until next remodel. (2) As we read in reviews the wifi is not free and we had no phone signal (Tmobil). You can buy 24 hours to connect 2 devices for $10. My daughter is a student and needed to study remotely. On the 2nd day the 24 hours expired and the wifi dropped her sometime during a 1.5 hour midterm exam. She was unable to submit the exam at the end of the period because the wifi session was lost. I anticipated the 24 period running out and worked with the front desk and the wifi provider company to extend another 24 hours before she started the test. I was assured that the access period was successfully extended before she began the test. She ended up having to retake the 1.5 midterm again later that evening. The only reason I bring this up is because I don't think it is acceptable not to have wifi included in a hotel rate anymore in 2020. Every guest needs it especially with carrier service and it is just a big hassle to have passwords, device limits, purchase plans, The hotel needs to just charge $10 per night more to guests or whatever and eliminate the old hotel wifi cost model from 20 years ago.…
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