El Tovar?

Antonia

DIS Veteran
Joined
May 25, 2000
Anyone ever stayed at El Tovar on the rim of the Grand Canyon? I saw this place on t.v. and think I would love to stay here if we make it to the Grand Canyon next year.
 
Yes we stayed here in June/July it is a fab location but can get very busy as is a historical landmark. You also need to book way in advance in high season. Just a word of warning there is no guestr aprking you have to take your chances at the nearby car park with all the day guests :(

Claire ;)
 
I have never stayed there and would love to. When I was planning my trip last year ( didn't go, my dad passed away) I tried to book a room there almost 5 months in advance and I was told no rooms, better off booking a yr ahead of time, I'll try that next year, gonna start this Christmas to book something, Good luck in your planning. :cool1:
 
When I went to the canyon 2 years ago I went inside to check it out since it's one of the hotels the Griswolds stay at in one of my favorite movies(National Lampoons Vacation)I wanted to see if the inside looked like the movie which it really didn't, but it looked pretty nice, you can tell it's an old hotel just from using the bathrooms.But it looked pretty cozy and you can't get any closer to the canyon.
 


Clair L is right. We tried to make reservations about 6 months in advance and they were all sold out. Instead we stayed in one of the other "lodges" at the Canyon. (Sorry I can't recall the name- Maybe Anastazi or Manzanita, somthing like that). It was like a cinderblock prison cell. Very sparce and very ugly. Not worth the $ we paid. We didn't know it until we got there but El Tovar is the only lodge on site that has any character. The rest look like government built dormitory housing (Which is what they are).
 
We didn't stay overnight, but were by the lodges in September. El Tovar was the nicest. There were two other really cinderblock looking lodges that were unattractive. Then there was the Bright Angel Lodge. Not as nice as El Tovar, but not as bad as the two cinder block monstrosities. We ate lunch at Bright Angel Lodge (kids had to eat right at that moment). Food was good and very reasonable and the lobby seemed nice. I have no idea how the rooms were, but it certainly seemed like the second best choice.
 
Ive stayed at the Bright Angel Lodge. It's no cinderblock monstrosity! But it is vintage. If you are open minded it can be a neat experience. It's one of my favorite hotels I've ever stayed at. It's one of three hotels on the south side built right next to the canyon.

Why openminded? Not all rooms have private bathrooms. They do all have sinks. The further away the bathroom is from modern standards the cheaper it is. The first year I stayed was the first year I hiked the canyon. My friend made the reservations and didn't get me a room with a tub on the night we hiked out of the canyon...I was so miserable I was happy to use the "common" tub. The other two trips I made sure my room had a tub.

On the plus side Bright Angel has honeymoon suites with a canyon view. Again they are rustic and more specifically they don't have television. That's a great thing because it encourages you to go out and look at the canyon at sunrise, sunset, midday and at night.

One hint on food is that the vast majority of the food served for breakfast at El Tovar is exactly the same food served at the restaurant in the middle hotel...just pricier. This is true of the other two meals as well but I think lunch and dinner have fewer points in common between the restaurants.

As for the El Tovar...the common areas were beautiful and may remind you of the Wilderness Lodge sans the soaring ceiling. I didn't stay in the hotel but what I saw of the rooms reminded me of standard hotel rooms. Oh and one argument in favor of eating at El Tovar for breakfast at least once is if you get to the restaurant before sunrise and get a table close enough to the windows to watch the canyon walls change colors.
 


The two more cinderblock looking lodges are the Kachina and Thunderbird Lodges which are essentially more "Modern" than the El Tovar and Bright Angel Lodges. Modern in the sense that they were built in the 50s-60s and have elevators to get to there upper floors (El tovar requires hoofing it up the stairs to get to your rooms). Check-in for Kachina is shared with the El Tovar and Thunderbird shares check in with the Bright Angel Lodge.

The El tovar is a really nice hotel, and the room are unique in the fact that some have an odd layout due to the architecture of the hotel. There wasn't any air conditioning last time I checked, but here in the dry, high elevation northern Arizona it never gets too warm along the rim of the grand canyon (the rim only hit above 90 about three days this summer, heck I don't have airconditioning here in Flagstaff, never needed it all summer long). Reservations can be very difficult to get as it is considered the flagship hotel of the park. Your other options on the rim are Kachina, Thunderbird (the two cinderblocks as a previous poster put), and Bright Angel Lodge. The Maswik and Yavapai Lodges are located away from the rim, but are all connected by the village shuttle bus (though the last two can be hard to get sometimes as they are used for Grand Canyon Railway passengers spending the night at the canyon through railway packages). All hotels at Grand Canyon are run by the Xanterra Corporation. Hope this helps
 
Antonia said:
Anyone ever stayed at El Tovar on the rim of the Grand Canyon? I saw this place on t.v. and think I would love to stay here if we make it to the Grand Canyon next year.

Here is a picture from the El Tovar suite. Very nice room, with huge deck as you can see. We had breakfast there a few times. There are only 4 suites that have views, this was the best in my opinion. This is what i wanted so i changed our plans as you have to book this almost 2 years out. Good luck!

65968El_Tovar.JPG
 

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