Avis Buffalo Mountain Lodge

Nightmarish experience. I was traveling with a friend who wanted his own room. We booked this hotel at the last minute as it was close to the NP HQs. We arrived at 7 pm to find no front desk, just a bar area that was manned by a young lady who stated that we couldn’t stay as the owner had not been paid. Then the owner called stating that it was late so we could stay and that payment could be discussed in the morning. The hotel did not have wifi as advertised, there was no running or hot water and there was a strong smell of mould in the room, prompting me to needing my inhaler. The next day, we left early to see the gorillas. I called hotels.com and they reported that the payment had been made, there was no refund for the rooms but that they would look into the matter. As the owner stated that he did not get paid, I decided not to stay the second night but I returned to talk to him. He wanted to settle the payment for the night before but as it was supposed to have been paid already I refused any further payments, until I got the matter sorted through hotels.com. In the end, I never got my money back and it and it feels like this was a dirty scheme to extort money. I told the owner that he should not be advertised on hotels/booking if he doesn’t get his money and he stated that he was going to get off of the internet - obviously, that hasn’t happened.

Really nice stay. The staff was super friendly and supportive. The room was very spacious and the breakfast was very nice too. It's also located just 5 minutes driving to the National Park. Would highly recommend it.