Having just hiked the magical (and freshly redeveloped) Mariposa Grove Trail to Wawona Point, I set off to my abode for the night, the Wawona Hotel.
Review: The Wawona Hotel (Yosemite National Park, CA)
About The Wawona Hotel
The Wawona Hotel was originally built in 1876 to accommodate tourists of the nearby Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. Its founding predates Yosemitie National Park, making the Wawona Hotel one of the oldest mountain resorts in California.
The Victorian-style hotel boasts 104 rooms over six buildings and is notable for its distinctive design elements including deep verandas, antique furnishings, and vintage furniture and art – as well as for its notable lack of room televisions and telephones.
During a legal snafu with a vendor in 2016, the hotel was briefly renamed “Big Trees Lodge” before regaining its name in 2019.
Location And Getting There
Wawona Hotel is located in the extreme south of the Yosemite National Park near the Mariposa Gove of Giant Sequoias and the Southern park entrance off of Highway 41.
Aside from the hotel, Wawona has a campground, visitor center, gas station, general store, and golf-course.
Wawona Hotel is about a 15 minute drive from the Mariposa Grove Welcome Plaza, and about a one-hour drive from the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center.
Parking
At first glance, parking can be a pain. If you get there late, you may find every last parking space in the small lot in the front, the roundabout, and the East side of the hotel has been taken.
FHOP Tip: Don’t worry though, there is a “spillover” parking lot with plenty of spaces accessed from the Eastern side of the hotel. It’s not marked, but the entrance lies between two signs in the paved section.
View of the parking lot (left), the roundabout (center), and the parking lot on the side (right)
The Hotel Lobby
The front desk
I kid you not – when the piano man starts playing, this place becomes a full-fledged singalong party!
FHOP Tip: I’m not kidding about the piano parties. The walls in this hotel are paper-thin, so if loud, drunken sing-alongs keep you up at night, try and book a room on the East side of the hotel in a spot away from the staircase to the lobby.
Interesting period pieces and vintage photographs line the interior of the lobby
The Check-In
I arrived for check-in midway through the piano party singalong, so it was hard to hear. The hotel attendant who checked me in was the straight-forward, no-nonsense type who responded to all my questions with a quick-witted quip. She was funny, I’ll give her that.
She handed me a map of the place and two metal keys to the room. “You better not lose these” she said as she pointed me to the staircase leading to my room.
“One more thing, and pay close attention, the bathrooms are located here,” she said as she pointed to it on the map. Up until then, I didn’t realize the rooms in the lodge had no individual bathrooms (only a shared communal bathroom). She saw the look on my face and said, “Well, what’d you think? This hotel was built in the 1800s”.
You can’t argue with that.
Map of the Wawona Hotel grounds (formerly the Big Trees Lodge)
Old School: The room keys are literally room keys
The Second Floor Hallway
The second floor (and the stairway leading down)
Antique furniture galore
FHOP Tip: As mentioned above, there are no televisions in the room and the Wi-fi can only be accessed in the lobby on the first floor (and it’s very spotty at that). No matter, if the kids [or you] get bored, there is a treasure trove of board games and puzzles on the second floor in the cabinet near the staircase.
If the kids get bored, have them open up this cabinet
The Standard Room Without Bath – 1 Queen
The room was pleasant but basic. I’ll use the phrase “very vintage”. Nevertheless, it pretty much had everything you would need (except a bathroom of course).
But there was one fatal flaw to the room. Because the hotel is in the mountains, the temperature regularly drops below freezing (even in the late summer). Due to that fact, they crank up the heat – big time. The room did have a ceiling fan, but it was insufficient to counter the oppressive warm air.
Between the heat (and the piano party), sleeping was, shall I say, a challenge.
FHOP Tip: On the second night of my stay, I discovered a solution to the nightly room heat problem: a hidden room floor fan. The large fan is neatly hidden behind the large pink chair (pictured below).
There is a hidden fan behind that chair – you’ll need it
Bath towels and the “his and hers” bath robes are located in the top drawers of this dresser.
Room Amenities
His
Hers
The [Communal] Bathroom
As mentioned, the Wawona Hotel has communal bathrooms. If you are not comfortable with this, you should definitely not stay here.
If you are OK with this, don’t worry – the bathrooms are clean and the showers are hot. They are actually not that bad, but they did remind me of my old college dorm days.
FHOP Tip: Because of the shared bathroom, don’t forget to bring a set of waterproof sandals! You probably don’t want to go barefoot here in the bathroom or shower.
The worst part of the bathroom was getting there, which required a frigid outside walk down a veranda that had an extremely loud creek, especially in the middle of the night. No matter how lightly one tries to step, the whole place hears it.
The communal restrooms and showers are located on the second floor down the little hallway (with the light on)
The Shower Room
Shampoo, shower gel, and…uhh…shower gel?
The Coffee & Tea Room
There is a holding room between the lobby and the restaurant that serves free [strong] coffee and tea in the morning.
The coffee and tea station
The Wawona Hotel Dining Room
There is one hotel restaurant, the Wawona Hotel Dining Room.
I had dinner here on the first night and was quite impressed. The mostly comfort-food was delicious and hardy, and came in absolutely gigantic portions.
We went with the Big Trees Signature Pot Roast and the seasonal Osso Buco Lamb Shank. Try as a might, I was unable to finish off the Lamb Shank.
FHOP Tip: Be forewarned: this place is popular for guests and non-guests alike. As such, you should make a reservation ASAP if you plan on having dinner there, otherwise the wait can be up to several hours. If you do have to wait, grab a spot out on the patio where reasonably priced wine, beer, and cocktails are served while you enjoy the fresh air of the great outdoors.
Like the dinner, I was equally impressed with the quality of the breakfast.
We went with the Ponderosa Pancakes and and the Victorian Breakfast. Both of which were phenomenal and filling.
The Swimming Pool
There is a swimming pool on the property (across from the fountain), but it was too cold for anybody to swim there in early autumn.
The Bottom-Line Review: The Wawona Hotel (Yosemite National Park, CA)
I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but the Wawona Hotel was my first proper National Park Lodge overnight experience.
In rendering this review of the lodge, it was impossible not to give proper consideration to the special location within Yosemite and the overall National Park experience that the lodge provided.
Sure, it was a little rustic. The building structure and veranda were noticeably warping from old age, the walls were paper-thin, the rooms were way too hot and the bathrooms were communal. To me, this was all part of the fun of staying at the lodge. If you can’t deal with these things, the Wawona Hotel is definitely not for you.
If you can deal with these quirks, then the Wawona Hotel is for you and you’ll be handsomely rewarded with an apex National Park Lodge experience. I had an unforgettable and absolutely wonderful stay at the lodge.
Sipping on a beer under the stars near Yosemite’s Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias from the patio of a hotel built in 1876? You can’t beat it!
Final Rating: 8 out of 10.
Cheers!
The fountain in the Hotel’s driveway roundabout
