Far View Lodge

Well, if you want to stay at Mesa Verde, then this is the only game in town. But, the hotel rooms and furniture are exceptionally cheap. Horrible mattress. Not enough electrical outlets in the room. Walls separating the rooms were extremely thin; no privacy at all. The hotel is overpriced. The only saving grace was that the food in the restaurant was plentiful and tasty at the evening meal.

When staying in US national parks, there are common expectations. The rooms will be clean, reasonably spacious, with basic fixtures, and comfortable. Services will be a step up from camping, restaurants will be a step above fast food, and the staff will be eager young faces happy to be working in the park. This is mostly true at Far View - we had 3 nice rooms with great showers and the property sits in an amazing location; it was great to be in the park in the morning to get out hiking before the heat of the day. Food was about as expected - we had a nice dinner in the Metate room and the breakfast at Far View Center is pretty good. However, the staff was uncharacteristically unhelpful (front desk) or overworked (bar/upstairs dining room). It didn't affect our visit - 3 boys under 12 is distracting - but it was a little sad to see and not up to the experience in Yosemite, Yellowstone, Tetons, despite them all being run by subsidiaries of Aramark.

This is a wonderful lodge! Mesa Verde National Park is far from habitation so we had hopes of seeing the stars when we arrived on June 26, 2026. The rooms are in groups of six facing to the South and had balconies. Waking up at 2 am we were immediately disappointed - no stars. The reason for this was a lighted foot path blocking the view to the South. The light intensity was not great but it did drown out the stars. The solution we found was to hold up a book or piece of cardboard (or even the little “wallet” the Lodge gives you with your keys) horizontally at arms length under our eyes to block the lights from the footpath-- then stars galore! This is star gazing in comfort. Perhaps the Lodge could improvise an appropriate baffle in the footpath lights to enable guests to photograph stars without problems.