On the evening of August 21st my wife and I stayed at the Three Valley Chateau near Revelstoke, B.C. It's situated on the Trans Canada Highway, we've driven past it many times.
We stayed because I'm a big fan of old relics and Ghost Towns and this is one of the attractions of Three Valley.
You can pretty much sum up Three Valley into two parts, the Hotel itself and the attractions which are: the location, the Ghost Town, the auto museum, the Railway Interests, with Roundhouse.
Gordon Bell and his family have established this property over the years. Mr. Bell is living his dream of playing with his toys. He obviously loves relics of the past, Canadian history and the Railway.
It's also obvious that he is not a hotelier. This is one strange Hotel. The layout is weird, the rooms are spartan and the food is not good.
The first thing one notices is a plethora of signs indicating that Pets are NOT welcome. Your eye can not avoid the signage which seems to be everywhere to the point of obsession.
The very old fellow that signed us in said "And you have pets?", in an obvious trick to expose those trying to sneak in pets undercover. Pretty cheesy.
We paid $125 CA for a very basic generic small room with no features other than a small fridge. Then we found out we had to pay the $10 entrance fee (each) for the guided tour of the Ghost Town and Museum.
One would think that paying guests of the Hotel would get a free pass into the attractions, or at least a discount.
I tell you I was ready to rip this place apart. I said to my wife "I'm going to crucify this place when I post my review".
After we checked in we briefly walked the grounds and on the surface of things it looked nice. Closer examination revealed a lot of projects started and not finished, some major repairs to a section of rood/siding taking place and covered in tarp.
Some buildings were missing sections of siding, landscaping in some areas needed a major overhaul. The interior of the Hotel is very boring and not helped by one of the the cheesiest and cheapest looking tourist trinket/souvenir shops I've seen.
It just looked like a hotel which needed professional help.
We ate at the "family restaurant". It looked like we should be apprehensive about the quality so we ordered cheeseburgers, pretty simple. Well I can confidently say they were the worst cheeseburgers I've had in a long while. And we payed $7.50! McDonald's puts them to shame. Just awful, no effort, no caring.
(In the morning we went for breakfast there, by the till was a sign "Due to staff shortages service may be slow". Yikes! That's not the way to do business!)
While in our rooms we heard the constant pounding of children's' feet as they ran up and down the halls. Thankfully this stopped after 10.
The beds were good, the room fairly quiet but we could do without the religious message from Jesus hanging on our wall. There is no place for that in a Hotel.
Well by the end of the day I was ready to write this place off as a disaster.
The next day was bright and sunny and I finally got a good night's sleep after three days of not. We had decided to take in the Ghost Town and other attractions that morning. So after reluctantly forking over the $20 we commenced our tour.
It was really interesting and well worth it. Our tour guide, Dianne, was very good and even though there was only one other couple with us, she gave us a good effort.
We spent about 90 minutes on the attraction grounds but you could almost spend all day there. If you are into history and the recent past and how people lived a hundred years ago, this place is for you.
Unfortunately the Railroad Roundhouse is still under construction, but what we saw of it was really amazing, its going to be awesome, if it's ever completed.
It's pretty obvious where Mr. Bell's interests are. He doesn't give a hoot about the Hotel business. All his efforts seem to be geared towards his Ghost Town and Railway Collections.
My advice: Hand over the Hotel to a real Hotel Management company and stop trying to do what you are not good at.
I can't understand why, with thousands and thousands of interesting relics in the Ghost Town and Museums, that your Hotel is so freaking Boring!
How about taking a small fraction of the neat stuff you have over there and actually trying to decorate your Hotel?
It looks like Mr. Bell is trying to finance his "dream" with overpriced $125/night hotel room rates. The place did not look very full. Put some effort into the Hotel and more people will stay and you'll have more money to finish the many unfinished projects you have going there. And more people shelling out $10 to see your dreams.
My recommendation: By all means check out the Ghost Town and Railway/Relic exhibits, well worth the $10.
But find somewhere else to sleep and eat.
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