You pay major city prices for a staying in a cheap temporary building. Main lodge is permanent, rooms in seperate temporary buildings. Sure I understand this is only open a couple months a year so they need to make money while they can. The other (Princess) hotels were the same temporary construction. You just need to know what you are paying for. There was no thermostat in the hotel, had to get on hands on knees on the dirty hotel carpet in order to try to turn the broken knob on the heater. And because it was broken just had to open window, not very ecological in a place where would think they should be ecological.

Our room was comfortable and clean and very close to the river. The room was larger than a regular basic room. Everything was in working order and good maintenance. Water pressure was weak in the shower. The common areas in the Cotton Wood building are showing wear, but it still is satisfactory. This property is geared to tours. It is a little strange staying here as a solitary group. There were 2 designated parking spaces for a building with at least 40 rooms. The shuttle service between the lobby building and all the satilite buildings was adequate and timely, but it still was a 200 foot plus walk to the building with all of our luggage. This is fine for a spry young family as we are, but I think seniors would resent this.
The room rate was expensive for the room compared with similar rooms, but they seem to have scarcity on their side. The property is only open for about 4 months a year and therefore they need to make their bacon during those 4 months - and their prices reflect very deluxe bacon! If you go in late August or September, I recommend showing up with no reservation and working a deal on the spot. There were a lot of signs around town with 'rooms available' on them.
The one real blemish on our stay was the food service misrepresentation. We ate in the cafe and most of us had the buffet. There were 7 of us and the menu clearly indicated that a 18% gratuity would be added to parties of 8 or more. We got the bill and it had the 18% gratuity included. I brought this to our server's attention and she said that they had brought this to the management's attention throughout the summer, but no changes had been made. So beware that the 18% gratuity will be added if you have 6 or more at your table. Not to mention that 18% gratuity is extremely generous in a restaurant where a considerable portion of the dinners are from the buffet. Our server was good, but 10-12% would have been more appropriate. Needless to say, we went to the grocery store for breakfast and lunch food during the rest of our stay.

I can recommend this hotel, but keep in mind the nuggets mentioned above.

We stayed here two nights in building J as part of an Holland America cruise/tour so I can't speak to value. However, we really enjoyed our room and our stay. Service was excellent. The room itself was very comfortable...we did not mind the double bed/twin bed set up at all. My hubby felt it was the most comfortable bed and pillow of our whole trip. We loved the front "sitting" room with a sofa and rocking chair. We ate one dinner in the Nenana Grill and had the breakfast buffet in the Courtyard Cafe......yes it was pricey but the food and service was excellent (to compare, a footlong sandwich from Subway across the street was $9.25). It was the nicest stay of our whole trip!

We stayed here for 2 nights in mid-July. I thoroughly researched hotels around Denali and was dismayed to dicsover that no place seemed to have AC in the rooms. These hotels will charge you ridiculous rates and will put AC in the lobby but nowhere else. It was in the mid-80's during the day while we were there. Luckily, our Cottonwood river view room did not get too much sun (we kept the shades closed), and we had a fan, so it wasn't too bad, especially when it cooled down at night. The view (and the sound) of the river outside was wonderful - probably the best thing about the room. We were on the second floor (top floor of the building), which was nice, as we had a balcony. However, there were issues with the door knob of the balcony door coming off, and it was easy to lock yourself out, so we never used the balcony. We didn't have an LCD TV in our room (not sure about the other tripadvisor member who said that the Cottoonwood rooms had these). At the rate we paid, we should have had one (along w/AC!). We basically booked the most expensive room, and they didn't even have king sized beds. We had two queens. The bathroom was a decent size, but it had a small shower (no tub) with a nasty shower curtain (not glass). The decor was pretty basic ("rustic" theme), and the constructiion of the room and the building itself seemed to be pre-fab (very cheap). Aramark is making a crapload of money of off this place! Note that the Cottonwoods are the only buildings with interior hallways. Rooms in all other buildings have exterior entrances, with the window next to the door, like a motel - not good if you need to have the window open to cool down and people are walking past your door looking in. I think all the Cruise West folks stay in the Cottonwoods, but the other cruisetour guests stay in the older/inferior buildings.

Anyway, we had breakfast and dinner in the casual dining restaurant, and it was pretty good. Had a good dinner at the Princess lodge resort at their high-end restaurant. Highly recomment the Tundra Wilderness Tour, and go on the early morning bus (we saw the Mountain and tons of wildlife). We luckily had our own vehicle and did our own touring/booking of this hotel, so we didn't have to deal with tour group folks, although they certainly seemed to dominate as clientele of this hotel.

I only recommend this hotel because I don't think there are better options at the entrance of Denali. Next time, I'm forking out the real $ to go to Kantishna and experience what Denali is all about.

I will be posting photos later.