Before booking this BW I also looked at other TripAdvisor members reviews about this place. Surprisingly, this place was either rated as very bad or very good. After spending a night at Best Western Flying Saddle I give this place 3.5 star rating and below I explain why. As always I add a few pictures to my review so fellow travelers have an idea what to expect from this lodging location.
We booked BW Flying Saddle in Alpine, WY for one night in the middle of the week as a final hotel location before leaving Yellowstone-Grand Teton area. We booked this place only a month in advance and all good location in Jackson, WY were already taken and ones left were over $300/night for mid-week.
BW Flying Saddle gave us a competitive rate of about $150. Alpine, WY is located just 35 miles south of Jackson, so we considered it as a fair deal. Well, upon arrival we found BW in Alpine a little bit outdated-looking especially outside for the price they were asking, but our room was clean and they had a new air conditioner installed in the room. We also had a whirlpool bath in the room for one person but bathtub did not looked new, so we skipped on using it. Why such a big price per night then? First - location, location and location...Flying Saddle is located on the bank of Snake river and the view is superb from the room and outside. They have a nice picnic table where you can watch wildlife drinking water from the river, sunset and just relax there. Our room was just next to walkway to the river, which added to a pleasant experience. Second - the restaurant, it is beautifully decorated, serves great food, including wild game (we ordered elk chops - it was delicious, so was salmon on the cedar plank).
These two things will let you forget for a moment for a slight mark up on the room rate. In the room itself it was very quite at night, despite close location to a major road. They have a satellite dish in the backyard, so Wi-FI internet was fast and trouble-free, too.
Since I already talked about good things in this place now lets turn to what makes me lower my rating to this place to just 3.5 stars. First, on the negative side is this hotel is sharing lobby with local liqueur shop, so a lot of weird people stopped by to buy some booze. Second, none of the vending machines were working on the day we arrived, just ate a few dollars of mine and did not give a single coke. And third, upon arrival the young girl clerk was neither rude nor friendly, she was just indifferent, she talked on the phone, then left a desk for a few minutes clearly seeing I was standing waiting to check in and after a while finally decided to check us in. Clearly a miss on a management side of this hotel (or maybe she just had a bad day). However, next morning it was more or less compensated by a much nicer lady on the morning shift, who helped us with continental breakfast and showed us directions. So I would take off couple of points on friendliness of the stuff. But, overall, our stay was good. We do recommend this place as a stop to or from Yellowstone-Teton area. And we would be staying there again just to enjoy the scenery around. I am adding picture to my review, enjoy!
