White Pine Lodge

The breakfast was already disappointing: no coffee, juice, meat, or eggs, and the waffle maker was broken. Since the attached convenience store was also run by the lodge, I asked if I could get coffee there, but they said I’d have to pay. We’d heard the water had only come back the day before our stay after being off for a week, which may explain why ours was brown. Then, while checking out on September 7th, we found a bedbug on a pillow. I discreetly told the front desk. The staff member informed a housekeeper and said they’d call the manager. We waited about half an hour because we were told she was on her way, but had to leave for our next reservation. I left my contact details and was assured someone would call. Seven hours later, I called and learned the manager, Amy, had gone home. They said they hadn’t found anything else, so she didn’t know what management had decided. I asked them to call the next day, but heard nothing. After vacation, I contacted the Sault Tribe in the U.P., which owns the lodge. A woman named Jennifer listened, then said Dan Doyle was the right person to speak with. She promised to email him and CC me, but never did. A week later I called Dan Doyle and left a voicemail. More than a week passed with no reply. The LMAS Health Department told me they couldn’t do anything about bedbugs and that I needed to contact the owner. It seems to me the lodge may simply have checked for other bugs and turned the room over without calling an exterminator. Management and the owners don’t seem concerned, and now the health department can’t help either. I didn’t ask for a refund or discount, just for management to contact me. They could have even told me they fumigated the room, whether or not I could verify it, and at least seemed to care. I’ll still file complaints with the health department and BBB in Michigan so there’s a record and my conscience is clear. I don’t want anyone getting sick or taking bedbugs home. White Pine Lodge, Sault Ste Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, it’s disgusting how you run your businesses.

The staff seemed just as frustrated as we were, but the woman in charge was rude and a poor representative of the hospitality business. I’ve emailed more than once and haven’t had a response, and friends who stayed there have had the same experience. That’s why I’m finally posting this after giving White pines Lodge a chance to make things right. We booked two nights for our anniversary trip. Our confirmation email said we could check in at 3:00, but we were told it wasn’t until 4:00, so we went away for an hour and came back. About half an hour after we checked in, friends arrived for the weekend and the hotel water went out. The person at the desk was nice and said maintenance was already there and would handle it as soon as possible. We went out for supper and other things, but the water still wasn’t fixed when we got back. The manager, I think, was then very short and rude with everyone. She said someone had just arrived to take care of it. I said that was what I’d been told three hours earlier, and she argued with me. Later, she said a plumber had been there for over half an hour, so he hadn’t just arrived either. We were told we could use the casino next door’s restroom, or they could bring buckets of hot tub water to flush our toilets. There was no mention of how we’d wash our hands or shower, and there weren’t sprinklers in case of a fire. We got up early the next morning for breakfast before a fishing trip, but were told someone was bringing coffee from home and they couldn’t make waffle batter because the water was still off. After fishing all day, we returned to find it still hadn’t come back. They said the pump needed a part that was in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. It was already around 7:00 at night, and finding another room, especially an accessible one for the person who needed it, would have been almost impossible. So we stayed, then left very early to get home to water and a shower. I still can’t believe they refunded one of our two nights but not the other. The whole situation was handled badly, and it’s a shame nobody has replied to our emails.

The service was great, and it was handy having a little store connected to the hotel. We appreciated the AC since it was so hot. The mattresses were flimsy, though, and took me back to a bed I had when I was 7. We didn’t use the hot tub, but it looked large and clean. Foggy's Steakhouse was across the street, which was a nice extra.

The room was clean and the bed was comfortable. We checked in late and left early, so didn’t spend much time there. The front desk also runs the hotel, gas station, and 24-hour convenience store. There’s a decent-sized casino and restaurant at the far end of the parking lot, if that’s your thing.