10 Tips for Booking a Nattional Park Lodge Room at the Minute

Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park.

Concessioner Xanterra Parks & Resorts operates seven lodges in Grand Canyon National Park, nine lodges in Yellowstone National Park, Zion Lodge in Zion National Park, two lodges in Crater Lake National Park and two lodges in Death Valley National Park. The company also operates Grand Canyon Railway and Grand Canyon Railway Hotel in Williams, Ariz., 65 miles from the entrance to the Grand Canyon.

“Advance bookings for national park lodges are strong this summer, so the key to successfully reserving a room in a park at the last minute is to be both flexible and persistent,” said Dave Hartvigsen, vice president of sales and marketing for Xanterra. "With a little bit of flexibility and some good luck, last-minute travelers can still book rooms at national park lodges.”

Hartvigsen's tips for planning a last-minute national park vacation.

1. Do your homework. Familiarize yourself with web sites and bookmark reservations pages.  Visit Xanterra's web site at www.xanterra.com for general information on the parks operated by Xanterra as well as lodging descriptions, rates and availability. Another good source of information on national parks is the National Park Service website at www.nps.gov.

2. Check room availability and book rooms online. Rooms can be booked online at www.YellowstoneNationalParkLodges.com, www.grandcanyonlodges.com, www.zionlodge.com, , www.craterlakelodges.com and www.furnacecreekresort.com (Death Valley).  Booking online is usually the quickest way to book a lodge room.

3. Be flexible with travel dates. Lodges can be booked up to 13 months in advance of a travel date. Because many people do make their plans far in advance, they will occasionally have to change or cancel existing reservations because of schedule conflicts or for other reasons. Travelers who are flexible with their travel dates stand the best chance of getting a room on short notice.

4. Be flexible with lodge choices. Grand Canyon’s El Tovar and Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Inn are often travelers’ first choice of lodging, so the rooms in those two historic hotels are typically the first to sell out in those parks. More than 70 percent of the lodge rooms at the Grand Canyon are located off-rim in Maswik and Yavapai lodges, however, and both are comfortable locations that are barely a 10-minute walk from the canyon rim. Yellowstone has lodges situated in a variety of locations throughout the park. No matter where in a park travelers stay they can always experience the famous grand dames of the parks by visiting the lobbies or enjoying a meal in their dining rooms.

5. Be strategic. International tour operators reserve blocks of rooms up to two years in advance in anticipation of selling these rooms as part of tour packages to the United States. If all the rooms are not sold, operators must release them for resale 30 days out. Want to travel on July 30? Book first thing on the morning of June 30.

6. Be persistent. Rooms open up - and are often very quickly re-booked - every day. The quickest way to check availability is by going to the web site and following the link for reservations. Bookmark the web site and check it frequently to see if rooms have become available.

7. Travel when families don’t. There is often more room availability during the first two weeks of June, the last two weeks of August or the first two weeks of September. Families with schoolchildren are either winding down after the end of school or gearing up for the beginning of school, so those periods -- although still considered peak season -- are a little slower than the rest of the summer.

8. Just show up. Travelers who arrive between noon and 6 p.m. often find last-minute rooms available. Once in a park, the front desk at any lodge can check availability for all rooms within the park.

9. Make dining and activity reservations too. If you are successful booking a room, take a moment to also reserve activities and make dinner reservations. Dining rooms do fill, so if you want a meal in one of the lodges, plan ahead. Popular activities like the Old West Cookout at Yellowstone's Roosevelt Lodge fill up fast too. Phone numbers for meal and activity reservations can be easily found on all Xanterra web sites.

10. Book a package. Yellowstone offers a variety of packages including multi-day “Adventure” and “Lodging & Learning” packages that include accommodations, some meals and a variety of park experiences. Grand Canyon Railway also features packages that include train travel and accommodations.

Read about Yellowstone and Grand Canyon experiences at my other blog, Travel on the Level: 
travelonthelevel.blogspot.com/.../nature-rules-at-yellowstone-national...
Travel on the Level: blogspot.com/2011/11/grand-canyon.html
travelonthelevel.blogspot.com/.../railroading-into-grand-canyon.html
travelonthelevel.blogspot.com/2011/10/grand-canyon.html

Deals and tips from May First Coast Connect radio show

If Ken Burns' National Park series on PBS turned you on, consider Yellowstone's special offerings.
Yellowstone for Families, designed for families with children between eight and 12, includes four nights at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel or Grant Village; age-appropriate field activities such as animal tracking, wildlife-watching, painting and hiking; breakfast and box lunches each day, in-park transportation, instruction and optional evening programs.
Programs are offered Monday to Friday and Friday to Tuesday until Aug. 19. Rates for programs at Mammoth are $2,148 for a family of two adults and two children. Rates for programs in Grant Village are $2,548 for a family of two adults and two children.
No kids? Essential Yellowstone, based at the famed Lake Yellowstone Hotel, this four-day, five-night program is offered starting Aug. 26 and Sept. 2 and 16. The program includes expert instruction by an Institute naturalist/guide, five nights of accommodations at Lake Hotel, breakfast and box lunch daily, dinner on the last night, in-park transportation and optional evening programs. Rates per person are $1,119 for double occupancy and $1,667 for single occupancy.
 Old Times on the Grand Tour. Staying in three lodges, participants experience a five-day, six-night program offering the chance to see Yellowstone from the perspective of the park’s early visitors. Participants stay two nights each at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, Old Faithful Snow Lodge and the Lake Hotel. During the day they take the famous “Grand Tour” of Yellowstone in the luxury of a refurbished “Historic Yellow Bus.” The tour includes stops at cultural sites from the park’s past, walking tours of historic and thermal areas and stops to view wildlife. The five-day program is offered with start dates of  June 5, July 3, 17, 24 and 31, Aug. 14 and 28 and Sept. 4, 11 and 18. Rates are $1,529 per person for double occupancy and $1,973 per person for single occupancy.
 www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com

Little St. Simons Island, a great, all-inclusive (right down to the bug spray!) getaway for all ages, offers $399 or $479 per couple per room including boat service to/from island, accommodations, all meals, snacks, beverages including evening cocktails, all activities on selected dates though August, http://www.littlestsimonsislands.com.

Air miles for cruises. Did you know you can get air miles for taking a cruise? Airlines getting into the cruise booking business.  United Air Lines offers up to 25,000 miles for selected cruises on Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Norwegian, Celebrity and Holland America cruise lines with rates as low as $45-47 a night.
www.cruises.united.com

<script type="text/javascript">

  var _gaq = _gaq || [];
  _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-24547858-1']);
  _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

  (function() {
    var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
    ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
    var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
  })();

</script>