Lodge at Palmer Gulch

I feel like the reviews for this place are misleading. Manage your expectations a bit people. This isn't a 5 star, all inclusive resort. It's a hotel centered around families with kids. Kids are filthy animals! It's hard to keep every inch of a hotel 110% immaculate all of the time with kids everywhere. The pool might not be perfectly clean, might see a dropped ice cream cone on a sidewalk. Thats what kids do. Your kids won't be the only ones here! That being said, we had an absolute blast here! We had a double queen room and everything was great with the room. No it's not anything overly special. But we stayed here with the intention of spending very little time in our room. Basically a place to sleep and shower. It was very clean, the beds were pretty comfy, AC worked great, and the balcony was a nice touch! Plenty of water pressure and hot water in the shower. Ice machine nearby was a life saver too! Wifi was a little finnicky to get to connect, but mostly worked for us. Also worked by the pools when I could get connected. This place really is a kid paradise. Two pools, two hot tubs, splash pad, water slide, jump pad, rock climbing, basketball, volleyball, mini golf, two playgrounds. It's got so much to do! Plus other paid (CHEAP) activites too! $3 rootbeer floats were great. Kids made tiedye shirts and it was only ten bucks a kid! Live music in the evenings. We didn't do the horses or bike rentals. We did eat at the restaurant next to the hotel one night and it was pretty good. The location couldn't be better. A few miles from Mt Rushmore. 15 minutes from Keystone, Hill City, and Custer. Plenty of shopping and dining options nearby if you want to get out a bit. Plus TONS of activities in all those cities to explore. Any small complaints? Sure. Apple juice was almost always out at the continental breakfast, they were a bit slow to restock most items there. Most hotels have someone there pretty much 100% of the time during breakfast, they did not. We ate there at different times and it was like that every time. But they did stock it up again eventually. Our room never got cleaned during our stay. But I think that's probably for the best considering we had 3 kids' suitcases that essentially exploded in the room. But we were able to get clean towels from the front desk when needed. Positives TOTALLY outweigh the negatives. Despite a few small negatives, this place is fantastic! We actually skipped a couple planned activities so the kids could come back to swim and play. A lot of the parents sit at the pools and drink while the kids swim, so don't be shy about bringing a cooler or a drink or two. Nobody was drunk or obnoxious during our stay and we visited both pools. Manage your expectations, and understand that this is part of a LARGE!!! KOA Campground, and that you're sharing the place with a bunch of other people. Know that going in, and you'll have a blast like we did! Still 5 stars for me!