Hotel Review: Grand Cascades Lodge

Date traveled: Labour day weekend 2020 ( 4 nights)

The Pandemic Covid19 has changed a lot for the travel industry. With most the countries shutting their borders for americans, we were left with exploring Places to go near home – but GO must we! Big or small, far or near, with friends or family, traveling every 6 months has been in our charts for sure.

Hence we stumbled upon this Resort in a month long research. So happy it could take us only 1.5 hours to reach here from Queens New york (our home), in Hamburg NEW JERSEY! Suprisingly we never heard of or been before.

Factors that made us pick Grand cascades were the proximity and Activities offered by the property. Tripadvisor has always been a guiding light in our decisions and then the ease of getting information and safety related answers from the staff made us feel more confident to take the first vacation in 2020!

About the Hotel: The property is a part of a family owned hotel group called the crstal springs, which own 2 hotels: The minerals and the Grand cascades Lodge. With a very small difference in price, Grand Cascades is a newer and better hotel property with many activities and things to do for the visiting families.

Day 1:

Thursday night , we checked in late with an ease . The first impression of the room – it was spacious and cozy rustic. The weather was perfect to eat the home packed meal outside in the balcony. We explored hotel in the dark , there were fire pits and closed restaurants. Hopefully rest of the weekend will be eventful as I highly recommend advance bookings of the activities and restaurants. Many of them are waitlisted in a weeks time.

Day 2:

Friday night!

Its a great surprise on waking up. The view out of the balcony of every room must be so beautiful especially coz of the way the hotel is built. We were surrounded by foggy green mountains golf landscape. One of the best coffee i had in morning with that view in front of me!

Hotel occupancy doubled and we could see larger group and families who will be staying in for the labor day weekend. we scheduled a mountaintop lake visit 25 minutes away. rugged path meant only for the suvs. reached the height and the fall to a serene lake with a small sandy beach. Activities open were fishing, canoeing kayaking, hiking and Archery. They had a picnic pavillion with games and hammock cove to relax at the end.

Back to the off-Roads and to the hotel, we dunked our tiredness into the indoor outdoor pools. Biosphere slide and natural surrounding of the spa type pool which had he cold and hot side meant for great blood circulation. Pool side snacks and drinks were easy to get.

Musician playing the classics. we cooked dinner tonight and spent the rest of the time at the fire and water terrace with live music and roasting marshmallows – another great activity for families . They had a pinging table and snooker on the terrace for the guests to indulge and live musicians singing the mellow classics. Glow in the dark golfing was amazing and a must experience as well.

Day 3:

Day full of relaxation and taking it easy. Lazy start of the day, even had breakfast in the room. However we wanted to dedicate this day to hike around not too strenuous so the kids can cope. Thought the hotel managed hiking trail will be good to explore especially with the scavenger hunt sheet given to the kids. The trail was a true wonder but harder than we would imagine. it went on for almost 4 miles, educating us along the way by having us view the some fact about animals and natural elements. we realised we are going to run out of water soon and then we were back to the start of the loop – thank goodness . How badly we wanted to hit the pool.

My husband aayush took his time off to get an aromatherapy massage in the red spa. The hotel is also known for its spa services and in his words they really settled his stress out after months of not going to a gym. Mark it as a must experience!

Ended up cooking some instant healthy comfort food in the fully equipped kitchen provided to us in the room . i ended my day early listening to the live musicians from the balcony itself. However kids still had a lot of energy and they went down to the pool to watch the family movie.

Day 4:

Our last day, we had a scheduled activity of a farm tour. We drove to an actual working farm introduced to us by a local farmer and his farm life with lifestock and machines. Got an opportunity to take a hay ride to the interior portions of farm to feed some pigs, cows and chicken. We saw the pens where red chicken and laid their brown eggs. It was very educational for my kids who had so many questions about how the animals and bees are living in the farm and why they don’t want to escape from there.

Post the farm visit we hit the pool and got dressed for the dinner night at the “Crystal tavern” – an in-house farm to table restaurant located above their wine cellar.

Roasting marshmallows have become a staple every night here, but tonight the hotel arranged for a fireworks spectacular to celebrate labor day. It was not to be underestimated, was among the good fireworks we came across.

It was a sparkling night and we got a chance to have a unique sparkling effect photo op family pic clicked by the hotel photo crew.

After this eventful night my kids still didn’t give up and changed into their swim outfits to enjoy the movie at the poolside for the rest of the night.

Day 5

Check out time and we still feel we have missed on few things to do here. We took our last minutes to play golf at the 15 hole golf course which is complimentary by the hotel. What a wonderful time we had to explore what the hotel had to offer and beyond.

Things we missed to do:

>Eat and other 2 restaurants of the hotel which had a different vibe on. Especially the chefs garden where we could witness live cooking. Also missed the gardeners tour to the beautiful edible garden.

>Visiting a u-pick farm nearby in warwick.

and the The garderners tour int he hotel garden (if you are a gardening enthusiast)

>Even though we did 2 hikes, we still missed the highlight to go hiking at the Appalachian trail which is within 15 minutes drive form the hotel. Felt it would be strenuous for our young kids.

Those are the reasons we will come back to this hotel. Next time with a larger family or friends group for sure. Let me know who wants to join me 😉

Conclusion: Hope you enjoyed reading my experience. If you like the hotels I select of my family and would like me to select them for you as well, for this hotel or any other at any destinations, please feel free to contact me for the best rates available and specials.