Big Bend Station

room was soooo dirty. hair on my pillow, mold on the shower curtain and washbasin. toilet paper hanger broke off wall when i pulled paper off... mirror was dirty, everything needed to be re-cauked. easy stuff to fix, cleaning staff just doesn't care. but they have a pool table in the lobby!!!! ok, it was falling apart and lopsided, but still....

I hate to write a great review and run the risk of NOT finding lodging on my next trip. I read the low reviews after I made reservations BUT I also saw that it had a new owner.
I was solo so I had a room with one king size bed in a newly renovated motel. It was perfect for me ! The room was very clean. I enjoyed walking around at sunset taking photos. The staff was very friendly. Cost was middle of the road considering they were kicking off their busy time of year. Big Bend area is crazy starting Nov 1st or so.
My only pick was a lack of a broom to sweep up the small rocks I tracked in while walking around outside. I know most people would never think of sweeping a motel while on vacation BUT not me. It's worse stepping on one of those small rocks while barefooted.
I will definitely make reservations here for my next trip. Plus, my wife would approve of it.

This place is a motel, gas station, RV park and has a cafe. There's not a lot to offer at this 4 way intersection but this place does a pretty good job. Don't be so snooty in the middle of nowhere!
The check-in was pretty organized be it a one-man show on a Saturday evening. We got our room (one large king bed) across the street that has NO WIFI but TV! Reception on the latter good and it was during the NCAA basketball finals so I was okay. Several small restaurants around within easy driving distance. There is NO daily room service (so don't be a slob). In room fridge. Hot water works. The cafe that is part of the gas station/grocery store is GREAT. Loved the one breakfast I had (cheese sandwich with bacon and apple slices was awesome. RESTAURANT CLOSED ALL DAY TUESDAYS AS ARE SEVERAL OTHER LOCAL PLACES - BEWARE!

Asked the office to please move a picnic table to our RV site which did not have one, as my partner was not able to help carry one from another site, and was told they would, but then dissed me, never sent anyone to help move one. Wifi is non-existent outside of lobby. Bathrooms and showers were marginally OK. Lots of dust in the air when vehicles drive by. For the price for a RV site, could have been considerably better.

Big Bend is AWESOME!!! This motel IS NOT!!!
There are many things wrong with this property - I will go into detail on one of them. You will not have hot water often (or any pressure to push hot water into the shower head), and you will have times when there is no water at all. You will also not get an honest answer from the front desk either by telephone or in person, as to the status of potentially, sometimes, having water.
Our stay went like this:
Day 1 Wanted to shower after long drive - office said no hot water, took an ice-cold February shower.
Day 2 Woke up to no water at all - office said would be repaired by our evening return - it wasn't. Afternoon clerk said the message was never given to the repair folks.
Day 3 after another trip to the office, learned that nothing had been done and the repair folks were not notified - bright spot in the journey, the repair folks were quick once notified and went to work. We had hot water for a short time (able to take a warm shower - the only warm shower of the trip). When we returned in the evening, no water at all.
Day 4 Woke up to still no water. Even though we had paid for one more day, we checked out and left.
Strongly recommend that you do not stay here.

I've been staying at this hotel every trip for the last 10 years. Its cheap, convenient, and for the most part a clean place to stay in. My trip there in March of 2023 was by far the worst experience I've had in those 10 years.

Traveling with a friend, I booked 2 single bed rooms (1 for each of us). I tried booking the room through their website but there was none showing available. After a 30 min wait to the call center for booking I got both rooms finally booked and was charged a deposit of $307.36 for both rooms.

We arrived on March 23rd at 4pm, got checked, charged the remaining balance for each room ($307.36 x 2) in and went to our room. First room smelled musty and a little humid. We pulled the blanket over there was what at first looked like bed bugs on the sheets, but after inspection it was black debris all over the bed. sheets were not by any means clean so we went back and requested a new room.

Got the keys to another room, walked in, pulled the sheets back, and not only was there the same black debris all over the sheets there was also human hair covering the entire sheet as if it was not even changed (pics below). The mattress below the sheets was also filthy. Went back to the front and requested another room hoping 3rd time was the charm.

Got the keys to another room, walked in, there was a guest sleeping in the bed. The person woke up, told us we were in the wrong room so we apologized and left.

Went back to the front office and requested a cancellation and a full refund. They apologized and gave me two pieces of paper with what appears to be a refund on each piece for each individual room.

We searched around and found 2 clean rooms at CHISOS MINING LODGE 1/4 mile down the road. Rooms were clean, sheets were clean, and it was considerably cheaper than this place.

Once home, I called the hotel on Thursday, March 30th because the refund amount had not shown up on my credit card. I was told they didn't know and I needed to call "Central". I called their central booking and was on the phone for 26 minutes with the person on the other line apologizing and telling me I'd hear back the same day from someone ensuring me some answer on my refund. Nobody called.

I called back on Monday, April 3rd and was told the same thing but was transferred to someone else who promised me I'd get a call back within 72 hours. That call was 47 minutes... and nobody called back!!!

As of today (4/20/23) I still don't have my refund of $922.08 from Aramark who runs the property and I've had to dispute the amount with my credit card in hopes of getting my money back.

Needless to say, I won't be staying at this place anymore after this experience and will definitely not be recommending it for anyone who travels to the region. There's better options popping up everywhere around the area and this place has a long way to go before catching up to any of the other options around.

EDIT: After 40 days, i finally have my refund. It only took 3 calls to them over those 40 days and finally being told it was up to the hotel to give me a refund when the hotel was the one originally telling me that 'Central' was responsible.

If you want to stay in the worst hotel in Big Bend, this place is for you! The first room featured bed bugs, sheets that didn't fit, and no mattress cover. The second room offered had a big strand of black hair on the sheets and bugs on the mattress. And the third room featured a hairy guy sleeping the bed who woke and told me I had the wrong room (although the key fit and the room number on the key fob matched). This was such a great start to my first Big Bend trip. I can't recommend this hotel enough -- especially if you are a terrible person who has done terrible things to people throughout your entire life. The pictures tell the tale. Check them out.

We camped for four nights in our RV.

Let's first address some previous reviews. No, this is not a resort. Most "RV Resortss" are not resorts. Yes, there is dust and dirt. You are in a desert; by definition, there is dust and dirt. Yes, the power can be unreliable, but that is not their fault. When we were here the power was out for 8 hours and it was a regional issue. It's my understanding, the problem originated in Alpine. The same thing happened last month. The regulars just flow with it. But power outages do result in water outages and that they can fix.

The good news is Big Bend Resort and Adventure is under new management: Aramark. Rumor has it, Aramark will be making improvements that include a backup generator for the well which means power outages will not result in water outages. I would also suggest a backup generator at the gas station so gas and diesel can be pumped during power outages. They supposedly will also install site-wide WiFi. I would hope they would remove the coin-ops in the showers and instead put code-keyed locks on the bath/shower rooms to keep transients out. I'm paying to stay. I should be able to use their showers for free.

In general, this was a good base camp for exploring Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park. The sites are level and easily negotiated. The only current drawbacks are lack of WiFi and coin-op showers. These issues were mitigated with a T-Mobile hotspot and, with full hookups, showers in our RV. We never encountered the smell that some people reported. The staff is friendly and helpful. The location is great with gas/diesel out front, a grocery nearby, numerous restaurants within a few miles radius, 9 miles to the Maverick Entrance to the National Park, and 21 miles to the State Park.

Worse place ever!! Do not recommend this resort for camping. The showers you had to pay to use, bathrooms were clogged and backed up and transients were able to access the bathrooms.
No grass and all sand, however this could have been improved by paving the roads and camp sites. For the price you pay should have decent bathrooms and free showers.
Water pressure was minimal.
We left early and will not return to this campground.

We stayed at Big Bends Resorts & Adventures for a night during a trip to Big Bend. It's curiously named as this is not a resort nor is there much adventure on the premises. It's really just a standard motel. Located in Terlingua, the motel is close to Big Bend.

Part of what I didn't like about my eexperience here is the lady who was working the front desk. Reception in West Texas isn't great so I didn't have cellular service when I arrived. I asked her if there's WiFi in the lobby and she said she would think about whether or not to share it with me. She eventually did but it was a strange encounter. It's like she's guarding the internet like it's an endangered species. Similarly, rather than writing down your WiFi info for the room, she asks you to call her when you arrive to the room. Why? This is inefficient and weird. And annoying as it's tough to get a hold of her by phone. Just give us the internet!

The room itself was average. Not super clean but did the job. Not luxurious but decent. An average experience so three starts does it justice. Some better hospitality would help.

TL;DR: Cancellation policy is a scam. Customers will lose the deposit if they miss a 72hr-before-check-in deadline with minute precision, but customer service is slow and won't answer the calls within the hour before check-in time to possibly secure deposits through the cancelation policy. The company discretely sticks a "FULL PAYMENT DUE AT THE TIME OF BOOKING" payment policy during checkout with no explanation and contrary to the actual payment policy available under their Policies & Info section. Customer service quietly complies with cancellation requests from customers that are unaware of being outside of the cancellation window just to inform them later that they lost the deposit, shielding with the cancellation policy and without providing any option to transfer the reservation.

Here's my story:

Last week I made a reservation for two nights of camping, from the 03/10 to the 03/12 and paid a total of $48, $24 per night for a Tent Site (Best Flex Camp, what a joke). I did just like with any other hotel, I didn't think much of it and made the swipe (figuratively). Yesterday, 03/07 I was forced to cancel the trip last minute. I called the provided phone line at 3:55pm because I didn't even have lunch break that day, just to cancel a reservation but the call was not answered.

I didn't realize that the cancellation policy states that it must be done outside a 72hr window for a refund, which is understandable, but they failed to specify anything about since when the 72 hours were accounted for and, since the check-in was at 4pm on Friday, I failed to cancel before the cancellation window according to their rules. But I hadn't noticed what I was in yet.

Continuing with the story, after 10 minutes of waiting for a human to answer, I hung up and called again, but this time I had left a voice message using the provided option and tried to make sure I left all with my information. Two things: I was at the gym, using some cheap earbuds to call and English is not my first language. With all the noise I don't know if I hung up too early by accident or if my voice didn't make it because of the noise or the earbuds, but long story short, I woke up this morning to find out that the cancellation wasn't processed. Then, I figured I was already outside of business hours so I called it a day and figured that I could have a chance to cancel on the next day.

Today 03/08, I called several times: first thing in the morning I left a voice message because nobody answered and made sure to leave all my info. Nothing happened . Called after lunch time and after 20 minutes a lady responded (she was on lunch break, understandable, I was on my break too). She went ahead and helped me with the cancellation, but she mentioned that I would lose my deposit because I missed the cancellation deadline ONLY AFTER SHE HAD GONE THROUGH IT. I accepted it and asked how much was the deposit just to realize that full payment was lost. I protested but she gasligthed me by saying that I was charged only for the first night and that each night was actually $48, so the actual total was $96 but rest assured, I had paid only the deposit. $96 for a freaking tent space, I didn't realize it was excessive until the call was finished.

I did my research, which I should have done before calling the first time, I found that each night for a tent place was $24 and that in reality I had paid for the reservation IN FULL ($48), contrary to the policies described under the Policies & Info section and what I was told by customer service. The policy literally says "Payment: First night stay deposit at the time of the reservation" and "Cancellation: 72 hrs. prior to reservation for a refund".

Called again and as expected, a different person picked up the call after a 10 minutes wait, just to redirect me to the corporate email for a refund request that might not go through, insisting that the $48 paid was the price for the first night only and that the system wouldn't let them do any refund. I repeated the reservation steps to verify that I was lied twice by customer service. The booking process demands full payment regardless of the number of nights and it's always regarded as DEPOSIT, which will be lost if you decide not to use the reservation and find yourself outside such cancellation deadline.

No policy exists for reservation transfer and probably their "system" locks out the reservation as soon as you have less than 72 hrs left to cancel, preventing you from transferring it to another person and off course, if you call customer service, the will gladly take your money with no second chances.

Nice experience for my first night camping. Good job. Please stay away from it, save yourself a headache. Support the National Parks System and fund the parks infrastructure by reserving through Recreation.gov instead. Buy the annual pass, it pays for itself on the first time you use it, really.