The Lodge at Spruce Peak trip review- with kids

Considering visiting the Lodge at Spruce Peak with Kids? Here's a complete review with what to expect - and what to know before you book!

When you think of staying at a resort, you don't necessarily think of the northeastern United States. But ski resorts are the exception.

Theses family-freidnly resorts often have beautiful grounds and lots of activities for kids to enjoy.

But you don't have to go to a ski resort in the winter.

We spent three nights at the Lodge at Spruce Peak in Stowe, Vermont during the summer and had an amazing time enjoying the resort and the surrounding area.

Let's take a look at everything this place has to offer - and I will share quite a bit about my experience staying there with 5 and 7 year olds!

Quick Trip Snapshot

• Overall verdict: Loved it

• Location: Stowe, Vermonth

• Resort: The Lodge at Spruce Peak

• 3 night stay

• 2 adults, 2 kids ages 7 & 5

• Booked with: Hyatt points

The lodge at spruce peak with Kids

Here's what to expect on your visit to The Lodge at Spruce Peak. Reminder that we went in the summer, so you're not going to see anything about skiing and the winter offerings here. But there's plenty going on in the summer.

We drove here after spending 3 nights at Under Canvas Acadia in Maine!

The Resort Grounds

The Lodge at Spruce Peak is made up of the main hotel building, an outdoor quad area, miles of trails and access to ski lifts. It's a relatively small footprint in terms of building space, but the whole resort is huge.

The hotel itself is large with beautiful views from both sides. We originally got a room on the "mountain view" side and it was beautiful, but we switched rooms because it was too small when the pull-out couch was out. They moved us to another room on the other side that had a "resort view" but it was still mountains and plenty nice.

(Note that the "studio rooms" even with a pull out couch are not suitable for a family of 4. The room we were assigned the couch literally could not pull out because the coffee table was in the way and there was no space to move it to. A 1 bedroom suite was a much better fit.)

Behind the hotel is an area of fake grass that looks like it probably converts to an ice rink in summer. On Friday nights in the summer, they have live music, outdoor grill and an outdoor movie night for the kids.

The property also has a taco lunch restaurant, a Whistlepig tasting room and a small market where you can buy groceries.

Additionally, the Lodge at Spruce Peak has it's own gondola lift from the property across the road to the ski resort. Unfortunately, when we were there, it was broken, so we couldn't use it, but it's designed to give you direct access to the slopes on the other side.

Enchanted Forest PLAYGROUND

The Lodge at Spruce Peak also has a really good system of trails that go around the entire property. It's a few miles of walking if you take the entire path, but it's broken down into several sections. There was one section with active bear activity while we were there and we were encouraged to avoid it.

However, if you go to the right trail, you'll find the Enchanted Forest, which is a big natural playground for kids. It had tons of natural style wooden play equipment for kids of all ages in different sections. Our kids loved trying out some of the things they don't have at home!

The Pool

The pool at the Lodge at Spruce Peak is nothing to write home about. It's not a huge pool and there aren't any water activity features for kids to enjoy.

However, my kids got a big kick out of the fact that there is an indoor entrance to the pool. The idea is that in the winter, when it's snowing and super cold, you can enter and exit the pool indoors without having to be out in the cold while wet.

Now, I don't know how often this feature is used because, even though the pool is "heated," it's not going to feel particularly warm in the winter.

There are two actual hot tubs outside, but those don't have access from inside.

The fitness room and arcade

Not much to mention here other than to let you know these spaces exist. The fitness room was very well equipped with a lot of machines, free weights and equipment. You can do a wide range of exercising with no limitations.

There is also a small arcade located right outside the gym. It has a few claw games and driving arcade games if you want to give your child $20 to play a few times.

The Rooms

The rooms at the Lodge at Spruce Peak were definitely a surprise to us. So, as I mentioned, we were originally put in a standard one bed room with a pull out couch.

However, if you actually needed to pull out the couch, there wasn't even anywhere to push the table to that was there. It was very small.

Then they moved us across the hall to a different room and it was a full on one bedroom. It had a separate large bedroom, full kitchen, living space with pull out couch and a dining table.

Come to find out, these rooms are individually owned. Basically, the owners can block off times to use there rooms whenever they want. But when they aren't using them, Hyatt issues them out just like standard hotel rooms.

We have stayed in a hotel like this before and I really hated it then too. It just means that there's no real quality control on the furnishings, and I felt like the couches in both rooms we were in were really dated and gross and not up to Hyatt standards.

So there isn't necessarily any consistency on what you get in each room, so keep that in mind.

The Food

The Lodge at Spruce Peak has a really nice main restaurant, a sushi bar, the taco place, and a poolside food truck.

The main restaurant is nice and we ate here for free each morning with our Hyatt Globalist status. It was a really nice perk because we could order anything we wanted or go to the buffet. The portions were huge and everything was delicious. I would assume this would convert over to dinner as well.

We didn't eat at the other three places, but the menu for the poolside food truck looked pretty good and about what you'd expect at a place like that. If your kids are enjoying the pool, it's an excellent choice.

Booking the Lodge at Spruce Peak on points

The whole reason that we stayed at this resort is because I googled "Family resort, New England Hyatt". It is a Hyatt Destination and bookable on Hyatt points.

At the time of our booking, this is a category 8 Hyatt - which is the highest category. THIS IS CRAZY TO ME as the rooms are NOT NICE. It felt a bit dirty and VERY dated and as I mentioned the standard room was way too small for a family of 4.

I assume that it was graded a category eight because they charge an astronomical rate during ski season. With it being summer, it was really not worth that price at all, but you live in your learn and we still had a great time and I can't complain about a free trip.

I do have globalist status with Hyatt and we got the following free perks:

• they did upgrade us to the one bedroom suite, but they did not do this automatically we went to the room we booked, it was absolutely unsuitable for a family of four, we went back to the front desk and had to go back-and-forth with them and she even told us a price for an upgrade and we agreed to it and then she said oh we can comp it for your globalist status, even though we had told her I was globalist like six times so I don't even know, but don't expect a free upgrade
• we got an excellent free breakfast every day this was worth well over $100 per day
• they comped our valet parking and that was built to our room, but then zeroed out at the end

I am glad that we booked this with Hyatt points, but if you are short on Hyatt points, I don't know that this would be a great use in the summer. I think it would be a great use of points if you wanted to come skiing but in the summer, it's probably not a great cent-per-point redemption.

Click here to read my guide to getting started traveling on points!

Tips for staying at the Lodge at Spruce Peak with kids

Here are some takeaways we had from this stay!

• Take the main gondola across the street up to the top of the mountain. It's pricey (about $120 for two adults and two kids), but the views are so amazing on the way up and while you're up there. You can also hike up the ski slopes for free, but the viability of that depends on the ages you are travelling with.
• Work time into your schedule for activities at the resort. It can be easy to plan four hikes in one day, but instead, plan to be done by at least 3:00 so your kids can hang at the pool for awhile.
• Catch the Friday night entertainment if you're there on Friday. Let them stay up late and watch the movie on the big outdoor projector (but bring bug spray and a blanket to sit on).

Final Thoughts

The Lodge at Spruce Peak is a really nice resort to take your kids to if you're in Vermont. It's a great location for access to nearby waterfall hikes where your kids can swim and enjoy nature. If you're planning to drive through the area, we highly recommend you try it out.