Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge - Copper Center, Alaska

Lisa N.

Out of all of the Princess Lodges in Alaska, the Copper Center is my favorite for the view of the Wrangell Mountains (10,000+ ft) in the autumn colors, relaxing vibes, and beautiful landscapes. Plus you can see the Alaska Pipeline from one of the overlooks.

They have a garden on site that they use in their salads and garnishes for mixed drinks.

There is a cozy fireplace in the main area overlooking the mountains. And, there are a few trails around the property to stretch your legs.

If you want a weekend to do nothing and relax, this is your place.

I like how the rooms were all connected to the main area like a hotel versus multiple separate buildings.

It's only a 2.5 hour drive from Valdez.

Michelle T.

While this may be the best, perhaps the only option, if you want to stay in hotel-like accommodation near Copper Center, it comes with drawbacks for guests who are not staying as part of a Princess Cruise itinerary. ||The rhythm of the lodge is based on bus loads of Princess itinerary people arriving and departing every couple of days. Service, which is always variable, dips significantly during these arrivals and departures.||For example, our check-in was screwed up because we arrived at the same time as a bus load of people and it took them close to an hour to get us into an acceptable room. The customer service person dealing with us, realized that I was irritated by the delay in checking in after a 200+ mile car journey and told me that I needed to understand their operational problems. (No! They need to solve their problems!)||Rooms, which are adequate, are set along 2 very long corridors. Because the cruise folk have to depart the hotel early in the morning, and given that they are not the quietest crowd, sleeping to a reasonable hour can be difficult. One morning, a staff member knocked on our door and told us that our bags should have been outside our room sometime ago, even though we were not a part of the cruise crowd leaving that day or any other day.||The bar, bar eating area and restaurant are alternatively very busy or very quiet. Food is pretty mediocre in either situation. For example, the spaghetti and Pomodoro sauce that came with some cooked prawns, reminded me of the stuff that came out of tins of Heinz spaghetti with tomato sauce during my childhood. Copper River salmon is highly prized, but not the way they prepare it.||A few members of staff were terrific, for example barman Tye and early morning reception person K, but many seemed ill prepared for their duties. For example, a very sweet young lady from Bulgaria, put behind the bar with insufficient training, delivered an extremely unusual, dry martini, with no vermouth, but a large amount of lemon juice. (Not her fault!)||We understand that it is a challenge to recruit staff from many countries to work in a hotel for just four months. However, this hotel is not alone in facing that challenge. It simply does not rise to the challenge as well as other hotels we enjoyed which deal with the challenge, not just effectively, but really rather well.||Our overall conclusion was that this is a poorly managed hotel, resulting in serious flaws not experienced at other similarly situated hotels in outlying areas of Alaska.

John J.

Staff are fantastic. Princess cruises need to lift their game. Very limited wine selection, everything you asked for they had run out. Half the food offered on the menu had run out. No chef Sundays so limited food offered.. Not the luxury tour that was sold to us.

Mike S.

It was a terrible experience and I would not recommend this lodge. We were the first guests this season and they were NOT prepared at all. The food preparation and services were absolutely the worst I’ve ever dealt with. Slow, cold, undercooked, very limited menu and too expensive for the little bit you get.… |the rooms were clean, but that’s about all the good I can say about this place.|If you’re also looking for other things to do, THERE IS NOTHING AROUND THIS LODGE. It’s in the middle of nowhere with no external excursions available.|I couldn’t give it a “0” review|I would never stay at or recommend this lodge to anyone.

Marcus D.

We spent 3 nights here. There are no two-room suites, which we prefer, but just regular rooms with one or two beds. We were on the upper floor. No frig but since we had a small ice chest, we could keep things cold using their plentiful ice machine. Very inviting and informative staff. The setting is beautiful with views of volcanic mountains: Mount Blackburn, Mount Drum, Mount Zanetti, and Mount Wrangell. Don't fret too much, they are all extinct with the exception of occasion releases of steam and ash from Wrangell. The Princess seems to cater to an older group of bus tourists going from one Princess ship or lodge to another. There are many guests (perhaps most) spending just one night. There is a lot to do here---walking trails with information signs, a couple of binocular stands, many flower beds, shuffle board court and mountain views from the spacious lobby with adequate seating. I think you can also book rafting trips. We thoroughly enjoyed conversations with naturalist Allen (from my home state of Wisconsin) and if you are there on Sundays, join him for a reading and conversation while sipping on blueberry tea. They have a well-stocked gift shop. We only did take-out from the bar but there is a restaurant which requires reservations for dinner. We enjoyed the morning breakfast buffet. Strike up conversations with staff and you will be surprised, we were, how many are here for the summer season from their home countries, such as Bulgaria!

Michelle H.

Beautiful location and nice room and amenities. BUT 1) after getting home I discovered that our meal at the Whistle Stop restaurant (in the lodge) had been charged double -- each item was listed twice, and 2) when looking for a way to contact the lodge / restaurant I found that there is no customer service email address.

Jon N.

Nice rooms, location is remote. No fridge and no safe. For the most part food was average, service in the buffet was lacking but the tavern staff was on it. Okay

Michelle D.

My husband and I stayed here for a quick trip. I came along for some R&R, but we chose here to stay as my husband had business to attend to near by. When we checked in they told us our previously booked room wasn't available but we were being moved to an ADA room to accommodate cruise ship passengers taking up most of the hotel. We get to our room and while doing our standard practice of checking for bed bugs we noticed how flimsy and worn out the bed was. This is your standard spring mattress no frills. We called down to ask if we could be moved, this bed was unacceptable, they explained that they were fully booked and this wasn't possible.OK, again, we've been traveling awhile to get here, we'll suffer through the mattress. My next observation was the room with a "view" was of a roof and the chimney was also right by our window so we couldn't open the window to get fresh air without having the room smell like smoke. We went downstairs for dinner and the service was great, Tyson was very enthusiastic about his job and made it a good experience, but tables were consistently sticky (noticed this at every meal, we had 4 meals total here) and there were always floaties in the water, including the bottle they leave at the table. They don't have cream for coffee, but milk. Food was average. I'm not going to rave about it but not going to poo poo it either. I will say the salmon was perfectly cooked. I rarely order salmon out because I often find it dry, but this was great. The girls at the espresso machine in the morning were really pleasant. The atmosphere is very cozy and outside is beautiful, so many flowers (wonderfully fragrant) and an abundance of seating to choose from and enjoy the view. Back to the room, our bathroom was gross. The shower curtain was red with mildew from the bottom about 6 inches up and the handles in the shower had a build up around them that could have been easily cleaned had someone taken the time. The shower curtain was also too short which caused the water to flood the bathroom when you showered. The shower head kept flying off and would spray everywhere, this I can only imagine would be extremely difficult for someone handicap to deal with. The faucet in the bathroom sink either gave you a dribble or turbo jet stream which soaked yourself and the mirror. Our bed had hairs on the comforter and in the bed during our stay I found a long gray hair. I have dyed red hair, my husband as short dark hair. Yuck! The bedroom had dust built up in the corners. I was overall just really disappointed in the room. If my room is clean I am primarily happy, but this made me feel uncomfortable in the room. Upon check out we asked for compensation due to things described throughout our stay and their response was "We do not do that here. We are so busy and booked all the time that we do not make accommodations for things such as this." We were told the manager of the hotel would call us. She did call and apologized and said if we came back to please notify her so she could do something special for us. All in all we won't be staying here again but grateful for the experience and the beauty that surrounds the hotel.