Sunshine Mountain Lodge

This is the best place to stay in Banff. You get to take a gondola up and down into the mountains. Good size rooms, lots of trails and you also get to go on the ski lifts to more trails. Lovely views of the mountains. Will 100% recommend this place.

The lodge is amazing! Such a great choice for a late summer retreat! If I had known how much I enjoy being here, I would have altered my trip and stayed longer!

The hotel upgraded my room!

I face the ski lift, have a jacuzzi and a wonderful fireplace! My windows have remained open, receiving this fresh mountain air!

This is a must book!

I’d only suggest staying here if you plan on spending most of your trip exploring Sunshine Village. We booked this hotel mainly as a place to rest as we explored other tourist attractions around Banff, and that was a mistake on our part. Getting to the actual lodging was a huge inconvenience. A 20 minute gondola ride is exciting at first, but when it’s the only way to get to your car it becomes a huge pain. The gondola only runs between 8-6, so planning your day becomes quite challenging. The drive to Banff town centre is only about 20 minutes once you’re at the bottom, but the gondola ride makes the total trip around 45 minutes. Although the hotel also provides shuttles upon request, the process felt unorganized and we were left waiting for 15+ minutes for a shuttle every time. This can get frustrating if you’ve spent the day on hikes and you’re looking forward to resting. Also, as we were checking out, I was feeling unwell, so we requested a shuttle on the way down rather than taking the gondola. We overheard the driver complaining about us which is super unprofessional.

On top of all of this, the hotel has no air conditioning. I understand it’s a ski resort, and obviously it’s not the hotel’s fault that we were in the middle of a heat wave, but it definitely made the stay uncomfortable despite having an extremely nice room. We had to keep the windows open at night while the air quality dropped to hazardous, and both myself and my boyfriend woke up with bloody noses. I am still coughing from this 2 days later.

The hotel also has no shops for basic necessities. As I mentioned before, I fell ill during the night and my boyfriend had gone to the lobby to ask for medicine. The staff didn’t have any available to give or even purchase. How is that safe? We are literally stuck on top of the mountain with no easy way to get access to our vehicles to buy these things for ourselves.

Loved my stay here! The facility actually exceeded my expectation mainly because I was initially very skeptical about the whole “no AC” being from Texas that’s not something we are used to :) but the staff was wonderful and more than accommodating. Keelan was amazing luckily gave me enough pointers about the area even though he’s fairly new to the location but I was very pleased with all the pointers he gave me about the resort and some near sightseeing options! Also the front desk girl who gave me beat spray demo was extremely helpful. I wish I could remember her name. I am very glad I was able to use the gondola, chair lift, hot tub & the shuttle down to base gives you amazing view as well. I loved the location away from the crowd!

Location, location, location. This hotel at the top of the gondola is the ideal jumping off point for many beautiful hikes! We got in at 4 pm and immediately took the chairlift to the Standish viewing deck and then hiked the gorgeous trail around the rock isle lake. For the first several miles we saw no one at all! The next day we went in the morning to grizzly lake and there were many other tourists until we took the twin cairns trail and then we’re on our own again. Trails provide a number of easy to moderate hikes. If you want clean air and beautiful trails but don’t need posh environs, this is the place! Chairlift starts at 7 am so expect noise then. Mattresses are not great on the not-redone part of the hotel. However prices were incredibly reasonable and premium rooms are available. Would definitely come back!