Name: Sponars Chalet
Address: Kosciuszko Road, Wilsons Valley, Wilsons Valley, Wilsons Valley, 2627, Australia
Rating: 8

Smoke-free property

Heating

Ticket assistance

Garden

All Spaces Non-Smoking (public and private)

No elevators

Reception desk

General

Room service

Family room

Rooms

Laundry

Luggage storage

Services and amenities

Coffee/tea for guests

Breakfast

Restaurant

Meals

Free Wi-Fi

Internet

Transfer services

Transfer

Tour assistance

Tourist services

Billiards

Hiking

Ping-Pong

Recreation

Parking

Free Parking on Premises

Swimming pool

Seasonal indoor swimming pool

Beach/pool towels

Pool and beach

Fax and copy machine

Business

Darts

Sports

Steam room

Sauna

Beauty and wellness

Playroom

Children's playground

Family/Kid Friendly

Kids

Ski storage

Ski facilities rental

Skiing

Winter sports

Pets Not Allowed

Pets

Location

At the hotel

Snowy Mountains Airport

Sponars Chalet

Wilsons Valley

What a great experience after our less than desirable visit in 2020. New owners and managers are brilliant. They are still ironing out issues due to the short time they had to prepare for the 2023 season. The vibe was great, food was tasty, rooms are comfy, pool and sauna are a great plus. The skis we hired there were brand new and brilliant. Also being bussed up and back each day was great. Definitely great value for money. A must stay for next season!

Best value for money on the mountain.

We had a great stay..the other guests were friendly and a pleasure to have a pre dinner drink with after a day on the mountain.  Management were always helpful food was tasty  staff were pleasant as was our whole ecperience.  The bus is a great alternative to driving on the real busy days when carpark fills up early.  Wifi available in lounge and dining area.  Room and bed cosy

Enjoyable Stay

We stayed at Sponars for the opening weekend of the 2023 snow season. We learnt that the new managers had only JUST took over the place, and the full staff had not arrived yet. Which explains the poor customer service (had to regularly find a barman to buy a drink, had to find the barista to make a coffee as the kitchen staff couldn’t). The pool and steam room weren’t available (pool was cold as heater wasn’t going, and the steam room was dirty and used for storage). The included breaky was ok, just bacon/eggs/toast and packet cereal, but dinner was pretty bad. No salad, despite being on the simple menu, steamed veggies were stone cold (and very few). A buffet style sitting would be much better than table service (and prevent long wait times).

The rooms were adequate, lounge area good and location absolutely stunning. The lake out front looks amazing at sunrise and you’ll see platypus playing on the surface. Overall the hotel has a lot of charm, it just needs polish (dusting/cleaning, etc).

I would only return to Sponars for the location; and when it is busier (as there would be more profit to pay for staff, salad, and to heat the pool), and the management and staff were more practiced.

Lack of staff, poor food options, and cleanliness detracted from this otherwise charming chalet stay.

Great option for families looking for the on-snow 'Lodge' experience just a short drive to Perisher. Plenty of good places to play and relax with a 28C heated 25m pool with sauna, comfy lounge area with large screen TV to keep in touch with other sports plus rustic touches everywhere reminding you of the grand history of the location as NSW's first alpine haven - Hotel Kosciuszko.

Great family traditional 'Lodge' style experience

DON'T waste your hard-earned money at Sponors - complete rip off and not to mention the utter rudeness and arrogance of the manager Rosemary. Disingenuous smile at your face then the moment you walk away the smile comes off. There was no feeling of welcome and felt like I inconvenienced her every time I called or emailed via the booking process. When we arrived, there was no introduction from Rosemary or a heartfelt welcome to Sponors. I spoke with another couple that stayed there and they had the same response and feel. There was no explanation on the booking process of using the shuttle - we kind of stumbled on the process and asked another guest who explained it to us. 
The rooms were just as expected - clean and had everything you needed and the comfort you would expect in the alpine area; however, the fridge in our room stunk like there was a dead rat in there. I told one of the staff members and he said he will let Rosemary know - nothing happened. 
Let’s get started on the food - well, if you want rubber meat for dinner - then this is your place. No variation on first course other than being soup every night. Second course was some sort of meat/chicken that was so dry and over cooked with absolutely no flavour, or you got salmon that was semi raw. Desert, well that was another thing. One night the custard that was on an awful piece of cake that tasted like cornflour. I thought to be on the safe side, I'll get the kids meal one night and received over cooked chicken schnitzel that could barely be cut and bright yellow chips. 
It was my birthday of one of the nights we stayed and my partner asked if something small could be organised for dessert. A cake, from what I believe was supposed to be a tiramisu, was nothing but slop. Full of cream and soggy as. Could have been in the fridge for a full week how soggy it was. He was not told that this cake (that as big as a normal sized dinner plate) would cost $50. I received the invoice a few days later and called to discuss this with Rosemary. Unfortunately, I had interrupted her while she was on the chairlift, which was my first mistake. There was nothing but hostility from her when I asked about the cost. I advised her that my partner was NOT advised of the cost of the cake. She proceeds to say, its advertised and when I asked where, she interrupts me and says she will check with the others. Again, I asked to check what, I was told that I was being rude, and the chief was Italian and starts to mumble something under her breath then proceeded to hang up on me. Just because the chief is Italian doesn't make you a good chief. Perhaps pay more attention to the amount of food left on people’s plates going back into the kitchen after they have 'eaten' before making comments and hanging up on your customers. I guess you don't like to hear any negative feedback meaning you will need to do something about it. 
Just because you have a business in a very seasonal area and need to charge premium rates during the season, doesn't give you the right to be so arrogant and think that is acceptable treat people like they are inconveniencing you and provide slop as food and think its ok. It's not ok. Perhaps go and stay at some other lodges up the mountain and see how it’s done and take it on board.
The building itself is old and historic. It would be nice if more love and attention was given to it to give it the respect it deserves. Perhaps due to National Parks constraints, the building itself on the outside may not be able to be changed, but the inside definitely needs some TLC. 
My brother and I have always wanted to stay here ever since we were young kids and how bitterly disappointed, we were. We will NEVER EVER stay there again. I will tell everyone I know who is considering staying there to reconsider and let them know our experience. 
Just a shame.

Great location - shame about the management of the place

Very disappointed with our reception! We were excited to visit somewhere new on the mountain. Their website says they are open for lunch and all their flags were outside. We walked in and was told by a sullen staff member that nothing was open until 430 (it was 1pm). We were even refused the bathroom after having driven all that way. 

Don't bother

Good - ski hire, shuttle bus, clean room, comfy beds.
Bad - food. Overall, the food was pretty poor and very disappointing. Breakfast and dinner are included in the price. Hot breakfast on one of the three days we stayed was good but the attempts to make frittata, or whatever they were, missed the mark. They were tasteless. Soup and Main on one of the three nights was good - leek and pumpkin soup and chicken parmigiana. The other two nights the soups were awful (minestrone soup was vegetables in a watery tasteless stock) and the mains were not great. Desserts on all three nights were awful - cold pieces of cake were not at all enjoyable.
The dining room and bar staff were very friendly.
Great location close to the snow but I’d be unlikely to stay again given the price and quality of the food.

Good and bad

Oh my goodness ! I totally agree with the latest reviews. It was terrible and as a family we won’t be back . We have been yearly visitors for many years . Interesting that the “ chef” , who probably was good once , did cook for the previous owners and when The new owners took over her comment was that we would all have better food as she had employed new personnel to run the kitchen . And they were so good. The guest portal is a joke . The bus has not been running for most of the season . Once before the bus was out of action but Peter hired one . Definitely cutting costs at the expense of reputation . . Such a shame . I could go on but I think it’s all been covered

Shame shame shame

I had stayed at Sponars in the 1990's and thoroughly enjoyed it for its charm and atmosphere. Unfortunately what is now left is a run down charmless shell of its former self, made worse by the owner's lack of effort or expertise. There is no one to greet you when you arrive, we never actually met or were greeted by a single staff member. Daily snow reports and lift openings are no longer provided for guests. Our room (which we paid a premium for) was shabby, the lamp was broken and the sheets were scratchy. Fuse had blown when we arrived so no heating was working. The place is generally run down and needs desperate renovation. Worse then this was the food. Absolutely sub-standard with no choice offered. The breakfast buffet consisted of a couple of cereal choices, packeted white or wholemeal bread, bacon or scrambled eggs. Nescafe sachet coffee. All the cheapest possible options. On day two they "ran out" of vegemite so only toast options for toast were packeted "marmalade" and peanut butter. For what you pay this was pathetic. I understand the owner has the property on the market so probably doesn't care too much - but it was very evident. Don't waste your money - stay somewhere half decent in Jindabyne. Even the shuttle service was not running with zero replacement and zero offer of compensation. Sadly an end of an era, we will never stay there again.

Unfortunately no longer a good place to stay

We arrived for a 4 night stay at Sponars and have been very disappointed by our experience. Before arrival, we were not given any information about check in, including even the code to enter the building. We also discovered that the advertised shuttle to Perisher was not working, which we did not get notified about until seeing a sign at the closed reception area. This was part of the reason for booking with Sponars.

As previous reviews have advised, the staff occupied a lot of the common guest areas socialising amongst themselves. There was no basic hospitality etiquette. The staff were doing their own kareoke and relaxing barefoot in the communal guest area, with the bar closing early every night so the bar tender could have his own drink. We felt like an inconvenience when asking any basic questions about ski hire pick up or our stay. 

The ski hire wasn’t open in the times we were advised. When we did get to the ski hire, all of us were fitted with ski boots 1-3 sizes too big, resulting in us having to rehire from Perisher to remedy the situation. Food was terrible and we only ate at the hotel one night over our stay, which was one too many. 

The location was great as was the chance to meet some new people, but overall we were very disappointed given the price we paid which was inflated due to booking in COVID and postponing the trip.

Sponars Chalet

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