Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge Hotel Review: Copper River, Alaska

The Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge hotel was one of my favorite places we stayed during our 2 week Alaska road trip. The biggest misconception about this hotel is that it’s only for those on cruise ship tours. That is not the case – anyone, like us, can book a room at the Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge hotel (try saying that aloud three times in a row – talk about an awkward mouthful!)

This is the best hotel in the area and is surprisingly affordable. Copper River, Alaska is in the middle of nowhere and there isn’t much lodging to choose from out here in the boonies. Most of the other places in this area are sketchy roadhouse-type lodging with shared bathrooms or really weird B&Bs. I like traditional hotels, and the Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge was right up my alley.

Hotel Details:

Location:
1 Brenwick-Craig Rd, Copper Center, AK 99573

This is a great location for day trips and excursions in Wrangell St. Elias National Park. We stayed two nights here and used it to do a day trip to Valdez.

Parking:
Large parking lot for those not on a Princess Cruise tour.

Cost:
Room was roughly $180/night which, while pricey, is very reasonable for the area. Ideally for our itinerary, we wanted to stay in Valdez, but no lodging was available for our dates, so we stayed here. This was much cheaper than comparable lodging in Valdez, which was running $350-400/night for a Best Western.

Operating Season:
May through September

Booking a room

This is a Princess cruise line property, however Joe Schmoe off the street can book a room here too. Big blocks of rooms are reserved for Princess Cruise Tour guests, so if you try to book a room on their website, you may find that there are no rooms available. Your best bet is to call them (this is what we did) and see if they have any availability.

Rooms:

We had a two double bed room. The room was large and clean, and has basic amenities, however no wifi, no fridge and no microwave. If you have Verizon, you will get full data and bars here. Rooms do have air conditioning but ours was not working. Granted, it was only 50 degrees outside but the room did get hot and stuffy, so it would’ve been nice to have some circulating air.

Common Areas/Lobby

So much space! Copper River Princess Lodge has two floors of common areas and the ambience is very relaxing. Giant windows in the lobby let you view the gorgeous Wrangell mountains. The large fireplace crackles and roars throughout the day and there is plenty of overstuffed couches and chairs. I’m not one to relax while on vacation – I like to GO GO GO, but I could see myself spending a day here just reading a book or playing on my iPad, wrapped up in a blanket by the fire. We used these common areas both evenings we were here – the staff even provided us blankets!

All around the common areas are those giant Costco bears – I’ve always wanted one and and it was fun to snuggle up in a pile of them here!

The outside grounds are also well-kept – in addition to the mountains, you can also see the Alaskan pipeline right from the hotel.

The gift shop is pretty decent – they had a big sale on jackets when we were here. They also sell the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park merchandise here, so if you’re looking for souvenirs from this remote National Park, stop in here. There is a National Park visitors center a few miles away, but they have very limited hours.

Area Attractions

We stayed at the Copper River Princess Wilderness lodge to do a day trip to Valdez. We easily had plenty of time to enjoy our trip down there from this hotel. You could also do a day trip to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and visit the Kennicott Mine/McCarthy, if you’re flying out of Chitnia.

The hotel has a tour desk where you can arrange other activities – you do not need to be a Princess Cruise customer to do this.

Dining

The Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge has a traditional restaurant and a bar. We ate dinner twice in the bar. Food was fine – it’s nothing memorable, but it’s so convenient having an on-premises restaurant. This area of Alaska is sparsely populated; you’re not going to find much in terms of restaurants in this area, so we just stuck with eating here at the hotel.

The full service restaurant gives more of a ‘fine dining’ (I guess..) experience but we didn’t want that type of food. It was also much more expensive.

Other things to note

Just to reiterate – this is a remote place and the primary guest at this hotel is someone on a cruise tour. I’d say the average age of a guest at this hotel is over 65. I didn’t see one child here during our two nights. To me, this was a plus, as the lodge is quiet and relaxing. However, you might hit this place at the wrong time and be caught in a flurry of guests checking in or out with massive amounts of luggage strewn about in the lobby, as they wait to board their group tour bus.

Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge – Pros and Cons

Pros:
Affordable, by Alaska standards
Nicest hotel in the area
Views from the hotel are amazing
Has a restaurant
Huge common areas are wonderful for relaxing
Hardly any children

Cons:
Limited amenities – WiFi only available in the lobby, no fitness center
No refrigerator in the rooms