From the luxury resorts to the modest motels, most lodging in Lake Placid, NY is kid-friendly because the area is such a popular family destination year-round.
We’ve spent more than half a dozen winters here from the time our daughter was small, through her teen years. Because we were always visiting during winter-break week, when hotels sell out, we’ve stayed in three different hotels over the years, all in the center of town.
It’s hard to choose a favorite between the Golden Arrow Lakeside Resort and High Peaks Resort, which sit at opposite ends of Main Street. We’ve enjoyed our stays at the Crowne Plaza, too, though it’s fallen a bit shy of the other two for us.
They each have unique attributes and ways in which they excel above the others. Read on and decide which one is perfect for your family’s Lake Placid vacation.
It’s Hard To Choose Between These 3 Lake Placid Hotels
The Golden Arrow has the winning location
For me, the Golden Arrow Lakeside Resort has the absolute best location of any hotel in Lake Placid. Its front door opens onto Main Street while its back door leads directly to Mirror Lake. It’s a short walk to anything you want to do in town, including the ice rinks and Olympic Center.
It has a private beach where you can lounge and swim in summer. In winter, the lake freezes, and they clear a hockey rink. We have spent a lot of time walking, skating and playing on this frozen pond.
Before heading back inside, we warm up at one of the outdoor fires the hotel keeps lit along the shore. They sell s’mores kits in the lobby, too, and we’ve gladly used toasted marshmallows to warm us from the inside.
The hotel connects by an indoor corridor to the Alpine Mall, which has a great Mexican spot, a coffee bar and a place to buy beer, wine and cider. In the winter, I really appreciate being able to pop out for a morning coffee or an aprés-ski adult beverage without having to don a coat and boots.
High Peaks Resort has three buildings that straddle the opposite end of Main Street. It’s equally convenient to the stores and restaurants, but it’s a good walk from the ice rinks.
Two of the buildings face the lake, giving the rooms nice views. But aside from a boat dock in the summer, they don’t have lake access.
The Crowne Plaza is perched at the top of a hill right above Main Street, giving it stellar views of the lake and the nearby Adirondack peaks.
It’s also an easy walk to of the town’s restaurants and shopping and ice skating—once you make it down that long, steep hill.
The hill isn’t fun to walk up and down. And it’s particularly inconvenient if you have older or not very mobile family members traveling with you, especially in winter.
There’s a municipal lot at the bottom of the hill. The grandparents who stayed with us on one visit drove down the hill and parked there before setting out on foot, which worked for them, but defeats the purpose of staying in town to avoid having to drive.
Read more:
Things To Do With Kids In Winter in Lake Placid.
• My family’s favorite Lake Placid restaurants
The Crowne Plaza & High Peaks Have Fantastic Public Rooms
The Crowne Plaza’s first-floor vibe is laidback woodsy ski lodge.
The hotel’s absolute best feature is the Mackenzie great room with its high, timbered ceilings, iron chandeliers and an enormous fireplace. It has a bar, tables for dining and a few clusters of comfortable couches and chairs. It’s quite a win when you can snag the couches in front of the fireplace.
We stopped here almost every night for dessert and Irish coffees when we were staying here. It’s a nice spot for lunch or an afternoon drink and snack, even if you stay elsewhere.
It’s an ideal place for groups to gather. If you have members of your party who are not into the Adirondacks’ great outdoors, they’ll be happy to settle in by the fire while you’re out skiing or hiking.
High Peaks’ main lodge has an equally attractive and even more comfortable lounge, sans the dramatic view. They have groupings of chairs and couches all around a two-sided fireplace, making it easier to snag a spot by the fire for our group.
A long corridor extending from the lobby has more furniture groupings that are far from the fire but secluded and quiet.
We rendezvoused with friends in one of these nooks or by the fire most afternoons to read, crochet, sip free hot cocoa and decide what to do for dinner. Your indoorsy family member would be very comfortable here, as well.
The Golden Arrow‘s exterior looks like a German Alpine chalet. The inside feels as quaint as you might expect.
But the lobby comes up short. It has a fireplace and a huge windowed wall with a gorgeous lake view.
But the furniture is sparse and isn’t grouped for socializing. It’s not a place to chill out, play a board game, or even sit with a glass of wine or cocoa to admire the amazing view.
We missed having a gathering spot when we stayed here with friends. More furniture, organized for socializing, would make the room more welcoming and more useful.
High Peaks has the nicest and biggest standard rooms
Having an older teenager means we have three adult-size people sharing our hotel room these days. Anyone with teenagers knows they always spread out to fill the available space. So we appreciate a extra space in a hotel room.
At High Peaks we couldn’t get a double-queen room, which we prefer. But when we opened up the couch bed in our single-king room, we didn’t feel like it consumed the entire room. We still had space to walk around and leave three opened suitcases lying around.
The rooms are modern-mountain-chic with detailed reading lamps, nice stone-tiled showers and big windows with shutters. Our first-floor room has a door leading to the outdoor pool, which would have been handy in the summer. The rooms have refrigerators, but no microwave. And they have hooks, which are handy for coats in the winter and wet bathing suits in summer.
During most winter weeks, the Golden Arrow is bursting with families in town for hockey, ice skating or other competitions. The hockey families move through the hotel in large, boisterous groups, which can be a little overwhelming in the hotel’s smaller quarters and at the pool.
High Peaks also gets these groups, but the hotel is bigger, allowing them to fade into the background a little more.
We’ve had standard rooms, larger specialty rooms and suites at the Golden Arrow. They all have a refrigerator and microwave. They all have a coat closet, too, which is handy for keeping the coats and wet boots out of the way—if you can get your family to use it.
Some of the suites and specialty rooms have fireplaces and seating areas with a coffee table. One of our specialty rooms had a king bed and fold-out couch, which we had to close during the day if we wanted to sit by the fire.
On one visit, we had a suite with a separate kid’s room, which was awesome. We loved settling in by the fireplace to read, nap, have an après-ski snack or play games after dinner.
The specialty room had a whirlpool bathtub. The outside temperatures hit negative digits during that visit, making it a chilly walk to the pool. So we used that whirlpool tub quite a bit.
The Golden Arrow recently finished refurbishing all its rooms. They feel new but the decor is more homey than stylish. All the rooms we’ve had have felt roomy enough for three people, but in terms of standard rooms, I prefer High Peaks for their style and comfort.
We’ve only ever booked standard rooms at the Crowne Plaza. Even when Teen Traveler was small, these felt cramped and bland.
In particular, when a double-queen room wasn’t available at check-in, we were told our king room could sleep three people. But once we set up a roll-away bed—for which we paid a daily fee— there was absolutely no room to walk around.
But even when we had a proper double-queen room, it felt small and dark. Having our window overlooking the parking lot didn’t encourage us to open the curtains. Rooms that face the lake are brighter if not bigger.
All the rooms here also have a fridge and a microwave, but since it wasn’t a room where we wanted to hang out and relax, this wasn’t as handy as it was at the Golden Arrow.
If you have the budget to upgrade to a superior room or suite, you’ll probably have more room for a family and be more comfortable.
All 3 hotels have nice amenities
We spent far more time walking and skating on the frozen lake when we were at the Golden Arrow than when we were at the other two hotels.
Aside from this and the other two hotels having great lounge areas, they have fairly comparable amenities.
The Crowne Plaza has a good-sized pool and hot tub. The Golden Arrow has two hot tubs alongside its pool, plus a sauna and good steam room.
High Peaks has indoor pools and hot tubs in both the main building and the larger of its two outbuildings. It also has two outdoor pools for the summer.
All the indoor pools can be busy with kids in the late afternoon and just after dinner. At the Golden Arrow the kids stay away from sauna and steam room, making them quieter places to soothe your aching muscles. The High Peaks’ pool quieted down after 9:00.
High Peaks had hot cocoa and cookies in the afternoon and lends out free snow shoes, which is surprisingly popular. We borrowed them ourselves for an afternoon.
None of them offer breakfast with the room rate, but they all have restaurants that offer breakfast. Crown Plaza has a buffet and the other two let you order a la carte, which I prefer.
All three hotels have free parking. The Crowne Plaza has a large outdoor lot. The Golden Arrow and High Peaks have both outdoor and covered spaces. The former’s garage has a daunting incline, but it keeps the snow off of your car.
Which hotel is right for you?
High Peaks feels a smidge more comfortable, stylish and upscale than the other two hotels. We liked the rooms and the public spaces equally and were happy spending time in both. But it’s hard to beat the Golden Arrow’s lakeside locale. Its rooms are comfortable and well-appointed, if less stylish.
We would stay in either of these again. The Crown Plaza has that gorgeous great room. It’s fine as a back-up plan. But the hilltop location and small, plain rooms make it second to the other two.
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Photos by FamiliesGo!©. except the Crowne Plaza pool and great room (top), the Golden Arrow Pool and High Peaks Photos, all courtesy of the hotels via Trip Advisor.