Delaware North’s parks and resorts have always focused on creating exceptional guest experiences, and that was never truer than in 2020.
Locations continuously adapted their operations to create exceptional guest experiences, with the health and safety of employees and guests as their highest priority. Over the past several months, local and national media outlets spotlighted some of these extraordinary efforts.
In August, a lodge operated by Delaware North was profiled as offering a “COVID-friendly staycation” for Ohio residents who don’t want to travel out of state.
Spectrum News 1 in Columbus visited The Lodge at Geneva-on-the-Lake, which reopened June 5, to showcase its Ohio Wine Country tours, its beautiful location on the Lake Erie shore and how the Delaware North team is helping to keep guests and associates safe from COVID-19 through the company’s Rest Assured – Commitment to Care program. The story first ran on Spectrum’s Ohio network on Aug. 4 and can be viewed and read here.
- Sea Crest Beach Hotel, which Delaware North owns and operates in North Falmouth, Mass., was named the best for family lodging on Cape Cod by readers of a regional magazine. Sea Crest was the winner in that category in Cape Cod Life Publications’ 29th annual Best of Cape Cod & The Islands Readers’ Choice Awards.
Kalaloch Lodge, which Delaware North operates at Olympic National Park, was included in a story titled “10 beaches that are better in the fall.” For Kalaloch’s part, the article said: “While you can camp on the beach at Shi Shi, warm beds and arguably just-as-beautiful scenery await at the oceanfront Kalaloch Lodge. Though it’s a couple of hours south by car, the lodge’s seclusion and direct beach access (and distance from the Twilight-inspired downtown Forks) make it a worthwhile stop.”
- Kalaloch was also featured in a story on travel blog Red Triangle called “Let it snow! Winter vacation rentals for Seattle families.”
- ??The Delaware North-operated Trailer Village RV Park at Grand Canyon Village was recently recognized with a USA Today 10Best award in the “Best RV Park/Campground” category. “Grand Canyon visitors who stay at Trailer Village RV Park enjoy pull-thru sites and full hookups close to the South Rim. Guests can upgrade their stay to include breakfast at the Yavapai Restaurant each morning,” the article announcing the winners said.
Honey Creek Resort in Moravia, Iowa, where Delaware North has been operating lodging, food and beverage, and retail services since 2016, has again been named a winner of The Knot “Best of Weddings in 2021.” The recognition represents the highest- and most-rated wedding professionals as reviewed by real couples, their families and wedding guests.
“Despite all of the difficulties due to Covid-19, the long hours and the new practices that were quickly adopted to keep our staff and guests safe, we still managed to give so many couples their dream wedding day thanks to everyone’s hard work and dedication throughout the entire year,” said Delaney Evers, wedding sales manager for the resort.
Only 5% of hundreds of thousands of local wedding professionals listed on The Knot receive this distinguished award. The Knot Best of Weddings is an annual “by-couples-for-couples” guide to the top wedding professionals across the country.
- Florida’s Space Coast was recently named one of the world’s top five tourism destinations for families in 2021 by National Geographic, and Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, which Delaware North operates for NASA, was noted as a key reason. The Space Coast, noted as “a launchpad for wonders, both in the sky and in waters below,” was the only U.S. destination among the five. “At the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex (open with COVID-19 restrictions), families can watch scheduled blast-offs of SpaceX and Boeing spacecrafts and walk among gigantic rockets towering over a hundred feet high. A different sort of giant, the lumbering West Indian manatee, plies the waters of Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, surrounding the space center.”
- Men’s Journal, a leading men’s lifestyle magazine focused on outdoor recreation, recently highlighted Sequoia National Park, where Delaware North operates food, retail and lodging services. The story by writer Eugene Buchanan, whose visit to Wuksachi Lodge and the park was arranged by Delaware North, called it one of the most majestic national parks. The story also highlighted the company’s Rest Assured program of health and safety protocols. “We got a great playbook (from) Delaware North and were able to implement it pretty easily,” Brett Archer, general manager for the company at the park, told Buchanan. “Once we got our COVID protocols in place, it was just some day-to-day operations we had to deal with. With fires, there’s a lot more unpredictability.”