Last updated: June 13, 2026 · Beta / in development
Hi — this page is some early thinking around a possible new online booking system at West Point Inn. It's very much a rough idea at this stage, put together to see whether it might be a helpful direction for the Inn — not a decision that's already been made.
These notes are really just a starting point for a conversation. The hope is that something like this could make reservations easier to manage day-to-day — but you know this role and these guests far better than any page can, so please treat everything here as a suggestion to poke at, change, or set aside entirely if it doesn't fit how things actually work.
As the booking system grows, we'll keep adding to this page rather than starting new documents, so it stays the one place to check for "what's true right now."
How to use this page: on a computer or tablet, use the tabs in the top right to switch sections. On a phone, tap the ☰ menu in the top right instead — it opens the same list of sections to choose from. The "Issues" tab has its own row of sub-topics underneath it. Feel free to read in any order, or just check back on "What's Coming" to see what's changed — and use "Feedback" any time to send a question or idea our way.
None of this is meant to second-guess how reservations have been handled — it's the opposite. A lot of the regular phone calls at the inn (and the occasional complaint) seem to come from things referring to reservations that can be hard to communicate over the phone but easy to show on a screen. If a calendar and a few clear notes could quietly answer these before the phone even rings, that frees up time for the calls that actually need a person.
A short list of these — and how the booking page already addresses each one — will follow here as we go.
The Inn already takes online payments today — that's how most guests pay, and cash is rare (mostly the occasional walk-in). So online payment itself isn't the new or unfamiliar part.
The actual gap is narrower: this new booking page doesn't yet connect to whatever currently handles those payments. That connection — wiring this page up to the existing payment process so it works the same way guests already expect — is the piece that's new territory and worth taking slowly and getting right, rather than something to rush.
For the moment, the page asks for a request and shows an estimated total, with payment details to follow once a request is confirmed — same as the rest of this beta, a placeholder until that connection is built.
This is a first draft, not a finished design — the tabs, layout, and what's shown here can all change based on what's actually useful day-to-day.
It looks and feels like a real booking flow — and the back-office piece now genuinely exists, even if it's still rough around the edges.
A few other things still to come: editing room rates/capacity from the Control Panel (right now it's just a read-only view), email notifications when a request comes in or gets approved/declined, and two-factor login for the Control Panel before this goes fully live (see Issues).
The date rules (booking window, Mondays closed, ADA cabin rules, double-booking checks) are now independently checked on the server — every request is re-verified using the Inn's own clock and the real calendar, regardless of what the visitor's browser sent. The earlier concern about someone bypassing the browser's calendar no longer applies to the booking request itself.
The booking window (currently 3 months ahead for the public, 4 months for members) is calculated using the Inn's local time — Pacific/San Francisco time — no matter where the visitor is in the world.
This matters because without it, someone in Australia or the UK could end up a day "ahead" of us and see/select a date that hasn't actually opened up yet here. That's been fixed.
We know these are the dates that cause the most stress. Once the back-office system is built, we'll have two tools to help:
We'll talk through which approach (or mix) fits best with how the committee has handled these dates in the past.
Done since the last update: the Reservation Control Panel, real historical booking data, and server-side enforcement of booking rules — all now in place.
This is very much a work in progress, and your feedback as the person who'll actually live with this day-to-day is the most valuable input we can get. Anything that feels confusing, fiddly, "not how we'd really do it," or just an idea worth exploring — write it below and send it straight to Gordon.
This opens your email app with the message pre-filled — nothing is sent automatically. Address: gordedwards415@gmail.com