We enjoyed our stay at Lake McDonald Lodge. We were fortunate to get Cabin 12 B, (Large Deluxe Cabin with a queen bed) which was in the perfect location, facing the lake and near a path that took you down to the lake. We arrived about an hour early and check in was smooth. Our cabin had a nice porch facing the lake. It was hot during our visit, but thought with a fan and cooler temperatures in the evening it was comfortable.

If you're staying here, it's probably because you want to stay in the park but not camp. The staff here are very kind and generally try to do what they can, but it's clear that Xanterra (the company that runs this property as well as many others in the National Parks) doesn't particularly care about improving the experience above what they consider to be their baseline. Because there are no other vendors operating in the park at their scale, they have no real competition, and for the price, me and my family were generally pretty disappointed with things here. While a place like Glacier demands your attention, and you shouldn't be coming here just to hang out in a hotel all day, we really expected better. Reservations are a struggle: they open online a year in advance to the day, though the site often crashes when reservations open. My relatives in the continental US had to book on or around midnight based on their timezone, but I booked several timezones away in Italy, meaning that I was able to just book during my breakfast. In our case, different groups in my family were repeatedly locked out of the site, and had to make multiple attempts to reserve rooms. I recevied several error messages, but my credit card statement showed that I had been charged - no confirmation email, though. I had to get in touch with Xanterra over the phone to confirm because a public phone number for the Lodge was not forthcoming. I spent about an hour on hold in automated queues to speak with someone, who was only then able to send my confirmation email with all the key details. Key takeaways from booking: you need to book a year in advance, and you have to go through their shoddy website. I have no experience with any sort of cancellation waitlist, though I believe one exists. If you're looking into that: may the odds be ever in your favor. Fast forward to the stay itself: we arrived and were quartered in different rooms. Some of us were in the lodge itself, while others were assigned cabins that were a short walk from the main building. Rooms were spacious enough, but had no air conditioning or ceiling fans (we found a small box fan in ours which helped a bit). No issues with the beds, though the bathrooms had no natural ventilation for shower steam or any odors. There were plenty of outlets to charge devices, an clothing iron and board, and a few towels. For the main lodge building, the rooms were standard fare. Minimal noise dampening: we could hear just about any discussion in our hallway of rooms. If you want room service each day, you have to specifically request it, which definitely raised some eyebrows for the price we were already paying. The cabins were all generally a two-minute walk from the lodge or less, and had similar rooms. They did, however, have more rooms per building than we initially expected: in one cabin, my relatives had two of the available rooms, though another room (which shared the same common spaces) housed other guests. I like to think my family were agreeable enough neighbors, but if you go with the cabins, you're rolling the dice that your housemates will respect boundaries, quiet hours, etc. The biggest issue with the cabin was the pest situation: one of my relatives had a room with mice. Once notified, lodge staff were quick to provide a mouse trap, but for the price we paid, we weren't expecting to be dealing with a pest control situation. The park website is quick to warn that cell phone coverage is not great in the park. I went through most of my visit with no cell signal at all, which was honestly pretty nice. It can be good to unplug. For those of us that don't want to fully unplug, the lodge main building has guest wifi, but it's limited in both range and bandwidth. You only really get signal in the main lobby, and if there are too many people on it attempting to upload pictures or browse the internet (as there often are during the day), the connection gets to a point at which it becomes unusable. Access to wifi is just not reliable, and we mostly chose to ignore it. Anyone who needs to remain reachable for work or other life situations will certainly struggle during their stay here. Definitely recommend having maps, songs, podcasts, etc downloaded to your device of choice before visiting. Dining options are limited, but generally pretty good. The main dining room does breakfast, lunch, and dinner - with breakfast having a buffet in addition to a traditional menu. A bit on the pricey side - dinner entrees were around $30 - but the food was tasty. Lines form a bit before each opening time, so I definitely recommend getting there early if you're crunched for time. Any big-bus tour groups that arrive in the morning can substantially derail breakfast timing, so plan accordingly. There's a small bar/pub room, as well. It has bits of the menu from the main dining room, but also stuff like burgers and fries. Exceptional drinks at the bar, and some great playlists from the staff, who were lovely. Lighter fare (pizza/hot dogs) is available a short walk from the main lodge near the "camp store." Speaking of stores, the lodge has a gift shop right off the main lobby. It seems to be run by the Glacier National Park Conservancy, meaning that it carries the same stuff you'll see at gift shops throughout the park. It's nothing particularly special by itself, but if you're unsure about a souvenir that you see for sale during your visit to other parts of the park, you have a second chance to pick it up. I was generally glad it was there. The lodge is a stop for the iconic red bus tours that traverse the park, so if you make arrangements for one, they can pick you up right out front, which is really convenient. They're a great way to see the park, and have their own dedicated parking at various visitor centers and attractions so you're not at the mercy of the crowds. Additionally, the "jammers" who drive them are outgoing, knowledgeable people who have done a great deal of research about the park. They're a fantastic resource, and most of them have been doing this for years. If you stay here, book a red bus tour - you won't regret it. There are also park shuttles that drop people off at the major trailheads for hiking. They have a stop right at the lodge, which is great in theory. Unfortunately, the lodge is one of the later stops, and we were unable to get on any shuttles stopping there on account of them already being full. On top of the general crowding on the shuttles, the schedule wasn't exactly binding: on one occasion it arrived nearly 40 minutes late. Having wasted the better part of an hour waiting for the shuttle, only to not have room to get on, we decided to drive to the Avalanche Lake Trailhead. Parking was already full by the time we got there. Visitation to the park is at massive highs during the summer, and we were unable to find parking at any of the major trailheads during the day. What worked best was finding ways to take short hikes in the early evening, though early birds, as well as those who don't need to wrangle family members with differing sleep schedules, might have a better experience using the lodge as a launching point for hikes in the park. Lake McDonald itself is absolutely gorgeous. It's a short flight of stairs out the rear entrance of the lodge, and has a nice pebble beach for swimming, as well as a dock for boats. Canoes, kayaks, and even larger tour boats with NPS rangers used it. You could rent equipment on the dock, or potentially use it to engage with the park's interpretive programs, which is a definite plus. There are also a few benches and seating areas for anyone just wanting to take in the scenery. Glacier National Park definitely merits a visit, but I'm hesitant to recommend Lake McDonald Lodge at its current price. The building is beautiful, but lacking in a lot of amenities that you'd expect for the asking price. The staff on the ground are really pleasant, but they clearly struggle to provide for the guests with the resources at their disposal. Just like the visitors, they seem to be the unfortunate victims of corporate greed. I really hope Xanterra improves the experience here, but I'm not holding my breath - they seem to do this at a lot of other National Parks: corner the market and raise prices for a sub-par experience because they're the only option. I'm not privy to how this arrangement came about in the first place, but the National Park Service and their visitors really deserve better. The park absolutely captured my imagination, but I plan on getting a campsite for my future visits. In closing, just camp inside the park, or get a hotel in town and arrive early.

Worst hotel room (cabin) I've had in my entire life. We could barely get around the side of the bed the room was so small. Rustic is an overstatement for this place. Sink was in the main room, and it leaked all over the floor. I complained to the front desk several times and asked to be reassigned for the rest of the stay. No luck-front desk manager had no customer service skills and my impression was that he fields these complaints regularly. In fact, when it was all said and done, they had overcharged us by 63.00 for our stay. I will never go back there!

The service is awful! We waited 30 minutes for staff to clean an empty table! Then to get the servers attention to take our order, bring our food and pay bill- what an absolute waste of time. food was Ok. At prime time-bathrooms are closed for cleaning! This place needs management!

This is a nice quaint hotel at the shores of Lake McDonald, just walking distance from several hiking trails and access to Sperry Chalet. Our check in process was bit long as the lodge computer stopped working and a long line formed withing moments. The front desk did not seem very bothered and despite 6 people standing there, nobody was able to process reservations - definitely inconvenient. Wifi works fine in the main lobby but not anywhere else. The main lodge area is very pretty and tastefully arranged, dining room and bar looks nice as well. We stayed in one of the cabins, little walk away. The room was very tiny but fine for our stay. The food and drinks in the dining room were nice although bit pricy.