It's a special experience to stay in our National Parks--if you're lucky enough to get a reservation! We had a cute cabin close to the Lodge, which was a plus with some rainy weather. The Park options are limited and extremely overpriced, but as mentioned, a special experience, and we enjoyed this one. The cabin was attractive and comfortable, and outside was the scenic lake even on a gray day. The Lodge itself is small but the dining room was welcoming and the food was excellent. We truly enjoyed both dinner and breakfast. (We much preferred our night here over the higher priced Many Glacier Hotel--my advice for that location is visit, have a meal, enjoy the views and stay elsewhere.)

The Good: Location. The Bad: Everything else. My bad, I didn't check the fine print when booking about extremely limited wifi (you have to click on a link to get to the warning). If you have to check emails, make some calls, do some park internet searching, forget about it, it doesn't work, period. In both lodge and Cobb cabin. Had to drive to West Glacier outside the park to have a quick zoom meeting. The problem is that they let everyone stopping by (not lodge guests) use the wifi, and there are dozens and dozens of visiting folks crowding the lobby and restaurants, this could simply be solved by requiring room# to access wifi. Wifi aside, the service is horrible, they don't allow guests or anyone to make dinner reservations so first come first serve and couldn't get a table for over an hour due to the hord of visitors finishing up their day in the park. Why not allow guests actually staying at the lodge to have priority over visitors?? Overall, would highly recommend staying outside the park, and if you are doing the Going to the Sun, leave by 7am or every attraction lot will be full.

This Lodge is located next to Lake McDonald with beautiful views. There are some advantage for staying here, first, you won't need to get vehicle reservation to enter this area of the park in summer, secondly, you can get to the popular trails such as Avalanche trail early in the morning and have a parking spot. I stayed one night at Snyder Hall, a small standalone building next to the main Lodge. There were good parking space just outside the building. The rooms in Snyder Hall do not have their own bathrooms (there is a sink in the room), rather shared bathrooms and showers, and they were clean when I was there. My room was very clean and quiet, with a comfortable full size bed. Russell’s Fireside Dining Room in the main Lodge served great food, and all the staffs at the Lodge were very helpful and friendly.

I really wanted to like this place, considering it's on a beautiful lake and are situated right in the middle of the national park. However, the queen cabins we stayed in were incredibly small with very tight bathroom/showers. The lodge was much smaller than Many Glacier and the seats near the fireplace were nearly always full (not that big of a deal). The wifi worked reasonably well outside the lodge, but never seemed to work when actually in the main lodge. Perhaps the worst part of our experience was the staff/customer service. Although the front desk was courteous and helpful, the wait staff in the restaurants were atrocious. The bar tender in Lucke's Lounge was anything but courteous and helpful. He acted as if we were really putting him up to go to the bar and order a drink (there is a separate line just for this). He was very rude and we were there just ordering two beers. We ate there the following night and we apparently sat at his table, but he never came to serve us (another waiter came to help, who was very nice). When we didn't think the staff would get much worse, we had breakfast at Russell's Fireside dining room. We were in shock how rude the waiter was, very short and condescending with us, poured water on my child's ipad without even apologizing or acknowledging it, seemed very put out to take our order (you know, his job). He must have been having a very bad day, but it never really got any better. We didn't go back there because of the experience. Jammer Joe's was good for pizza and sandwiches and the staff was nice. I really can't recommend staying here, but, unfortunately, there are only a couple properties in the park, so you have to put up with all the bad to be close by.

3 1/2 stars. Great location right on Lake McDonald. Being inside the park gives you a head-start getting to Logan Pass in the a.m. Close proximity to other hikes, like Avalanche Lake, if you want to hike it first thing in the a.m. or at sunset. Lodge has rustic charm, but the rooms are a bit outdated. Comfortable enough. A bit expensive for what you get. I would stay here again for a night if I wanted to get to a nearby trailhead early in the morning.