Knotty Pine Cottages — Hotel in Ingonish Ferry

This was our first trip to Nova Scotia, and first time seeing Cape Breton Island. Our original plan was to find a good home base to stay for three nights so we would be able to do as many of the top hikes in the park as we could in 4 days. Unfortunately, the drought and fire danger dramatically changed our plans in August 2025 as the total ban on hiking went into place two days before we arrived. During my research of the towns around Cape Breton Highlands National Park, I felt like the Ingonish area would be best to pick for a home base. Even though I started looking several months in advance, a lot of options were already booked for our target dates. I highly recommend starting very early on your reservation planning if you want to stay in this area for a couple of days. Knotty Pine Cottages kept popping up in reviews, and they had cottages with the waterfront view available. We drove from Baddeck, so I felt like Knotty Pine would be about the right distance driving to make our stop. That drive can be 1 hour, 15 minutes up to 1 hour, 30 minutes depending on whether you take the short Englishtown ferry. Knotty Pine is in a very interesting location. If you are planning on staying in Ingonish, here's a little geography lesson. Ingonish is actually made up of several small settlements. This includes (in order from south to north on the Cabot Trail) Ingonish Ferry, Ingonish Harbour, Ingonish Beach, Keltic Lodge, Ingonish Centre, and then finally Ingonish proper. In terms of location, Knotty Pine is pretty good, but you will need to do some driving each day as you explore all of the different areas around the national park. Knotty Pine's cottages are built side-by side on a very steep hillslope that looks out over Ingonish Harbour and South Bay. Be sure to select one of the Sunset cottages, as those are on the lower section. Those all have decks with mostly unobstructed views. There's a reason they're named "sunset," too. We saw some incredible sunsets from our deck. We stayed in Sunset H, which I would recommend. There are only two other cottages below that one on the narrow paved road. Sunset H does have a little funky parking space, but it isn't very far away from the cottage. The cottage itself was huge, and it was very clean. The cottage has very high floor-to-ceiling windows that look out to the big deck, so you can open up the curtains when sunset time comes. The deck is very, very nice. It has partitions on the left and right which give you privacy from other cottages on either side. There was a couch with large sitting area, a massive flat screen TV, and a nice comfortable bed. The bathroom was a good size, and it was very clean. There is also a small fridge, coffee maker, and microwave in the room. The main drawback we found was the pre-bagged coffee packets... not our favorite. Each morning, I had to walk up the very steep paved drive to the restaurant to purchase cups of coffee. Tip for Knotty Pine here... that should be complimentary for guests staying in the cottages. At night, it was very quiet around the cottages. Up behind the Sunset cottages, they have a nice gazebo platform and then another open deck with two Adirondack chairs. My tip is to sit up there on a clear night, because you can see every star in the sky. So beautiful up there! We did pay the first morning for the breakfast buffet in the little restaurant, and I can't say as though I would recommend it. Not terrible, just not great. The problem with staying here is that you do need to get in your car to get anywhere to eat something. And, it isn't going to be a short drive with the narrow road up until you get near the Ingonish Centre area. Pricing for the Sunset cottages was a little high in my opinion, but when you see the views and the size of the cottages, it may be hard to argue with the price. In the end, we were very happy with our stay here. I would recommend this place if you're in the area for a...

We got there past midnight but the person working that night had made arrangements so that we could enter the cottage. We didn't even ask her to do this! She had called and left us a message before she closed the office to give us instructions, which reduced some stress over us rushing to get there. When we arrived, we were very pleased with what welcomed our tired, weary bodies- the room was clean, well-appointed, very cozy but comfortable, and the high ceilings made it feel more spacious. We were even more pleased when we woke up in the morning and could see everything around us. Getting up to an unobstructed view of the water was fantastic! The enclosed deck was cherry on top- vistas of the ocean and the hills, opening the sliding doors and still hearing the sound of the water from inside, the trees around it and the spectacular sunsets as we wound down all added to us enjoying the space! Additionally, seeing the sky (the colours changing, the clouds, the moon, and the stars on a clear night) through the sliding doors and the high windows from inside the unit was just wonderful! We rented cottage A- I loved the spaces between the cottages as it provided more privacy and having a parking space next to it was very convenient. Staff that we met in the office were very friendly and helpful. If we needed something, we just had to call or ask in person. When I booked the cottage, I was very skeptical of the pictures and description of the units. As an avid traveller, there have been many times where the information I get from websites are inaccurate or the pictures used are not updated. This is not the case at all with Knotty Pines! They exceeded our expectations and quite frankly, it's one of the best accommodations we've had for the price point. We enjoyed our stay tremendously and it made our first visit to Cape Breton even...

We stayed 2 nights.The firs night our travel agent booked unit 4 for us and was extremely disappointed with it.|Didn’t sleep much at all.we found on the internet that one of the lower cabins ( J ) was available for the second night |We asked at reception and the girl said it wasn’t available so I thought I can’t stay another night in cabin 4 we’ll just leave and do our money.The lady came down and spoke with us 10 minutes later and said yes the J unit was available for the second night Fantastic news more then happy to pay the extra $ 119-00 CA and the lady credited our first night in room 4 and we paid the difference which she didn’t have to because it was booked in February by our agent |J was a great improvement on room 4 ||The view was great had a clean bbq to use and the bed didn’t have a 20 degree slip to the left like 4 had.||And yes the sliding fly screen door was extremely had to use and it was in a lot better condition but there were things that still needed attention like the rusty chain attached to the bath plug left on the edge of the bath the water pressure was poor 🤔 but over all a vast improvement ||I’d like to finish by saying give the hotel rooms a miss The Lady at reception was more then helpful but I’d have to think again if I ever was going to return to the area|Someone is making a good profit on these rooms for there overall condition |Spend some money on the lower units like an Air conditioner paint the verandas and some of the furniture and I think you’d see peoples attitude change.I could not fault the staff and there...