Blue T Lodge — Hotel in Area H (Cultus Lake/Columbia Valley)

We chose this lodge because it allowed pets and its location. There is a serious lack of lodging choices in this area.  A Mom and Pop motel is not to be found anywhere.  It’s either stay in Bellingham and drive an hour and a half to Glacier, or pay $300 a night at one of the deluxe condo options that don‘t allow dogs. ||Enter the Blue T Lodge. This is the best choice for those needing a stellar location with a pet friendly option. That said, there are cons along with the pros.  ||The list of pros are location, location, location.  Add to that, a restaurant next door, they allow pets in the 3 bottom rooms and access to the yard is easy; the rooms are nice, relatively clean and the beds comfy.   ||The cons include; lack of communication, noisy, poorly insulated building, overpriced for what you get, two-night minimum stay, no cleaning service for the second day, and no microwave or fridge. There is a small heater on the wall that is a little tricky to figure out at first, but we got the hang of it. The room was freezing when we arrived and it took a few hours to get it to a comfortable temperature. We were in room 3, bottom floor with our dog. Room 1(pet room) is closest to the restaurant and may be noisier. The rooms have sliding glass doors out onto a little lawn. The employees from the restaurant hang out at the garbage cans, which are right by the lodge and smoke. Our room was closest to the garbage cans (room 3), so if this bothers you stay in a different room. ||There isn‘t cell service in this area, so don’t count on that, or TV. ||If I hadn‘t read in a review on TripAdvisor that you need to go the restaurant next door to check in, I would have been confused. There are no signs to direct you, an office or anything like that, so don’t expect it.  The restaurant doesn’t open until 11:00 so don‘t expect breakfast, you will find that at the bakery on Bourne street, across from the grocery store.  The Lodge provides tasty, organic coffee from the bakery in their rooms. ||For such a small town both the bakery and the grocery store are stellar and that’s where we could get information from locals.||The restaurant next door to the lodge is a pizza place and a hopping bar that is a favorite of locals.  It is absolutely packed on the weekends and the parking lot in front of the lodge is full. They are nice and helpful at the restaurant and the bar is where you check-in to the lodge and also orders to go.||I would recommend a white noise app on your device to drown out the noise from the other rooms and the parking lot. Also, give at least two days for anyone to get back to you about your...

the good: Jill and Brian are friendly hosts; Jill is the powerhouse of the establishment...she was always hustling; the location was terrific...it was why we selected the lodge; the room/bathroom was clean and beds comfortable. the irritating: the lighting was HORRIBLE...completely insufficient and unacceptable. they need to add canned/ceiling lights and/or GREATLY improve what is already in the room (the one ineffectual canned light didn't have its cover and was filled with cobwebs). we literally kept the door open just to get light into the room. there was not enough space. a coffee machine took up and entire low round table and a small tv (which could only play a poor selection of DVDs left in the room) took up the majority of another small table (along with things placed on the skinny shelf below). paint was chipped and peeling throughout the room. the bathroom had plenty of space but held only a tiny vanity...it easily could have been extended an additional two feet. the towels were squeezed into a holder that took some yanking to remove. in spite of all the free wall space, there were no hooks or towel racks in the bathroom. these had to be hung on the limited hooks behind the room door (limited once one hung one's coats, etc.). the "internet" was virtually nonexistent. it worked 1% (ONE percent) of the time...that was VERY frustrating as we couldn't check weather or on other important things related to our trip or back home. literally had to sit in the restaurant to do anything (and that was painfully slow) . No receipts....if a receipt was needed/wanted, one had to take a photo of whatever was written, whether that was room payment or a restaurant order. going to pull a "hotel inspector" move and highly recommend a visit to Mt Gardner Inn in Winthrop to see how well a room can be arranged. (not counting this against BlueT bc they do not advertise a fridge and microwave, but it would be greatly helpful and certainly more useful than just a...

I started having second thoughts about this place before I even got here. I called, emailed, and emailed again. Took then 4 days to respond back and let me know when check in time was.. (Check in time is not shown on their website and was not on my reservation). Who runs a business like this? Extremely unprofessional. After staying here, I really would give it a zero if I could. My reservation was for room 3. Arrived after check in time, no manager on site to let us in. Had to go to the bar next door to check in. They gave me room 2. I told them my reservation was for room 3, the bar help said that 2 was the room the manager had put down and it was the same size as room 3. So, we go over to room 2, open the door and...... there is a gentleman sitting there reading a book who had been staying in that room for days....Lucky for us he hadn't just come out of the shower or something. Total mess up on the manager's part, who when she finally showed up acted like it was no big deal. Really? Who runs a business like this? Parking for the bar/restaurant in front of the lodge is not separated from the lodge, which meant we had a heck of a time finding any place to park our cars ( we had two room and 5 people staying here), then we get hassled the next morning by some dude, who didn't even bother to say who is was, wanting to know why we were parked in the bar parking lot....Excuse me????? We're staying at the lodge, so yeah, were parking here......

The rooms were nice, but I wouldn't recommend this place to anyone who is used to a well run lodge that treats its customers with anything...