Meadow Lake Resort & Condos — Hotel in Columbia Falls

Stellar Amenities and Location, Abysmal Service

I recently stayed at Meadow Lake Resort with high hopes, given its prime location and impressive amenities, but left with mixed feelings due to shockingly poor service. Here’s the breakdown:

The Good: Amenities: The resort is modern, clean, and well-equipped. The rooms are spacious, with plush beds, serene lake-view balconies, and upscale tech (TVs, fast Wi-Fi). The well-maintained trails truly shine. Location: Nestled by the lake and surrounded by nature, yet just a short drive from Glacier National Park. Perfect for both relaxation and exploring the area.

The Bad: Staff Attitudes: Unfortunately, the staff’s professionalism was inconsistent. The first day it was perfect. However, in the second day, front desk women acted inconvenienced by basic requests. Two of the room keys (for the same room) didn’t work and we asked for help. I got assisted by her, but they still didn’t work. I had to come back again, she then told me they keys were fixed and called maintenance. Maintainance came, figured out the keys didn’t work. He went to get us new keys. After giving us the keys, he then proceeded to teach me how not to broke the keys?! The way he acted like it was our faults that the keys didn’t work disgusted me. We had 2 rooms, 4 keys. Why did only 2 of them fail to work even though I keep them together in my wallet the whole time? I got out of that with a fake quick thank you. 5 minutes later, I came to front desk again and asked for some ice because their ice machine was broken. She was busy texting behind the counter, so she told me to go to the bar and get some?! To be honest, I don’t remember doing anything wrong to be ignored and treated that way. Dining Experience: I planned to dine in, but after those incidents, I decided to have frozen foods from the market nearby for dinner. Lucky they have microwaves in the rooms. I believe doing so have saved me from more dramas.

The Ugly: The dismissive, almost resentful attitude of some of the staffs overshadowed the resort’s natural beauty. Basic kindness—apologies, smiles, or even fake politeness, felt like too much to ask. For a resort charging premium rates, the inconsistency of hospitality was jaw-dropping.

Verdict: Meadow Lake Resorts is a paradox: a 5-star setting with 1-star service. If you’re booking purely for the amenities and solitude, it’s tolerable. But if you value being treated like a welcomed guest, look elsewhere.

Would I return? Not until they invest more in staff training or hire employees who actually want to work in hospitality. Such a waste of a...

We traveled to Columbia Falls and stayed at Meadow Lake Resort using timeshare points in late October 2020. When we arrived there had been a dramatic cold front and roads were icy and covered in snow.

One of the most positive things about Meadow Lake Resort is its location! We were only 10 minutes from the airport! It took us about 15-20 minutes to get to Whitefish. About 30-40 minutes to get around Glacier National Park. About 15-20 minutes into Kalispell. Overall, location location location was excellent.

We had a 2 bedroom/2 bathroom condo. Units and furniture are a bit outdated, BUT they were clean. Cleanliness is important, so I can look past the dated furniture. Everything worked (fridge, stove, heater, etc). Beds were comfortable. We bought food from the local grocery store (3 minute drive from the resort) and cooked breakfast and a few dinners in our unit. We had everything we needed to eat there.

We used the gym every morning during our stay. It has everything you need to get a good workout in. My only complaint is that they have reduced the hours of their gym. They are open 7am-11am and 4pm-10pm daily. Why there is a gap in the middle of the day? I wasn't quite sure...maybe for cleaning? I do not understand why the gym is not open 24/7 to guests since you need a key to access it anyways.

The restaurant on site was a very pleasant surprise to us. The food was VERY good and prices super reasonable. We ate dinner there twice and had happy hour once. Highly recommend.

We went to the spa. It was a little hard to get a reservation there so I'd recommend to call well in advance. Our spa experience was good, not great. No complaints on the staff, but there was tons of overhead noise you could hear during your massage. It made it difficult to relax.

Finally (and the worst part of our experience), the staff at Meadow Lake Resort need a good, long training on customer service. Every single interaction with a staff member was very "meh". No smiles and no answers. Literally every question we asked anyone was met with a "I don't know" or "I'm not sure". No one actually seemed like they wanted to be there (note: this does not include the restaurant staff who were GREAT!).

Overall, it was a decent trip & I would recommend staying at Meadow Lake, but I would caution anyone staying there to manage their expectations on SERVICE.Do not expect much. But if you are a relatively self sufficient traveler, go for it! Can't beat...

Decided to have a weekend away at Meadow Lake Resort because I had a good experience here prior but this time we planned an entire day around using the Rocky Bar-O beach facility that they have and upon check in we signed up to be able to use it and were never informed that 99% of the amenities there are closed due to Covid, there is supposed to be a flier given out at check in that we never received. After wasting half of our day, we came back and complained to the Manager Jon and he wasn’t going to offer us anything for our troubles but I told him I felt we should be compensated for our wasted time/money we spent on food, gas and essentials for a day at the beach and he offered us a $25 food credit (definitely less then what we had wasted on everything and our time wasted). At no point did I feel like he was sincerely apologetic for the mistake, he made me feel like I was in the wrong for being irritated by this situation and wasted time that was caused by his hotel staff. I left the conversation feeling unimportant and unheard by the manager who’s job is to create a welcoming environment for his guests. I had loved meadow lake resort prior to this experience and had recommended it to numerous people as we only like a few hours away but we will be finding a new place to have our business and to recommend to others going forward. On another note, after getting back into our hotel at 3pm, house keeping had not come by to turn down bed, leave new towels or do anything in the room. VERY disappointed. EDIT: I called front desk about the fact that housekeeping had not been by and they said due to Covid they were not sending them into rooms and that we should have been asked to fill out a card at check in listing anything we would be needing (DID NOT GET ASKED TO FILL THIS OUT) I asked if they would please bring us 2 towels and that we would be leaving the room and she said she would send someone down with them right away. We came back 2 hours later and there were no towels. We had to request again that they please bring them. We will NOT be staying here again or recommending it to anyone else unless their customer service skills and...