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This was our third time returning to Miners Bay lodge for our families annual vacation. We've met people who have returning there for 40 plus years! This place is the best! Our kids have made friendships over the pass few years, and in return, we have made friendships with those families too. It's wonderful to be on the beach and have it filled with children,.. they play together all day! And the parents keep the benefits 😀 It doesn't matter how many big holes our kids may dig, every morning the beaches are manicured perfectly.
We enjoy all the activities they have, like Weiner roast sing a longs, or ice cream social nights. On the last day they have water games on the beach, including tug of war, water balloon toss and best dives off the floating dock.
We love our cottage that we stay for the week, they are accommodating as we asked for an extra cot for our youngest. Their dinner is amazing too, the food is sooo good. We did takeout for lunch on the beach too some days! Best poutine around!!!
Our kids never want to go home at the end of the week..and for me that's a sign that this is their happy place. We hope to return here yearly!
We take advantage of their tennis courts in the morning. And canoeing as well. Shuffle board is a huge hit too. All these amenities are available for any guest to use!
Our kids caught so many fish this year, off the dock! Perch. Bass. Sunfish. It was exciting!!
Our cottage was clean. (Not that we were in it very often) There is so much to do at this place. It's a ton of fun!! Our favorite is going for a campfire. We made a reservation, and when we arrived to the destination, there was wood and kindling and a bucket to put it out afterwards. It made me feel safe knowing people don't have camp fires by their cottages. We love this place! Definitely a must try!
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Date of stay: June 2024
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Trip type: Travelled with family
Room Tip:The shoppe has everything in it. From toiletries to sauces and dips. Chips and ice cream and...
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Miners bay lodge is literally a little peace of heaven on earth. If you are looking for a family based vacation of relaxation and summer fun this is the place. Accommodations are clean and well maintained. Use of 2 lakes, strictly for guest members only. Hiking trails, and on site activities for all ages. Many budget options, and staff are friendly and helpful. On site general store. Helps when you run out of supplies. 10 minute drive to Minden. Can't say enough about this place. its a must try! ❤❤
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Date of stay: June 2021Trip type: Travelled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
I've been going to Miners Bay Lodge since 2013 and my experience has always been memorable. The food is excellent, the staff are friendly and helpful and the location is serene. There's lots to do - swimming, watersports, hiking, games planned by the resort. It's a great family place but good for adults who want to get away up north in a place that comfortable, unpretentious and relaxed.
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Date of stay: July 2020
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Close commute to the resort. The cottages (15A and 15B) were simple but functional. The smaller quiet beach on the resort was lovely to canoe around and take a dip. The other beach across the highway had less of a relaxing atmosphere but worth paddling around.
Benefited that the resort was not at capacity so had free access to all the amenities such as shuffleboard, tennis kayaks, canoes and paddleboards. In general overall quieter.
There is a lot of assumed knowledge as there are a lot of returning guests but for us who are new it would benefit from increased communication. When I asked question would get helpful answer but never anything more. No extra details just exactly what I asked. Hard to find out what is available. Free equipment but also they have trailers on the land which store their equipment and this was not clear. It would be helpful if we clearly were told that we could access equipment that had MBL on it very clearly or if all of the private guests equipment were clearly marked. We inadvertently took someone's wave mat as we thought it was the resort as it was in their area but we were mistaken.
Had a nice campfire but again asked if this was possible there was no information that let us know. Pay $8 extra but have to carry the wood to the fire pit yourself. It is quite a distance. Would have been helpful if one of the golf carts would have delivered the wood to the fire pit.
Food was hit and miss. Some food was very good such as the steak bites others like cold hot dogs were less enjoyable. Again for communication, Prime Rib was a special and would have been nice to know that with our package we could have ordered with an additional premium but this was not told.
Overall we enjoyed our time away at Miner's Bay Lodge.
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Date of stay: July 2020
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
My daughter just got married here this past Saturday, The staff at Miners Bay went above and beyond . The place is was lovely , clean cottages beautiful lake. Christine and Tony you made this wedding a beautiful day. The food was AMAZING. Thank You to all the staff you deserve a 5 star rating. I will highly recommend this resort for a quiet stay but especially if your looking to do a wedding venue or any other important event.
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Date of stay: September 2021
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
As a fellow guest this is the place for the perfect family vacation. My family has came here for over 20 years and we love it. Rates are reasonable and the food is great. Rates start at about 75/daily as well as weekly rates in the 300's. Come and stay here you won't regret it
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Date of stay: October 2013
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
It's a really great place and the people who go there are nice. There are lots of activities for kids and really energetic young people working there over the summer. There's even a talent show and sandcastle building contest!
It's a family resort, and we quickly found out that meant there was NO tv or internet access. Our cell phone service was patchy at best, and TV was only available during a scheduled movie night, but we'd already seen the movie.
The beach is inconvenient to the resort, as you have to cross a busy highway to get there. It's really not a suitable place to take young children as they will tend to run into the road.
There's a cute little (surprisingly populous) church you can visit on Sundays.
I did get some beautiful photos of the lakes and there's a hiking trail that has quotes from books and poetry all along the trail. It was very much appreciated. There's a store onsite which isn't too overpriced, and their restaurant has really great food. You can pay to have meals included but we paid instead to go there once, as a treat. They can accommodate allergies.
The onsite store is well stocked and actually had a good selection. The gift shop had some really fun stuff as well as some REALLY cool historical items. The place has a lot of history and the owner is an avid historian. There were a lot of coins, buttons from WW2 vests, etc, that had been unearthed there.
At the end of our stay, we were asked to fill out a form that would put us on a waiting list for the following year. By April, we hadn't heard anything so we booked somewhere else. In June we received an e-mail saying someone had cancelled and they had a cottage for a week in July. We cancelled our other reservation and went back to Miner's Bay, thinking that going there two years in a row would put us on the primary list and get us off the cancellation list.
The following year, I e-mailed early (in February) to ask if they had room for us that summer. I got a very rude e-mail back. I said "since we've been attending for a few years" and the person who answered said "as far as I can tell, you've only been here twice, you haven't been coming here for YEARS as you claim"...the tone of the rest of the e-mail was very similar, and the gist was that I shouldn't be asking for something as ostentatious as a guarantee that I would be able to attend at Miner's Bay that summer.
Oddly, we got another e-mail in April saying they had yet another cancellation property. This time I just sent them back an e-mail asking why they gave precedent to people who didn't show up, rather than we who have shown up every single time, and paid their (very high) fees at the last moment with zero notice, AND have always left the cottaages clean while we saw other people who went there completely destroying the cottages they were staying in with drinking and parties.
If quiet, clean people are not the kind of guests they want, we'd rather not go back. The property is lovely but however they're choosing guests is less lovely.
There are other cottages and resorts in Canada, a large number of them, and the only reason we kept trying to go back to Miner's Bay was because of the historical artifacts. If you're not history-obsessed, I would definitely go someplace else.
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Date of stay: July 2016
Value
Service
Sleep Quality
Trip type: Travelled with family
Room Tip:Try to get a larger or beachfront cottage, the others are very close together.
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
I have been going up to Miners Bay since I was a baby. My grandparents began the tradition back in the day, and the whole family continues to go every year, if they can make it. This place gets into your blood. The staff are all great and you see them again and again every year. There is so much to do, whether you want to relax or kayak or go cliff diving or boating or sit in the Lodge in front of the fire. The food is delicious and there's always an activity going on, sometimes more than one in a day. Shuffleboard, archery, wiener roasts, stunt nights, sand castle contests...this place is perfect for families who want quality time in a safe, family-oriented atmosphere. The fishing and snorkeling are also excellent.
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Date of stay: August 2013
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Trip type: Travelled with family
Room Tip:White cabins are housekeeping cabins - you cook, you clean it up before you leave. Brown cabins...
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
This place came very highly recommended from an acquaintance of mine but obviously I didn’t ask enough questions. We did find out during our stay that this was recently sold by the original family owners to an investment group so this may have influenced our experience. There was no appearance of any management at any time during our four-day stay. It is all a bunch of kids working there and none of them seemed particularly interested in what you think or how your stay is going. It felt a little lord of the flies to me. The chef was really great... we really enjoyed the food. He was the only “adult” we saw there and he came around to our table at every meal to ask us how everything was. Good manners. That’s how it should be. I can’t say the place is particularly clean but it was livable. I did have to ask for a broom after our first day because our floor wasn’t swept but they did promptly have housekeeping go back to our room and clean the floors. It is quite run down, but I’ll bet many of The guests like the fact that it hasn’t changed for the last 40 years and it’s “rustic”. I didn’t really think yellowed and torn drapes hanging in our room was rustic. Hopefully the investment group that made the purchase will be willing to spend a few dollars to fix things up. It did seem like some renovations had started to take place like new flooring in the rec centre and in the main lodge. Promising. We met many guests who have been coming here for many years and many generations who love it. I’d be willing to bet it was a very different feeling when it was owned by the family. The thing that I struggled with the most is that this is located on a very, very, very busy and high-speed highway. Even though the speed limit reduces to 60 for a short strip I don’t believe many cars actually slow down. And the worst part is you have to cross the street to access the lake! I was terrified every time for myself and for my family. Big trucks, cars, motorcycles driving past at high-speed all day long and you often had to wait quite some time before it was clear to cross safely. They should really spend a few dollars and build a pedestrian bridge over the highway. Unfortunately it still doesn’t get you away from the noise if you’re staying in the main lodge. Our room was facing the highway (cabins would be much better) and the cars were quite loud although it did quiet down substantially at night. It was nice to hear that many families have enjoyed this place over the years so you can take my review with a grain of salt, but I have no intention of returning here ever again.
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Date of stay: August 2019Trip type: Travelled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from minersbaylodge, General Manager at Miners' Bay Lodge
Responded Aug 24, 2019
Thank you for taking the time to write a review, Suzie. We’re sorry that you did not have the experience you were anticipating here at Miners’ Bay Lodge. While the original owners have retired, they are still very much involved with their support and will hopefully have a few pointers for us as we continue to learn. We’re sorry that your room was not ready for you at the time of your arrival. We would never expect guests to stay in a dirty room, or to have to clean their own room. We’re glad that you notified housekeeping and that it was addressed accordingly. Miners’ Bay Lodge has always been a proud employer of students, as we believe it is an excellent first-time job opportunity where our staff are able to gain experience and develop a variety of skills. We apologize if a lack of visible management kept you from raising some of your concerns during your stay as managers are always on site and available to assist when requested. We understand your concerns regarding the highway. When Miners’ Bay Lodge first opened, it was on a small dirt road. Over the 80 years we’ve been in business, that road has developed into the highway it is now with increasing amounts of traffic. For over 4 decades, management has approached the Ministry of Highways to address guest safety in regards to the highway. After much urging, they’ve reduced the speed limit and installed the flashing pedestrian crossing signs. Thus far, the department has not been open to a pedestrian overpass or underpass even with cost sharing. In regards to the beach, I’m sorry that you weren’t notified of the lake at the back of our property as it does not require crossing a road to gain access. We are glad you enjoyed the food and the dining room atmosphere as this is an important part of the guest experience. We are happy to hear that you noticed the renovations that have taken place thus far. We plan to continue to upgrade many aesthetic and structural aspects of the property while still honouring its historical roots. Again, we do appreciate all your feedback as it sheds light on some areas we can focus on for improvement moving forward.
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This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.
I have been going to Miner's Bay Lodge since I was a little girl. It is situated on beautiful Gull Lake right on Highway 35. It is a family-run, family-friendly business. The general store has a lot of provisions necessary for life up north and is open on a daily basis.
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Date of stay: August 2016
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
There are more places to choose from in the Minden area.
PRICE RANGE
C$227 - C$360 (Based on Average Rates for a Standard Room)
LOCATION
CanadaOntarioMinden
NUMBER OF ROOMS
35
Prices are the average nightly price provided by our partners and may not include all taxes and fees. Taxes and fees that are shown are estimates only. Please see our partners for more details.
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