Cold Lake Hotel Tips by Bwana_Brown

Our Daughter's House: The Personal Touch!

Our oldest daughter, her husband and family moved to Cold Lake at the beginning of July, 2004 and were very fortunate to be able to very quickly find this wonderful house. This is a booming area and housing is in great demand.

They have a fenced-in grassed backyard and a big deck to relax on. Inside, 3 bedrooms upstairs and 1 downstairs allows them to house the constant stream of relatives that have visited since their arrival (her husband is from Alberta originally!). My wife and I paid our most recent visit to Cold Lake in late December, 2007 in order to celebrate New Year's Eve with both our oldest and youngest daughters. The 2nd photo shows the same view of the house, but now on a snow-covered scene on a typical -23 C morning!

Unique Qualities: The interior of the house is really great, brand new and clean with spacious rooms. We had a great time relaxing here for a few days, taking in their new surroundings before we hopped in our car for the drive south to Calgary to visit our youngest daughter in the second half of our trip!

Address: Cold Lake

Directions: Off the Base, only a few blocks from downtown in 'Grand Centre'.

Theme: Other

Our Daughter's House: Birthday Party!

As it turned out, the timing of our trip coincided with our grandson's 7th birthday! In addition to our arrival from the East Coast, our son-in-law's dad and his wife made a full day's drive from British Columbia to be there as well. That third suitcase full of birthday and Christmas gifts that we brought from eastern Canada was not long getting opened!

Here, we are all enjoying the afternoon sunshine at the front of the house while the gifts are being opened and his little sister is keeping a close eye on things. It was very warm and comfortable sitting there in the little alcove at the front, I was surprised to see that it only officially got up to 12 C on that day!

Theme: Other

Harbour House Inn: More Inns

Located along the shore of Cold Lake, on Lakeshore Drive, are a series of very nice looking two-story modern houses. Most of these are Inns, B&Bs or Gift Shops providing a very nice view out over the lake since there are no buildings on the other side of the Drive. We did not stay or have the time to browse here but this area appeared to be the most scenic part of Cold Lake.

Unique Qualities: Two of the facilities here are the Harbour House Inn & Expresso Bar (1-780-639-2337 or www.harbourhouseinn.ca) and the Courtney House Gift Shop (780-639-4111)

Directions: On the south shore of Cold Lake, close to lots of restaurants and bars.

Theme: Inn

Lakeland Inn & El Lobo Motel: Motel Row

Located close to the shopping action in Grand Centre, these two accommodations sit beside each other on 55th street, just as you are leaving this central area for the short drive to the actual shore of Cold Lake. The street in the photo is actually only a smaller street for shoppers that runs parallel to the very nice main 55th street.

Unique Qualities: They have the usual motel amenities including free parking, in-room coffee maker and complimentary newspaper. The Lakeland Inn has 123 rooms as well as a Restaurant, Lounge and Sports Bar while the El Lobo has 63 rooms. Since we were being well-looked after in our private lodgings, we did not use any of these accommodations ourselves.

My son-in-law mentioned that he stayed in the Best Western, just as you enter town along Highway 28 from the south. It was highly recommended.

Address: 5411 55th Street in 'Grand Centre' part of Cold Lake

Phone: 1-877-594-3311 or 1-780-594-7521

Theme: Motel