After spending a week in Whitefish where we visited Glacier National Park, we continued our journey through Montana by driving down to Missoula where we stayed for five nights.
We stayed all five nights at the DoubleTree by Hilton Missoula-Edgewater, a hotel on the banks of the Clark Fork River. It was a decent enough property to stay at in a nice location, although I think we drew the short straw with the room we were given as there was a water leak from the air conditioning unit and mold on the ceiling.
Here’s a full review of our stay.
Check-In
I was a little surprised when we arrived as the DoubleTree looked like a motel from outside. I initially thought that because it looked as though you access your room from an exterior corridor, but that wasn’t the case after all. Instead, all the first floor rooms have sliding patio doors (without those being the actual entrance), while the second floor rooms all have a balcony.
The hotel’s front desk has a nice, fresh look with wooden decor.
The front desk agent was friendly and they had a map showing the layout of the hotel.
Bedroom
After being given our keys to our room (room 159), we headed down the hall to our room. When entering, the bathroom was on the right and the bedroom straight ahead.
The bedroom area was much more spacious-feeling than I was expecting.
The king bed was very comfortable and had soft pillows.
The bedside tables were a nicer design than those you normally get at chain hotels, while the bedside lamps had a fun design.
To the left of the bed was a sleeper sofa.
On the opposite side of the room was a cabinet with several dresser drawers and a TV on top. To the right of that was a desk with an office chair and a coffee maker.
The cupboard of the cabinet contained a small mini fridge.
Seeing as we were on the first floor, we had a patio door leading outside. Although the outdoor swimming pool was close to our room, we weren’t disturbed by people hanging out there as it didn’t get rowdy during our stay.
The bedroom was separated from the bathroom by a sliding wooden door. I’m not always a big fan of sliding doors for bathrooms because they’re sometimes very loud when opening and closing them which can wake up the other person in the room. This door wasn’t too noisy though.
In the entrance to the bathroom there was a make up area on one side…
…and an open closet on the other side. On the top shelf of the closet was bedding for the sleeper sofa.
Overall, the bedroom was very nice as a DoubleTree goes. I mentioned at the start of the review though that we drew the short straw because of an issue with the ceiling air conditioning unit. Shae had noticed when we arrived that the carpet felt a little damp, but I figured that perhaps they’d cleaned the carpet and it hadn’t fully dried. That wasn’t the reason though.
When the air conditioning kicked in, it started dripping water. Not just an occasional drip, but non-stop drips for as long as it was on. As a result, we put the ice bucket underneath the unit that night to catch the water, then reported it to the front desk in the morning. They sent in maintenance while we were out and they supposedly fixed it, except that didn’t work. Seeing as we travel full-time with pretty much everything we own, we weren’t too keen on having to change room as it would mean packing everything up and then unpacking again, only to have to do it again a few days later. Having maintenance come in again wasn’t going to be ideal either as we both had to work which included being on Zoom. We therefore decided to stay in the room – leaving the ice bucket beneath the air conditioning unit – and reported the issue to the front desk again when checking out. It appeared that this was an ongoing problem based on the damp stains on the ceiling panels and mold growing on them.
Bathroom
The bathroom had a walk-in shower which, again, had a nicer design than you’d normally get at a DoubleTree.
The shower had large wall-mounted bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body wash.
Breakfast
The DoubleTree by Hilton Missoula-Edgewater has its own restaurant on site – Finn – which is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We have Diamond status with Hilton (courtesy of the Hilton Aspire credit card) which means that we get a $15 food and beverage credit per day per person (with a limit of two people) when staying at DoubleTree properties in the US. That meant that we had $30 we could spend at their restaurant each day.
You can find all of Finn’s menus here. Here’s what their breakfast menu included:
Due to having to work in the morning, most mornings we got breakfast to go rather than dining in the restaurant. I ordered their DoubleTree Start Right Breakfast most mornings which was decent and included plenty of food.
Another morning I decided to try their chia and agave parfait which was nice enough, although it’s very chia-y.
Shae tried their French toast one morning and had a side of scrambled eggs and enjoyed it.
Amenities
At the front of the hotel there’s an outdoor swimming pool.
In the hut-like building at the back of the swimming pool area is the hotel’s fitness room. It was fairly sparse in terms of equipment, but there was a Peloton bike, along with a couple of treadmills, an elliptical and some weights.
If you need to use a computer during your stay, there’s a business center in the lobby with a couple of computers. There wasn’t a printer there, but a sign gave an email address you could send documents to in order to have the front desk print them off.
One amenity that the hotel didn’t seem to have was luggage carts which was inconvenient seeing as we always have so much stuff to take in and out of a hotel when checking in and out.
DoubleTree by Hilton Missoula-Edgewater Pet Policy
The DoubleTree by Hilton Missoula-Edgewater is a pet-friendly property. They have a very reasonable pet fee of $50 per stay; that’s not necessarily ideal for a one night stay with your pup, but it effectively meant it only cost $10 per night to have Truffles with us for our five night stay.
The hotel has quite a few grassy areas around the hotel to walk your pup, including a large grassy area out front where Truffles enjoyed sunning herself.
The hotel is right next to the Clark Fork River which has walking trails along both sides, so that’s a great way to take your dog on a longer walk.
Service
Other than when checking in and out and reporting the issue with our air conditioning unit, I don’t think we had many interactions with staff at the hotel. However, they were always friendly enough during those limited interactions.
Wi-Fi
The DoubleTree’s Wi-Fi was a source of frustration during our stay. The connection in our room was weak and at times the connection would cut out completely due to its weakness.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
Check-in is from 4pm, while checkout is at 11am.
Location
The DoubleTree is in a pretty good location in Missoula. It’s right on the banks of the Clark Fork River, with a bridge crossing it out back. That made it easy to go for some nice walks with Truffles.
There’s an Albertsons grocery store a five minute walk away, the University of Montana is just the other side of the river and it’s only half a mile to downtown.
Parking
Parking is free at the hotel and there are plenty of spaces. Due to the layout of the hotel, it’s worth parking as close to your room as possible and entering via whichever door is closest, rather than through the front of the hotel.
Cost
DoubleTree is one of Hilton’s brands and we redeemed Hilton Honors points for our stay. It cost 60,000 points per night, but Hilton has a 5th night free benefit on award stays for anyone with Silver status or higher. That meant that rather than having to redeem 300,000 points for our stay, it was only 240,000 points.
That’s still more than we like to redeem on Hilton stays, but it was our best redemption option in Missoula considering how expensive hotels get there in the summer and based on its location. For our dates, the hotel was charging $540.89 per night. There was a Pink concert in town while we were in Missoula, so I’ve a feeling people coming into Missoula for that was bumping up hotel prices.
Final Thoughts
I have mixed feelings about the DoubleTree hotel in Missoula. Overall, it’s a very nice property with lovely design touches in the rooms and lobby. It’s in a great location, especially if you’re visiting the University of Montana.
However, the leaking air conditioning and mold on the ceiling was concerning, especially seeing as maintenance thought that they’d fixed it even though turning on the A/C would’ve shown it still wasn’t working properly. The poor internet connection was frustrating seeing as we both work online and the seeming lack of luggage carts was weird.
If we were return to Missoula I wouldn’t object to staying at this property again, but I’d also see what our other options would be in case there was somewhere that seemed to provide better value.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives the hotel three paws out of four -pawsome! Having a pet fee of only $50 for the stay was good, but she wasn’t a fan of being on the first floor with people walking past our patio doors throughout the day.
Our Rating
Room = 4.0 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 3.7 / 5
Food = 4.3 / 5
Location = 4.4 / 5
Service = 4.1 / 5
Overall Value = 3.7 / 5
Total = 4.03 / 5
Address
DoubleTree, 100 Madison St, Missoula, MT 59802
[…] It’s a nice enough hotel, but the internet connection was poor and our ceiling air conditioning unit leaked and didn’t get fixed properly by their maintenance team. Here’s a full review of our stay. […]