Muskoka Bay Resort: golf, the clifftop table, and the drive up.

Muskoka Bay Golf Course: An 18-Hole Design Cut Into a Quarry

The golf course at Muskoka Bay Resort is an 18-hole championship layout designed by Doug Carrick, built across a reclaimed granite quarry, which is why the fairways run past exposed rock faces and elevation changes most Ontario courses do not have.

The routing uses the quarry walls as a natural backdrop rather than a hazard to route around, and the Clifftop Clubhouse, designed by architect Richard Wengle, sits above the 18th green with the whole course visible from the terrace. Tee times book directly with the resort; a golf trip that includes 3 or 4 players usually books ground transportation the same week it books tee times, because parking at the clubhouse fills fast on weekend mornings.

The layout has earned a reputation among Ontario golfers for being one of the more dramatic inland courses in the province, and groups traveling up from Toronto for a golf weekend typically pair 1 round with a night at the resort and a second round the next morning before the drive back. A private transfer means the clubs and the golf bags travel in the same vehicle as the group, loaded once at the Toronto pickup and unloaded once at the bag drop.

Beyond the 18 holes, the practice facility at Muskoka Bay Resort includes a full-length driving range and a short-game area built into the same quarry terrain, so a group arriving the night before a tee time can warm up without leaving the property. Golf carts are standard on the round; walking is possible but uncommon given the elevation changes cut into the quarry walls. Corporate groups running a golf day often book the practice facility for an hour before a shotgun start, and a private transfer scheduling both the range time and the tee time as one block avoids a second pickup mid-morning.

Cliffside Restaurant: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner Above the Course

Cliffside Restaurant sits inside the Clifftop Clubhouse, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner with the entire golf course laid out below the terrace, and it is open to resort guests whether or not they played that day.

The terrace tables are the ones worth requesting in the warmer months: the clifftop position looks straight down the finishing holes, and a dinner reservation timed to the evening light is the closest thing the resort has to a signature moment. Groups arriving by private vehicle can be dropped directly at the clubhouse entrance rather than parking and walking up from a satellite lot.

Breakfast service typically opens early enough to cover an 8am tee time, and the lunch menu leans toward what a golfer can eat between the 9th and 10th holes without slowing the group behind them. Dinner is the more formal seating of the 3, and reservations for the terrace tables specifically, rather than the interior dining room, are worth calling ahead for on any Friday or Saturday between June and September. A group booking a private transfer for a dinner-only visit, without a round of golf attached, still books the same Sprinter or Escalade rate, and the vehicle can wait through the meal rather than making a second trip.

Muskoka Bay Resort Accommodations: Lofts, Villas, and Residences

Stays at Muskoka Bay Resort run across 4 property types: hotel-style suites, lofts, villas, and privately owned residences, several of which sit directly on the golf course fairways.

The villa and residence units are the ones golf groups favor, since a few of them back directly onto the course and put the clubhouse a short walk or a 2-minute shuttle away. The resort is developed and marketed in partnership with Freed, the Toronto-based development group, and units are sold as ownership residences alongside the rental stays. A private Toronto transfer can drop a group directly at the villa’s own driveway rather than a shared lobby entrance.

Guest amenities across the stay types include a pool, a fitness area, and quarry-facing patios on the larger villa units, and most stays run on a 1-night or 2-night booking tied to a weekend tee time rather than a longer cottage-style stay. Groups renting a multi-bedroom villa for a golf weekend typically split the group across 2 or 3 units and coordinate a single arrival window, which is exactly the kind of trip a Sprinter transfer is built for: one pickup in Toronto, one drop at the villa cluster, and everyone’s bags handled in the same load.

Lake Muskoka, Gravenhurst, and the Kee to Bala Nearby

Muskoka Bay Resort sits inside Gravenhurst on Lake Muskoka, and the town’s steamship docks, downtown shops, and public beach are all a short drive from the resort gate.

Cottage-country day trips from the resort typically run to Gravenhurst’s Muskoka Wharf, a Lake Muskoka boat cruise, or north to Bala for the Bala Cranberry Festival in October and the Kee to Bala concert venue in summer, which sits roughly 20 minutes past Gravenhurst. Groups combining a golf weekend with a Kee show book 1 vehicle for both legs rather than splitting the trip across 2 bookings.

Further into cottage country, Bracebridge and Port Carling both sit within a 30 to 40 minute drive of the resort, and a day-trip itinerary that pairs a round of golf in the morning with an afternoon in Bracebridge or a lock-through at Port Carling is a common way groups extend a Muskoka Bay weekend into a full 2-day loop. Huntsville, further north again, adds another hour to the round trip and is usually its own separate booking rather than a same-day add-on. Naming the extra stops when requesting a quote lets the itinerary get built as one fixed price instead of a series of separate rides.

Toronto to Muskoka Bay Resort: The Private Transfer

A private chauffeur transfer from Toronto to Muskoka Bay Resort runs from $175 per hour on a 14-passenger Sprinter, roughly 90 minutes each way, with golf bags and luggage loaded once at pickup and unloaded once at the resort.

Our dedicated Muskoka Bay Resort shuttle and golf transportation page covers the full transfer program, round-trip scheduling, and marina add-on stops; this page exists to cover the resort itself. Airport arrivals landing at Pearson before heading north use the same fleet as our Toronto airport to Muskoka shuttle. Every quote carries HST 13% and gratuity of 15 to 20 percent.

The drive itself runs up Highway 400 and onto Highway 11 through Barrie and past Orillia before the final stretch into Gravenhurst, and traffic on a summer Friday afternoon can add 20 to 30 minutes over the base 90-minute estimate, which is one reason groups booking a weekend trip tend to leave Toronto by early afternoon rather than after the evening rush starts. A chauffeured transfer means that delay is the driver’s problem to route around, not the group’s, and the vehicle can adjust the route in real time without anyone in the back seat checking a map. Groups larger than 14 passengers, or golf outings running 2 or 3 foursomes at once, quote on the 27-seat mini coach at $250 per hour rather than splitting into multiple Sprinters.

Planning a Muskoka Bay Resort Trip from Toronto

Send 4 things to get a fixed quote within the hour: the date, the group size, the pickup point in Toronto, and whether golf bags are traveling.

Weekend golf trips and Cliffside Restaurant dinner reservations both book out during peak summer Saturdays, so a transfer confirmed 2 to 3 weeks ahead locks the vehicle before the calendar tightens. Corporate retreats to the resort run on the same fleet as our Muskoka corporate retreat shuttle program, and standing multi-trip groups get 1 point of contact across the whole booking. A private car service to Muskoka booking can also add stops in Gravenhurst or Bala on the same run.

Wedding parties booking Muskoka Bay Resort for a reception or a golf-adjacent weekend typically split the transportation into 2 legs: a group arrival on the Friday or Saturday morning, and a late-evening return once the reception winds down, both quoted on the same booking so the same driver and vehicle cover the whole visit. Corporate groups running a multi-day offsite usually add a standing daily shuttle between the resort and Gravenhurst or the nearest GO station for staff arriving separately from the main group. Either way, the quote is built around the actual schedule rather than a flat per-trip rate, so an itinerary with 3 or 4 separate movements over a weekend still lands as 1 total number before the group leaves Toronto.