Our second stop on our Canadian vacation was Montreal. We left Toronto and made the drive east towards the city, arriving in the late afternoon. We stayed for 3 nights, beginning Friday June 22nd, at the Doubletree by Hilton Montreal Centre-Ville, located at 505 Sherbrooke Street East in Montreal.

Price: After comparing prices on the major travel websites, I booked the room directly through the Doubletree website, paying $125USD per night, for 2 rooms. The rooms at this hotel were not suites, but the hotel did offer free breakfast and a coin laundry, which we felt was a good trade off for not having a microwave and fridge in the room. We received a small discount off the regular room rate by selecting the “Get Going Canada” rate.

Location: While the hotel wasn’t located right downtown, in the middle of the hustle and bustle, the location was excellent. Two metro stops away from the center of Montreal, and the metro station was under our hotel! It was nice being on a quiet street, filled with residences and offices. My only complaint about the location is that there wasn’t much to eat in the immediate area. It was perhaps a 10 minute walk away, but not bad.

Cleanliness: This hotel was perfect. Beautiful lobby, clean corridors (with fresh paint, even!) and perfect rooms. I let out a huge sigh of relief when we entered our room and saw that everything in it, from the bedding to the furniture was in pristine condition.

Staff: Here’s where I have mixed feelings. Some of the staff was helpful, others…well, they were clueless. The hotel website stated there was a coin laundry, so my husband inquired about it, only to be told it was 5 blocks away! I looked at the website again and verified it said coin laundry on site, and called the front desk again to inquire. The first person I talked to claimed there wasn’t one, then the manager said there WAS one, but they weren’t sure where it was – perhaps the 2nd or 3rd floor? (How exactly does one manage a hotel without knowing where the coin laundry is?) When I had an issue with the laundry (see below) their response was apathetic.

Amenities: The pool was inside but large, and heated. The kids enjoyed it quite a bit. We had fantastic views of the city from our room as well. After searching the 2nd and 3rd floor for the coin laundry, I went back to the front desk to inquire where exactly it was – keep in mind I was dragging a bag containing dirty laundry and detergent. One of the staff finally left the desk to walk me upstairs, where we found the laundry on the 4th floor. I put in clothing, and put in soap, and put in coins…and discovered it was BROKEN! Thoroughly infuriated by now, I trudged back downstairs and complained that now I had dirty, soapy clothes. Their response was that they would let me know when the machine was fixed. Grrr!

The hotel also boasted free breakfast, but the first person we asked about it said they would have to check our “room plan” to see if we were eligible. Again, I verified on the website that continental breakfast was offered to all guest, and complained, and magically our breakfast passes appeared.

Comfort: Doubletree excels when it comes to comfort. The bedding and mattress we slept on were FABULOUS. However, the a/c didn’t work right in our room for the duration our stay. Despite multiple complaints, the manager’s only solution was to provide a single fan for our room.

Overall rank: On a scale of 1 to 10, the Doubletree by Hilton Montreal Centre-Ville receives a 7. It could be much higher, had the staff not been quite so inept.

This will hopefully be the first of many hotel reviews, and since I plan to do this more than once, I’m attempting to adopt a format that I can use for all future hotel reviews. I’ll be using the following criteria to give each hotel a ranking, on a scale of 1 to 10:

• Price
• Location
• Cleanliness
• Staff
• Amenities
• Comfort

Our first stop during our trip to Canada was in Toronto, and our home away from home for 3 nights was the Best Western Primrose, located at 111 Carlton Street, in downtown Toronto. We arrived on Tuesday, June 19th and checked out on Friday, June 22nd.

Price: We paid approximately $115 a night for our room with 2 double beds, and a street view. My mother paid $20 more per night, because she requested a room with a microwave and fridge. Upon checking in, my husband and I were also given a room with a microwave and fridge, and we weren’t charged any additional money for the upgrade. Overall, the price isn’t bad for a downtown hotel, but other factors, like cleanliness will, and DID affect how we viewed the price. Read on!

Location: We couldn’t have asked for a better location. For those of you who don’t know Toronto, Yonge Street is considered to be the backbone of the city. Walk north on Yonge Street and you’ll hit shopping and Bloor Street. Walk south and you’ll come to Eaton Center and the Hockey Hall of Fame. Our hotel was on Carlton Street, just about 3 blocks off Yonge – it was a very do-able walk, and if we didn’t want to walk, there was a metro station at the intersection of Carlton and Yonge we could go to. The hotel was in the so called “gay district”, and had 2 gay clubs within a block away, but we’re not offended by alternative lifestyles. I only mention it in case some are. The neighborhood felt safe, and there was a park (Allen Gardens)across the street where my husband jogged and took the kids to play. The old Maple Leaf Gardens was across the street, too.

Cleanliness: This is an older hotel, and it shows. While the lobby has been renovated at some point, the guest rooms we stayed in on the 6th floor had not been. The carpet was older, but in good shape, the bedding was a typical polyester hotel spread, and the bathroom…well, the bathroom had seen better days. While our room was clean enough, the bathroom had some mold issues in the shower grout, and the tile and grout was cracked and bulging away from the walls in some places. It was an unattractive bathroom, to say the least, and mold grosses me out.

Staff: Some of the staff was extremely friendly, like the concierge who booked our tour for us. Others…well, they could take us or leave us, and vice versa. For instance, a parking spot wasn’t available when we checked in, so we were told to use one of the public pay lots in the area. That’s ok – it’s just the manner in which this information was conveyed to us could have been a bit warmer and friendlier. We never saw our maid, but the room was done each day when we returned, and that’s all that matters to me.

Amenities: Where to begin? The pool is located on the 3rd floor, and gives you a nice view of the city. While the pool was large, the area around it for seating was extremely small – perhaps 4 feet on all sides. It was older looking too, and there was no slide. The kids enjoyed it, but it wasn’t a place to hang out for hours on end catching the rays. (Fine for the purposes of our trip!) You can see from the picture below that the area around the pool is just big enough for chairs and for one person to pass by:

While there was a restaurant in the hotel, there wasn’t any type of free breakfast offered. Thankfully, there was also a Tim Horton’s attached to the hotel, so we were able to find cheap eats each morning. While I’m on the subject of amenities, the hotel DID offer free wireless internet. The issue for me however, was that there was no outlet at the desk in the room. The only extra outlet was behind the bed, which mean moving the laptop to the nightstand between the beds to be charged. A small pain in the rear, but the free internet was nice.

Comfort: What bothers me the most about this hotel is that on the hotel website, it states:

Our newly renovated rooms offer all the conveniences of a luxury hotel, coupled with the conveniences of home.

Obviously, neither of the rooms we had for our group had been renovated, ever.

I also found this tidbit on the website:

Duvets with a 250 thread count are the standard at the Best Western Primrose

The picture of the guest rooms on the main page of the hotel website shows this image:

Lovely, isn’t it? Too bad our room looked nothing like it. I would have been quite pleased if it had. There’s nothing like a comfy bed with cushy white sheets and a duvet! However, our room looked like this picture found a bit deeper in on the website:

Those bedspreads leave a lot to be desired. And while I’m on the subject of comfort, the beds were not. The sheets were ill fitting, the pillows were lumpy, and the blankets were older and wash worn. The towels in the bathroom had seen better days as well. We “borrowed” more towels from the pool area so that’d we would have extra, but didn’t ever need them. I didn’t complain about the bedding issue while we were there, simply because I never saw the areas of the website I’ve referenced above. I certainly would have loved to have the duvets they feature and the renovated rooms mentioned!

I’m not really sure where to put the elevators, but they’re worth mentioning. It’s funny that in a city that has the CN Tower, with elevators speeding upwards at the speed of car, we stayed in a hotel with the slowest elevators I’ve EVER experienced. It became the joke during our 3 day stay. It wasn’t uncommon to wait for 5 minutes for one of the 4 elevators to come to our floor, or to the lobby.

The hair dryer also broke in our room after the first day. I was lucky that I always pack my own, and didn’t need it, but it just drove home the age of the hotel and the real need for updated rooms.

Overall rank: On a scale of 1 to 10, the Best Western Primrose in Toronto receives a 6. Had we stayed in a renovated room, I could see that rating going up, but sadly, we did not. The location was excellent, but I wouldn’t chose those hotel again if I were to go to Toronto, because there are simply so many other choices in the area. The bedding and bathroom were a big turn off for me, and the location and free internet access can’t make up for the run down feeling that our room had. As one traveler stated on Travelocity, if you’re looking for pampering and a high class feeling, this is not the hotel for you.

I expected a cheesy, over rated tourist trap, and while the town is a bit over the top with attractions and chain restaurants, the falls are simply breathtaking, and everyone should see them at least once. We did a tour today that took us to Table Rock, inside the falls so that we could view them from inside, and of course, we did the Maid of The Mist and got soaked from Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. The falls are spectacular, and the perfect ending to our Canadian vacation.

Jim and I got some alone time tonight, so we took the metro, and then a shuttle bus to the Casino de Montreal. (Finally, my high school French was useful! “Où est l’autobus?”)

The casino was huge, but weird for us, since there isn’t a hotel attached. It’s just…a casino. The whole thing was non-smoking though – a huge plus! There were 5 or so levels of games, including several floors of JUST slots, and a whole floor of table games. And the place was packed. It’s a real destination, even without a hotel, like we’re used to seeing in Vegas or Atlantic City.

Another oddity – no alcohol is allowed on the casino floor. You can go to the bar for a drink, but when you’re at the slots or the tables, you’ll get offered coffee. Oh – and no coins in the slots! When you cash out, you get a ticket that you can take to the cashier or to a machine, and you’ll get your cash from that.

Once we lost enough money, we went to one of the bars and took our beers outside on the terrace for a great view of the city. It was the perfect end to our stay here in Montreal.

We took a long tour around the city of Montreal today, and then ended up at the Notre-Dame Basilica, where we enjoyed Mass in French. (Well, the kids didn’t enjoy it so much, but the adults did!) The city is so different from Toronto, and I said to Jim more than once today, how it felt like Paris. With the cozy streets and row homes and everyone speaking in French around you, you can forget that you’re still in North America. And because everything is MUCH cheaper than Paris (even with the 14% in taxes) you’ll save money over going to France.

We like it.