Stayed here for two nights while attending an event and the Shaw Conference Centre. Rooms are spacious, well-appointed and comfortable. Free wifi, comfortable beds, excellent customer service. My room looked out onto Jasper Avenue, but my colleagues has an amazing room that faced east and looked out over the river valley and conference centre. The rate was reasonable, reservations were easy and we had a wonderful stay!

This hotel is in an older building, but it has been kept refurbished. I can't speak of all the rooms, but the king bed room I received was small. The breakfast buffet was good quality, but with very few choices that were the same every day.

Had booked this through Booking.com (from which I have booked before without problem) for a conference. I liked its close proximity to the Shaw Conference Center. I received the confirmation of booking from Booking.com one week prior.

I arrived at the hotel at 1 pm. When I tried to check in, I was told not to bother as no rooms were available until 3 pm. When I asked if I could do all the check in information and get my room card at 3 pm (I'll explain the significance later), again I was told not to bother.

I returned at 3 pm, and overheard a couple in front of me in line have problems with their reservation and reviewed my email confirmation with a sense of comfort. When I gave my name, I too was told that my name and reservation was not in the system. I showed my booking.com email reservation confirmation (again sent 8 days prior to the reservation), but was told that that site had 'forced' a room booking even though there were no rooms available.

I wondered why I hadn't been informed of this clear booking error in the preceding 7 days between the booking and the arrival date, to which I was told they did not have my contact information (I would assume they could get this from Booking.com?). The desk staff staff mentioned how she was told about this booking problem by her manager earlier in the day, and she was left to pick up the pieces. The hotel ended up booking a room for one night at a Ramada that was around a 5-10 min car drive away as well as taxi-fare to that hotel.

My overall comments about this experience:
1. Not sure if the problem was with Booking.com or the hotel. Maybe it's both. If Booking.com booked me in a room that didn't exist, I would think that the hotel would have noticed and in the 7 days prior have attempted to contact me. Booking.com had all my contact information so to say it wasn't accessible is NOT acceptable. If there is a communication issue between the hotel and Booking.com they NEED to sort this out.
2. While they put me up in another hotel, it was a cab ride from the Conference centre where I needed to be. It ended up affecting work I needed to do that day (I had to miss a meeting in order to sort out where I was going to stay!) and I had to pay the extra taxi fares to and from the conference centre and my new hotel.
3. It would have been nice if the desk staff I met at 1 pm (who was different from the staff I had to deal with at 3) would have let me provide my information. I would have found out then the room was not avaiable and bought me more time to sort out my accomodations.
4. Based on the couple in front of me in line who also seemed to have a problem with their reservation, I wonder if it's a more systemic issue (at least for that one day). Maybe it is just during busy times like conferences, but I would think that's part of the hotel business.
5. While waiting at the front desk to deal with this, the valet and luggage services seemed undermanned. One person was trying to leave his keys at valet services, but no one was there so the one poor front desk staff (being asked to deal with both my and the other couple's lost reservations) had to set that up. Another couple was then trying to get their bags from luggage to put in the cab to the airport, and there was no one at bell services. It really seemed like a mis-management of staff during that time of the day. If 3 pm is the usual check in time, there should be more staff available.

For what it's worth the lobby looked clean and there was a t least one computer there for use for business/printing reasons. The front desk staff I dealt with tried as best possible to help me out, but it was clearly something that was not her fault.

Otherwise the location is a 1-min walk from the conference centre. It WOULD have been nice to take advantage of that.

Perhaps the issues were a one-off problem experienced that day, but it was a huge problem that affected my work-related trip. For that, I would never look to make a reservation there again for fear this woudl happen again. If booking here, DOUBLE CHECK BY CALLING AHEAD TO MAKE SURE YOUR RESERVATION IS REGISTERED.

We liked this hotel for its nice room and location. However be prepared for the very expensive parking with the hotel. Since it’s right downtown, you can easily find some overnight parking lots nearby, which are 50% cheaper. So, overall it was a good stay, especially if you prefer the downtown location.