I was in Vancouver for just 2 days, and having checked out of my first night hotel (another story!) chose the Dominion while vwalking around Gastown - it looked quite attractive, and the lobby seemed fine.

The room was really quite grotty. I was booked on an early morning Greyhound to Banff next day, so went to bed at about 11pm. By 2am I knew I would not get any sleep here - the room was vibrating from the bar/disco below. So I left at 2.30am and managed to get a middle of night Greyhound - and had a good sleep on the bus!

If you do come here - check out where your room is in relation to night noise.

OK, I never write these things, but this place was such a dump I feel the need to steer folks clear of it. First of all, my girlfriend and I are seasoned travelers who've backpacked thru Europe and done the litany of youth hostels and budget hotels. We are both architects, and are very open minded to non-conventional accomodations.

So, we found the Dominion Hotel in the Lonely Planet guide and looked it up on the web. They have a really really nice looking website that completely sucked us in. Beware! Seriously, it makes the place look like a friendly, savvy, "artistic" place. It seemed like it would be right up our alley.

We booked a month in advance, and called the night before to confirm. The girl working the desk didn't speak English very well and was unable to use the computer to find our reservation. She assured us it was there, but wasn't able to pull it up.

We arrived in Vancouver the next day, and to our dismay, found that you couldn't reach the hotel by car because all of the blocks around the hotel were blocked off for a bike race. Now, I understand that this bike race is once a year and there is nothing the hotel can do about it, but they should have informed us the night before when we called that the garage they recommended parking in was not going to be accessible. So, after driving around the worst part of Vancouver for a while, we found a sketchy garage sandwiched between a salvation army soup kitchen and a women's drop-in center. The garage had no attendant and was of the self-service pre-pay style. The place stunk of urine and we decided there was no way in hell we were leaving the rental car in there. So, we called the hotel to ask for a suggestion. We got the same girl from the night before, and spent 35 mintues (literally) on the phone with her trying to determine where we should park. Now, I can't fault her language skills (as I've been all over Europe without speaking their languages), but a basic skill a person needs to work the front desk of a hotel that has no parking is the ability to tell the guests where to go to park!

Anyway, I was about to cancel the reservation right there, but my girlfriend talked me down and we drove around until we found a garage in a little less seemly environment. Now it was time to run the gauntlet. We live in San Francisco, and I've done work all over the worst parts of Oakland, but the three block walk between the parking garage and the "hotel" were some of the worst I've seen. TONS of drug addicts on the sidewalks and in the alleys and homeless people on every corner. Again, this isn't the hotel's fault, and it is a neighborhood in transition (ie, is currently undergoing gentrification), but damn, it was scary at midday on a weekday! And then we've got those dumb rollerbag carry-on things trailing behind us screaming "we're tourists". Seriously, we lived in San Francisco's tenderloin for 3 years and I've never felt that much of a target.

Finally we arrive at the hotel. The girl at the front desk was very friendly, but it became immediatley apparent that she was ill equipped and untrained for her job. She was unable to find our reservation at all in the computer, but said "oh, it doesn't matter, there are plenty of rooms". Man, that just burns me up. What's the point of making a reservations if your employees can't enter them or find them?! We can clearly see two other men in the back office that seem to be of managerial status, but they never come out or attempt to help in any way.

So, my girlfriend (always cool and collected) squares away the room and we get our keys. There is no elevator, so we lug our bags up the stairs. Half way up the staircase it becomes immediatley apparant that this is not fully a hotel. It's more like an SRO (single room occupany) that is being transitioned into a hotel. Some of the rooms have numbers on the doors and some don't. We passed two middle aged residents in the hallway smoking joints. Being from San Francisco, this isn't alarming to us in any way, but man, what a first impression!

After navigating the signless hallway, we located our room and opened the door (which has some hearts painted on the door) to find something a bit less than expected. Instead of "artsy", we found a pretty plain room in sore need of renovation. The bedroom was painted flat black, there was a beat up armchair (complete with mystery stains), a rickety table and a nasty bed with stained mattress. The sheets had cigarette burn holes in them, the comforter was covered in dark stains, the carpet was at least 15 years old, the toilet wouldn't flush and there was nothing vaguely artistic except for some red christmas lights strung in the middle of the ceiling. I mean seriously, "art hotel"? My dorm room in college was cleaner and more artistic!

Needless to say, we returned to the counter and checked out immediately. I can appreciate the idea of the Dominion Hotel, and I hope that one day they do manage to convert the building to a wonderful art hotel. The exterior of the building is great, but right now the interior is an ugly building full of druggies (that they're most likely trying to evict) in a dodgey part of town. Avoid this one!

ps-> I've noticed from reading other posts for this hotel that the management is fond of refuting the negative posts. I read one that said that they've "recently renovated" and that all of the linens "are new and clean". This is certainly a lie as our room was neither renovated nor had clean linens. I mean really, I've stayed in youth hostels in church basements that had 100 year old linens that were cleaner and better cared for than these!

We are usually adventurous, art-loving and relatively undemanding guests, and were lured to the Dominion hotel by its rave review (notably in the Globe and Mail) and laudable social justice leaning. Only to be greatly disappointed: loud floor shaking music until 3am (complimentary ear plugs don't quite do it), leaky bathrooms, cockroach traps in rooms, art installations that don't quite work (hence not enough light in the room), and a "chic boutique hotel" that could barely pass for a youth hostel.... and to top it off, room rates that were twice the advertised price. They charged us 99$ for a queen bed room, which is absolutely ridiculous, despite a "clerical" error that stated in our reservation that rooms were 50$ a night. To this, the management just shruged and said that that was their new rates for the season. I would not recommend this place to anyone, particularly since they are not even a budget hotel at these rates.

The Dominion is not a hotel for the boring.. we stayed in the hearts room, which is painted a deep red, with christmas lights strung over the bed, and 3-d glasses are provided. when you put the glasses on.. it looks like hearts are falling on your head. It was VERY clean, which is my only real requirement with a hotel.
The bar was closed the night we stayed, so I cant comment on the noise.. however the only noise we heard came from a drunk man wandering down the street screaming at the top of his lungs; which is not exactly something the management can control.
The only problems that slightly bothered me was the slanting floors.. only because I am currently in school to become an architect and from the 2 inch gap between our door to the hallway and the floor.. and the slant of our floor in general.. the building showed its age. The other thing was our room bordered the room of a long term tenant who left her door wide open to the hallway, smoked, and had her TV on very loud.. she was also cooking something very foul smelling.. again, not really the managements fault except that we asked for a non-smoking room, only to be put next door to a smoker. I know that had we asked to me moved they would have obliged!
No elevator, but not a big deal if you dont have many bags. The employees were wonderfully helpful, they gave us great directions to local bars, eateries, and to the concert hall we were headed to, and they were there for us all night. They asked us each time we entered and each time we exited the building if there was anything else we needed. Its not perfect, but its fun, and it truly is unique. If you are stuck up and scared to try something new... go for the plain old "holiday inn"... but if you are looking for something fun and exotic.. it truly is a fun stay (one night was enough for me, I WOULD stay again, but for one night at a time.)