Stayed at the Cartier Place hotel during the weekend of the 2012 NHL All-Star weekend in Ottawa.

Location
The hotel is situated in a fantastic downtown location close to everything. The Rideau Canal is a 5 minute walk from the hotel. We were able to walk to the Rideau and City Hall for skating, and the Chateau Laurier, Parliament Buildings and the Rideau Centre are all within an easy walk.

Pools
The pool area is very clean and well kept. There is a pool and a hot tub located in this section of the hotel. Towels are provided in the pool area so there is no need to bring your own or bring any from the rooms. The pool is unsupervised. And according to my kids both the pool and hot tub are perfect temperature.

Rooms
We had a 2 bedroom suite which meant 2 separate bedrooms, a fully-sized kitchen and a living room area. The rooms are much more dated than they show in the photos, but we found the rooms to be very clean, almost to the point of spotless. Considering there is a kitchen in each suite it was nice to see that we didn't have to deal with any dirt issues.
The kitchen was fully equipped with cutlery, plates, frying pans and pots, glasses and dish towels. There is a full sized oven/stove, fridge, microwave and dishwasher. All soap for the dishes and dishwasher are provided by the hotel.
The beds were not the most comfortable I have slept in at a hotel, but there were plenty of quality sheets and pillows provided.
Our suite had 2 TV's. One in the livingroom and one in the large bedroom. The TV's were dated 1980's style TV's...27" at most. And because the dressers looked like they were built for very very short people it was almost impossible to see the bedroom TV while laying in bed. Apparently some other rooms had small flat screen TV's.
The layouts of the rooms differ highly from room to room. We were there with a few other families and our room layount was by far the largest.

Parking
There is parking directly under the hotel. Because the hotel is situated downtown there is no parking available on the street. Parking would be my biggest complaint about the hotel. The charge for using the hotel parking was $21/night which I think was very expensive. For our 3 night stay it added almost $70 to our hotel bill when tax is added in. The parking is garage is very tight so if you are driving a large SUV it is difficult to manouver. There is parking down the street for $7/day but that can be a real issue in the winter.

Staff
We found the staff to be very friendly and helpful.

Overall
Overall we found this hotel to be over priced at $149/night for a 2 bedroom suite. Had the rooms been more luxurious and updated then the price might be justified. On the positive side the rooms were immaculately clean, had balconies (which would be great during nice weather) and had full kitchens allowing you to save money on eating out.