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Best Western St. Catharines Hotel and Conference Center – reviews, photos

3.0 of 5
2 North Service Rd., St. Catharines, Ontario L2N 4G9, Canada (Formerly Heart of Niagara Hotel & Conference Centre)
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Best Western St. Catharines Hotel and Conference Center
3.5 of 5 stars 29 Reviews
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29 reviews from our community

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southwest ontario
2 reviews
Reviews in 2 cities Reviews in 2 cities
3 helpful votes 3 helpful votes
“Sports team beware! They don't want you at this hotel!”
2 of 5 stars Reviewed 22 December 2011
2
people found this review helpful

When you check in you need to sign an agreement with a bunch of conditions on your stay such as your kids won't be playing in the halls and there is a curfew of 11pm. Fine - I understand they've had teams before who obviously upset other guests. When I mentioned that as I was reading the form, I was told they had zero tolerance for kids acting up.

Friday night my 11 year old was in the hallway around 9:30pm. She was just outside our room and my door was wide open so I know they were not being nosy or disrespectful. She ran across the hallway (across - not down!) from one door to another to give a friend a hug.

The same rude man who checked us in approached her without attempting to find a parent though he knew all our rooms were together right there. He told her he was giving her a verbal warning and that she and her family would have to leave the hotel if he caught her doing anything else. She came to our room scared of course as she's not used to ever receiving warnings especially by strange men as well as with a threat.

I called the front desk immediately and told him he could not approach young girls without parents present or I would be nervous enough to call the police. I also called Customer Care to tell them so it wouldn't happen again during our stay. I was told the mgr had one week to fix the situation or they would get involved.

Since then the mgr has contacted me and promised to get back within the week. Nothing. I just called Customer Care today and was told they needed to talk to her and that it didn't say anything on my file about her promising to follow up with me.

Obviously Best Western does not want teams there so they should say that when you call to book as lots of hotels would have been happy to have our 14 rooms.

SPORTS TEAMS - GO ELSEWHERE

  • Stayed December 2011, travelled with family
    • 2 of 5 stars Value
    • 4 of 5 stars Location
    • 3 of 5 stars Sleep Quality
    • 3 of 5 stars Rooms
    • 3 of 5 stars Cleanliness
    • 1 of 5 stars Service
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Ask dard14 about Best Western St. Catharines Hotel and Conference Center
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
Hamilton, Canada
1 review
“Conference Facilities Not Small Business-Friendly!!!!”
3 of 5 stars Reviewed 2 December 2011

Although the service, food and facilities are ok, this Hotel is not that accommodating with small businesses using their facilities. Their daily rates for renting a 10-person meeting room are stratospheric and they are pretty inflexible when it comes to adjusting their rates. They have to realize that not every business using their facilities is a Fortune 500 company.

Also, $15.00 per pot for coffee and tea?!?!?!?!?! We are not made of money. If they want repeat business, then they have to lear how to be flexible with small businesses like ours which have modest budgets for this kind of thing. My profit margin was next to "$0.00"!!

My advice for anyone considering using this place for any kind of a business meeting: STICK WITH RENTING A CHURCH BOARDROOM!!!

Room Tip: WHo knows??
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  • Stayed December 2011, travelled on business
    • 3 of 5 stars Value
    • 3 of 5 stars Location
    • 3 of 5 stars Sleep Quality
    • 3 of 5 stars Cleanliness
    • 3 of 5 stars Service
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Ask Mike P about Best Western St. Catharines Hotel and Conference Center
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
Alana Halford-Bowles, Manager at Best Western St. Catharines Hotel and Conference Center, responded to this review
5 December 2011
Thank you for taking the time to convey your feedback regarding a recent stay small meeting at the Best Western Hotel & Conference Centre, St. Catharines. Your willingness to share your thoughts with us is genuinely appreciated by our entire team, so we can continually strive to serve you better. I apologize for your discontentment with our meeting room rental and coffee prices. I assure you that we are very competitive in the market with a reasonable day room meeting rental of $150 for a full day of meeting space. As you are most likely already aware, the meeting room rental cost covers a dedicated staff member to service you and your attendees for the duration of the day. It also includes complimentary internet access and all the meeting essentials that are provided at no additional cost. When you purchase a craft of coffee and divide the cost amongst your attendees, the cost is more reasonable than all the competitors’ coffee prices at a cost of only $1.19 per attendee. Our hotel is busy with meetings daily with companies, groups and associations of every kind and we have never received a complaint regarding the cost of our rental or coffee fee’s due to our competitive nature in this area.
Thank you for your comments and hope that you do utilize us again in the future.
Sincerely,

Best Western Managment
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New Brunswick
Senior Contributor
44 reviews 44 reviews
Reviews in 25 cities Reviews in 25 cities
19 helpful votes 19 helpful votes
“I was pleasantly surprised :)”
4 of 5 stars Reviewed 6 November 2011
2
people found this review helpful

Had to get a room at short notice & called around to see where I could just flop my head down for the night at 2:30 a.m., & the HI Express wanted $159, Comfort Inn was full, so I called the old Holiday Inn that's been converted to Best western in the last couple of years I guess. Their rate was $114, so I booked it thinking, "well it's gotta be close to 50 years old, but I'm so tired, I really need to sleep." Room had a king size bed, (think they may have even upgraded me to a executive room), had a mini fridge, microwave, & a big comfortable bed. It is a 2 floor hotel, & no elevator that I couild see or was pointed out to me (in case stairs are an issue to you). Bathroom was a fair size, (laso had another sink/mirror outside the bathroom, which comes in very handy when travelling with the signiciant other, and/or kids. What struck me was how clean it was, I expected it to be showing it's age, & while it may not have been brand new, it was maybe the cleanest room I'd ever been in. Good to know for any of you that are "clean o phobes". Only negative comment was after I had grabbed the newspaper out of the hall floor outside my door in the morning I didn't replace the privacy lock bar (that keeps even staff with a key from entering), & around 10:30 a.m., a fellow (who I assumed worked there) walked into the room (no knock that I heard) & when I said "hello, what are you doing in here?", he asked if I had ordered a crib to be delivered as "they had sent him up to deliver one." I told him no, he apologized & when I left an hour or so later, the crib was in the hallway out the room across from mine, so not sure what had happened. Despite that, i'd definitely stay here again & recommend it, is right off the highway, handy to a Costco, Montanas, Perkins & small mall, & was very, very clean.

  • Stayed November 2011, travelled with friends
    • 4 of 5 stars Value
    • 4 of 5 stars Location
    • 4 of 5 stars Sleep Quality
    • 4 of 5 stars Rooms
    • 5 of 5 stars Cleanliness
    • 4 of 5 stars Service
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Ask NBHabsfan about Best Western St. Catharines Hotel and Conference Center
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
Alana Halford-Bowles, Manager at Best Western St. Catharines Hotel and Conference Center, responded to this review
11 November 2011
Dear NBHabsfan,

Thank you for taking the time to provide us with you comments about your recent stay with us at the Best Western Hotel & Conference Centre. We love hearing about our guests experiences. We are glad that you were pleasantly surprised with our hotel; we take pride in our hotels appearance as it has been well maintained over the years. I can only assume that the reason the elevator was not mentioned was due to the location of your room to the stairwell. For your room type it is much easier to take the stairs as the location of the elevator is somewhat inconvenient for our Executive wing. I will however mention this to our front desk team so that they can always give our guests the option. I apologize for the gentleman’s error of the crib delivery. I assure you that our staff always knock and announce themselves prior to entering a room. I will ensure that our staff members are more vocal when any room deliveries are being done. Thank you again for your generous comments and we look forward to seeing you again!
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Ontario
Senior Contributor
24 reviews 24 reviews
Reviews in 19 cities Reviews in 19 cities
43 helpful votes 43 helpful votes
“Decent enough...but avoid the restaurant”
3 of 5 stars Reviewed 11 October 2011

This is our first trip back to this hotel since it made the switch from Holiday Inn to Best Western. The rooms are still quite decent and well-kept, and the hotel itself still offers generally pleasant service. However, the Wrigley's restaurant leaves a lot to be desired.

We went there for breakfast during our stay and not only did we have to wait 30 minutes for service, the waitress got my wife's order wrong and we were forced to wait another 15 minutes for her correct order to be delivered. No mention was made of a discount or comp on any portion of our breakfast. My recommendation is to drive down Lake Street and have breakfast (or lunch and dinner) at Fregos, where the service is much better and the cost is much lower.

  • Stayed October 2011, travelled with family
    • 3 of 5 stars Value
    • 3 of 5 stars Location
    • 4 of 5 stars Sleep Quality
    • 4 of 5 stars Rooms
    • 4 of 5 stars Cleanliness
    • 3 of 5 stars Service
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Ask ACanadianguy about Best Western St. Catharines Hotel and Conference Center
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
Alana Halford-Bowles, Manager at Best Western St. Catharines Hotel and Conference Center, responded to this review
12 October 2011
The Best Western St. Catharines is committed to providing the highest quality in service and product and I am disappointed that we have not been able to live up to our commitment. We understand from your comments that there are areas in our newly renovated restaurant that require some immediate attention. For this we have passed along your concerns to our restaurant manager and we assure you that this situation will be rectified immediately. We here at the Best Western Hotel & Conference Centre, St. Catharines apologize for any inconvenience and hope that you will return to our restaurant to see the changes yourself in the future.
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Cornwall, Canada
Reviewer
4 reviews 4 reviews
Reviews in 4 cities Reviews in 4 cities
6 helpful votes 6 helpful votes
“Highly recommend! Good location! Very clean!”
4 of 5 stars Reviewed 27 September 2011

We stayed in this hotel for 3 nights during the Wine Festival in St. Catharines.
Pleasantly surprised when we walked through the doors! The front desk staff
were very courteous, & accomodating. Our room was ready, even though it was
a bit early! We were glad to rest after being on the road for 6 hrs.
Our room was very clean, bed comfortable (king bed), very clean bathroom, also has
an extra sink & counter with mirror outside bathroom. The room offers also a flat screen T.V., a good size desk for laptop & wireless internet, sm. refrigerator,microwave & 2 comp. bottles of water & 2 granola bars...nice touch!
This is a good size room with a small private balcony! Our room overlooked the outdoor large pool area..which was very nice in itself. There is also a good size interior pool & gym area that we saw but did not take advantage of (no extra time). I would recommend staying on the 2nd floor (it is only a 2 level hotel).
Restaurants close by: Kelseys, Montana, Perkins.
Restaurant in hotel Vecera. We only had breakfast one morning. The service was friendly, but extremely slow. We had to wave to our waitress to get our order in
& then to try& pay our bill.
Well over an hour for breakfast! A little pricey for breakfast! Our bill(for2 people)
was $26.44 before gratuity. The food was good, but not exceptional.We did not have another meal there, therefore cannot comment on lunch or dinner menu. The hotel does give you a $5.00 voucher that you can use for breakfast, or it is worth $ 10.00 with your lunch or dinner menu. Also offered when you check-in ...now this was
a little complicated @ first: you pay $10.00 for a $20.00 dollar value @ breakfast.
Both coupons cannot be combined. There should be a way to simplify things I'm sure!
The location was very good for us! We took advantage of the hotel free shuttle
service to Montebello park where the ''Wine Festival'' & parade took place.
We were also able to walk back to hotel (from park)40 mins. on a very nice day.
Next door to hotel is COSTCO, & outside mall complex i.e Winners, Zellers,
Marks WW. etc.
We would stay again if travelling to St. Catharines...It is not a new hotel but very clean,
& comfortable rooms! Staff very friendly & accomodating!

Room Tip: Rooms overooking the pool on 2nd level! If you intend on taking advantage of the $10. coupon you sh...
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  • Stayed September 2011, travelled as a couple
    • 4 of 5 stars Value
    • 4 of 5 stars Location
    • 4 of 5 stars Sleep Quality
    • 4 of 5 stars Rooms
    • 4 of 5 stars Cleanliness
    • 4 of 5 stars Service
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Ask jazzrubylou about Best Western St. Catharines Hotel and Conference Center
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
Alana Halford-Bowles, Manager at Best Western St. Catharines Hotel and Conference Center, responded to this review
28 September 2011
Thank you for taking the time to convey your feedback regarding a recent stay with the Best Western Hotel & Conference Centre, St. Catharines. Your willingness to share your thoughts with us is genuinely appreciated by our entire team, so we can continually strive to serve you better. I have passed along your comments regarding our restaurant to our restaurant staff. Overall we are pleased to hear that you and a great experience with is. We look forward to seeing you on your next visit to St. Catharines.
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Additional Information about Best Western St. Catharines Hotel and Conference Center

  • Holiday Inn St Catharines
  • Holiday Inn St. Catharines
  • St Catharines Holiday Inn
  • St. Catharines Holiday Inn
Address: 2 North Service Rd., St. Catharines, Ontario L2N 4G9, Canada (Formerly Heart of Niagara Hotel & Conference Centre)
Price range (per night):* INR6,911 - 9,697

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