Stayed 6 nights in this hotel while on a visit to Gatineau during last week of 2011. Despite ongoing renovations, I guess given the holiday time of the year, we did not feel the impact as the hotel was nice and really quiet from a renovation perspective, especially during the first couple of days. Having read comments from past visitors about the ongoing renovations, I asked the reception desk upon arrival if we could be located on one of the upper finished floors but we were told that we would have to pay a significantly higher charge than what we paid. We were eventually given a room on the sixth floor which we were told is not undergoing renovations but was in reality seeing some minor renovations (baseboards were being replaced and new carpeting) but the room itself was not a renovated one. In any event, our room was of very decent size and otherwise quite comfortable. Unfortunately, our stay was significantly disrupted in the last 3 days as all of a sudden it seemed the whole floor was overtaken by visiting families with young and very noisy children. Every morning during those days we were awaken early by kids playing in the hallways and running around worry free. On our way out of the room one day we even saw some little rascals literally playing floor hockey in the corridors, fully equipped with nets, pucks and sticks! So one thing for sure, you can say the hotel is kids friendly and thumbs up for that but for people like us who were actually taking time out from the hustles and bustles of a busy household I must admit we did not quite enjoy the sudden change from total quiet to total mayhem! This is when I wished we had paid the additional charges to move to higher floors.I realize that not much the hotel could have done about this other than perhaps offering to re-locate us to a quieter floor after we informed them of the situation but unfortunately such an offer did not come and I have a feeling that given the slow time of the year only one or two floors of the hotel were open anyway. Overall, I would have easily rated my experience with this hotel as 4 stars based on the first half of our stay but it is hard to justify such a score when we ended up being seriously sleep deprived in the second half.

Excellent rooms especially the lake views looking onto Ottawa. They are however renovating to chnage name to a crowne Plaza, thus no pool. The have a little conveneice bar but their restaurant needs a bit of attention.

While our room on the 11th floor is quite nice, the renovations are not finished here. Additionally, I was extremely disappointed to find that the pool is closed. Had I known that ahead of time (we had been here twice in the past, and I had looked forward to doing deep water aerobics in their pool), we would have stayed elsewhere. The hotel is definitely not the same place we visited the past two times, and we would not recommend staying here in its current condition.

On a last minute trip to Ottawa, the holiday inn was the only place nearby that had rooms available. The Hotel is a reasonable walk from downtown and Parliament Hill, but the hotel itself is not worth the cost. The halls on my floor were half painted and light fixtures were hanging from the wall. The halls smelled of paint but the smell did not bother me in the room. There was a notice that the water was turned off the day before my arrival, and the next couple of times that I turned on the water it sputtered and rust coloured water came out for several seconds. The room was extremely dated, and there was an unpleasant odor when I walked in the door.

The staff at the hotel were extremely helpful and the waitstaff in the restaurant were really cordial. The food was not too bad and was very quick and hot.

The hotel seems to be undergoing a very slow renovation and is very dated throughout. If you can stay somewhere else I would!