I rarely stay in hotels however I came to Ottawa to celebrate a kilometerstone (milestone for Americans ;-) birthday and decided to splurge a little. I was able to talk a friend into coming with me. I first saw this hotel on TripAdvisor, went to their own website and found I could book 4 nights for $119/nt. I spent about an hour looking around some of the big Internet travel sites and found the exact room promoted on one of them for $89! I called the hotel and asked if they price matched. After about 10min of them looking online to find the promo I was looking at, the shift supervisor approved the match! I had to agree to pay for all 4 nights whether I used them or not. I didn't care because I was coming! The location is GREAT, next to TransCanada/417 highway. That was very convenient as I had to drive to Carp the next morning and that was the highway I used. I was on that expressway 2 minutes after leaving the hotel! Check in was fast and efficient. The person checking me in was confused when I told her I was on a $89 promo, she had not heard about it but eventually found some notes on my reservation in the computer. Even though there was free parking, I wanted to leave the car at the hotel most days and take public transit downtown. I...I rarely stay in hotels however I came to Ottawa to celebrate a kilometerstone (milestone for Americans ;-) birthday and decided to splurge a little. I was able to talk a friend into coming with me.

I first saw this hotel on TripAdvisor, went to their own website and found I could book 4 nights for $119/nt. I spent about an hour looking around some of the big Internet travel sites and found the exact room promoted on one of them for $89! I called the hotel and asked if they price matched. After about 10min of them looking online to find the promo I was looking at, the shift supervisor approved the match! I had to agree to pay for all 4 nights whether I used them or not. I didn't care because I was coming!

The location is GREAT, next to TransCanada/417 highway. That was very convenient as I had to drive to Carp the next morning and that was the highway I used. I was on that expressway 2 minutes after leaving the hotel!

Check in was fast and efficient. The person checking me in was confused when I told her I was on a $89 promo, she had not heard about it but eventually found some notes on my reservation in the computer.

Even though there was free parking, I wanted to leave the car at the hotel most days and take public transit downtown. I had heard even with the government shut down, parking was scarce and expensive in the city center. On check in I happened to ask how close a bus stop was to take us downtown as I wanted to do the double deck Grayline tour on Sunday and Monday. The desk clerk said I didn't need to take the city bus as the double deck bus picked up their guests every morning at 9am at the hotel! BONUS! I'm glad I asked.

Our room was on the fourth floor and included two very comfortable Queen beds with 7" mattresses and fluffy comforters, a very nice bathroom, 40" LCD TV, small refrigerator, microwave and coffee maker. They also had WiFi that worked great! There was only one ceramic cup and one plastic cup for the first night, we would have liked two ceramic cups but it was too late to call down and ask. Both my friend and I noted how quiet the surroundings were. Almost the entire floor had booked rooms for two nights but we didn't hear much noise. Also, we were on the back side of the hotel not facing the street or highway so that may have contributed to it. If I were to return, I would ask for a first floor room on the same side of the hotel as each had direct access to the parking lot.

Although the room was very clean and comfortable, there were not enough electrical plugs and the only available one to plug in my cell phone and computer was so worn out that the cables would not stay in the plug. I always bring extra cables, I had a long extension that ran from near the head of my bed to the table at the other end of the room. Without it, I would not have been able to charge my devices. One thing that would help is a USB hub of some sort on the night table - maybe a hotel lamp with USB hub built in. That would have been convenient to charge my cell phone.

Overall the room keeping service was good although the the first day when we returned, we had expected two clean ceramic cups to be in the room. Not only was there not, the housekeeping service had not removed the used ceramic cup from the night before that still had coffee in it and the coffee maker was not cleaned. We called down to the desk and a maintenance person was up in about 10min with a replacement coffee maker and ceramic mugs. He was quite apologetic and said that should not have happened.

I should also mention that the hallways and public areas, including dining area near the front desk were always very clean.

The hotel included a typical continental breakfast - cereals, milk, bagels, toast, fresh fruit, juices, yogurt, eggs, make your own waffles. The food was very good although each morning we were in the dining room around 8am and it was so busy there were not enough seats for everyone. This hotel really needs a bigger dining room, at least twice the size of what they now have and there needs to be more room to move around. Also, one morning the food services attendant, although apparently very nice, was not helpful because she obviously did not understand English. How can customers communicate with a staff person that does not understand them?

I had such a great time in Ottawa that I decided to stay an extra night. The morning of check out I went down early and happened to talk to the same person that took my reservation a few weeks earlier. I told him I wanted to stay one more night. He said rooms were plentiful as government was shut down until after the election so even though there were tourists, overall demand was down. Then he told me the room would be $149 for the night! I said I had paid $89 and he said that was a promo rate approved for 4 nights. He offered the room for $139. I asked him if he wanted an additional guaranteed night or not? He said that was the best he could do. I told him not to book an extra night. I went back to my room and found another place on the Internet that was not as nice but only $5 more than I had paid and was walking distance to the Parliament Buildings. I called them and reserved a room for that night. 30min later I went back down to check out and he asked if I wanted the room. I told him I would have taken it for the same price, they could not do it and I told him I had just booked a room elsewhere for $94. Bottom line is they missed an extra night of revenue because of inflexibility. I also know that they they told me there were lots of rooms every night so I'm surprised when they had the chance to keep a customer for one more night, they chose to decline. I'm not angry about it, it was no loss to me. I had a place for one more night that allowed me to leave my car at their place all day even before check in and it was downtown thereby saving me the transit time.

Overall this was a very nice stay. I would definitely stay here again.More