| rev:text
| - Had a surprisingly bad experience at this Fairmont in Montreal. Typically, in Canada, you can't go wrong with the Fairmont for quality, location and service. Unfortunately, this Fairmont probably requires a managerial overhaul in addition to some renovating. Our story of checking in there is a parody of mishaps.
We left home late due to long days at work, meaning that we didn't arrive at the Fairmont until about 1:30am. However, this was anticipated and we pre-paid for one of our nights in advance and checked in earlier in the day using the President's Club Fairmont iphone App. I'm well aware that hotels oversell rooms, but I figured that since we had prepaid, checked in and were President's Club members, this wouldn't happen to us.
Wrong.
Check-in was marked by very slow and unhelpful service, wherein it was explained that there was no room for us except for one with a small full-sized (double?) bed. Since we had prepaid for a king room, this was disappointing - especially when you're totally exhausted and just want to go to sleep. They made a concession: stay in a suite room tonight, and then we'll switch you to a King room the second night. We really had no choice. We took our bags up to the suite and the keys didn't work. I went back downstairs (my partner in crime was too angry to interact with the staff at this point) and the front desk apologized, did some re-magnetization, then gave them back. Took the elevator back up, and it didn't work. Had to go back down AGAIN, explain the situation. The manager told us that security would meet us at the room to rectify the situation.
Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine four men in disheveled suits materializing in the hallway to try to "break in" to the room that was supposedly ours. It was doubled-locked with a chain. All four looked suspiciously at each other. What was happening? Were criminals trapped inside? Why was our room barricaded? They finally unlocked the suite from a separate entrance, at which point we heard a woman exclaim, "What are you doing???"
Security men look befuddled. "How did you get here? You aren't supposed to be here. Did you pay for one room or two rooms?"
I stood there, at 2am, amazed that a major luxury hotel brand had made us bear witness to four of their own security men breaking into a suite filled with people sleeping already. Seriously people, I just want to go to sleep!
I'll spare you the rest of the details, but we squeezed into that crappy double room for the night - complete with old, chipped and dirty furniture and stained carpets - and then were nicely upgraded the next day with complimentary breakfast.
We got a discount and an upgrade, but the whole process left such a bad taste in my mouth. If I'm on a budget holiday with girlfriends and my backpack it's one thing. Not when I'm at the Fairmont trying to relax and escape. The hotel situation made the entire weekend stressful.
In summary: this Fairmont is old and overbooked in the summer. The lobby is a chaotic mess with long lines. The rooms need upgrading and the staff are unorganized. For the prices, I'd forego this and walk down the street to the Marriott. We almost did just that.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)