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| - Montreal is not a great city to bring a car to -- especially a large SUV. I know that now The problem is that we live a mere 4.5 hours away by car, and it's a delightful drive from New Hampshire through Vermont to come to this wonderful city. Within moments of arriving at Hotel Le Cantile, the car became a problem. The hotel does feature its own parking garage, but it quickly becomes filled to capacity -- it's small and uses a valet system. The valet told me that they had no more room and directed me to a nearby garage -- full. I spent an hour driving in ever-widening concentric circles looking for a place to park overnight. I had no luck. I ended up parking on the street. It went like this for two days, and resulted in two parking tickets.The staff at the Hotel Le Cantile could not be any less interested in our dilemma. After all, they all likely used the city's excellent public transportation system to get to work, so why should the plight of some American tourists in their fat SUV be a concern to them? Fine, I get it.
The hotel is located right on Rue Sherbrooke, just blocks away from the Musee des Beaux-arts de Montreal (wonderful!), Universite' McGill, Catherine St., and a number of cafes, restaurants, pubs, and shops. The location was excellent as you could walk pretty much everywhere you needed to. The Metro stop was minutes away and an affordable way to get around for a family of four. There's an ATM machine/bank right next door as well.
We had a room on the 20th floor, I believe, and it had an astounding view of the city thanks to floor to ceiling windows (nerve-wracking with toddlers). We loved the view. The room was a "deluxe suite" and featured two queen beds french doors separating the rooms. There was a quaint kitchenette that was tucked away in the closet with a stove and small refrigerator and a selection of silverware, plates, and pots. This was truly helpful because the price of restaurants and room service in Montreal quickly sends painful aftershocks to your wallet.
The hotel restaurant was fine, but expensive. They offer a breakfast buffet in the morning. It had bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, home fries, fruit, yogurt, pastries, bagels, and eggs/omelets made to order. The buffet was around $13.00 per person. On some days it seemed that our kids were free, on others, they were not. It depended upon the staff you had. The quality of food was good.
It was too chilly for the pool, but it wasp n the roof, which was kind of cool. The gym is tiny, but features a couple of treadmills and a universal weight machine that was a little dated. There are laundry facilities on the same floor as the gym.
Internet service was horrible, and calls to the front desk met with complete apathy. This made things tough because my wife had some work to finish so we could enjoy our days.
The elevator was super slow, which made our forays to the ground floor and back a tedious event.
I would have gladly given this hotel four stars if not for the complete ambivalence of the front desk staff. We've travelled quite a bit internationally and do our best to avoid being the "ugly Americans" but still, the sense of service lacked here. I don't want to overgeneralize, because some staff members were super pleasant. The cleaning staff (which, many were unusually attractive Eastern Europeans) made a point to set up our kids' stuffed animals on the bed each day, which made the kids happy when we came back from our adventures. Nice little touch there.
Good cost savings, but not an entirely great experience.
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