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| - We stayed at the LHV for five days during December 2009 -- basically, over the Christmas holiday. I've rated the hotel four stars not because it is the MOST luxurious hotel in the world -- it's not the Ritz Carlton or the Le Crystal -- but because for the level of hotel that it is, it is a truly exceptional find. The rooms are all classy, modern, elegant, and have a definite luxury feel: comfortable beds, well-stocked mini-fridge, large bathtub (with a little TV in the bathroom!), large TV in the main room. Service was also phenomenal -- eager and helpful, without being obnoxious at all. The hotel staff happily handled all our odd requests, from helping us get a great dinner reservation on Christmas Eve, to parking and retrieving our car about 9,000 times for our various trips around the city, to helping track down some good local Chinese delivery and even providing some nice plates & silverware to eat it from! They did it all with a smile.
One slight drawback to the hotel was the location. I say it is a *slight* drawback because the actual neighborhood is great -- full of shopping, convenience stores, and local eateries. But it is not very near any of the main "tourist" things you'll probably want to see/do in Montreal. For us, getting anywhere was either a good 15 minute walk or a drive/metro trip. We were fine with that, but be warned that you probably won't be able to easily walk to everyplace in your "Best of Montreal" guidebook.
The only other slight drawback was price. While the hotel itself had a very reasonable rate that time of year, the individual services -- minibar, room service, Internet access -- were not free and were in fact fairly pricey. That's fair enough and it wasn't out of line with the general quality of the hotel, but it was a little annoying to pay $15 for every 24 hours of Internet access.
All these factors aside though, the LHV is a fabulous high-midrange hotel for anyone looking to spend some "luxury time" in a great city, but without *really* busting the bank on a swanky hotel. It has everything you'd want in a hotel: clean & modern rooms, happy & helpful service, a (pretty) good location, and (relatively) good prices.
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