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| - I approached this hotel stay with some trepidation because the trip advisor site said it was great, but the yelp community had terrible things to say about it! I am relieved to say that the reality is somewhere in the middle.
The Holiday Inn Hotel Montreal-Midtown has a great location close to McGill University and well within reach of the Ste. Catherine shopping strip and Place-des-Arts. I was able to get most of the way to my hotel from the train station using the underground concourse, although I will admit it takes some determination. The hotel itself is underwhelming on first sight - the lobby looks a bit drab and dated. The hotel rooms are a bit dated as well. I was surprised by retro touches like full-volume toilets, 80-90s era fixtures, and places here and there where it looks like the maintenance team should be paying a little more attention.
But I was there for business, not for hanging around in my hotel room. It was small, clean and adequate to my needs. Room service was mixed - my first meal was pretty terrible, the second an improvement but nothing special, and the third quite good. Overall, I would say room service is nothing to get excited about and that makes me guess that the same is true of the restaurants on the first level. But you are close to lots of restaurants and you're in Montreal - go out and experience the belle cuisine of the belle province.
The hotel appears to be popular with bus tours, so it is not unusual to find a crowd of people hanging out with their luggage in the lobby. I didn't find this to be a problem because it was managed efficiently and never caused me any inconvenience. Service people were professional and pleasant; nothing outstanding.
My favourite thing about the hotel was the swimming pool. A lovely salt water pool with enough length to do laps, but with an extensive shallow end for splashing around with your kids. The change rooms have dry saunas, there's a hot-tub at pool level, and the gym appeared to be well-equipped.
Overall, I would say that I wouldn't go out of my way to stay at this hotel again (although that pool really was nice), but I think it's fine.
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