I am not quite sure how I feel about Auberge du Vieux Port. On one hand, it is located in a prime location- in the middle of Old Montreal and walking distance to the metro and several attractions. On the other hand, everything else..
The location is the major seller of this hotel, being in the middle of the most popular neighborhoods for tourists. But if you are driving, be prepared to pay an arm and a leg for their valet parking. The fee when we visited in Oct 2017 was $35CAD per night with in/out privileges. However, due to the space issue in the area their lot is not directly on site, so you have to call the front desk 15 minutes in advance to when you actually need you car. We ended up parking at a nearby lot for $18CAD/night.
We checked in on a Friday and the front desk attendant was friendly enough, she informed us that our room was in a different building and a valet would come to help us with our bags. We weren't sure what this meant so we just went with it. We were sent 2 blocks away into a tiny building with a restaurant and bar directly underneath us. This should have been a red flag, but we were too tired and confused.
We didn't realize that most of the rooms would not be in the main building. And that there would be no elevator. Our room was small and dated, but had a rustic feel to it with the exposed walls, wooden floors, and oversized windows. The view was obstructed by the building across the street, but we didn't really care too much. The room was clean enough, and came stocked with a full kitchen which was nice.
It all seemed fine until nighttime came. The beds here are extremely soft, something I am not used to, but I'm sure many others would love. The restaurant and bar downstairs was listed to close at 11, and the from desk even confirmed it. But for some reason, the music(and extremely heavy bass) was still going very loudly until past 1am. Even with our windows and curtains tightly shut, we could hear the restaurant's customer on the street being loud. We couldn't say for sure if they were drunk, but either way they were painfully loud. The bf is not by any means a light sleeper, and even he lost sleep. We ended up not being able to get up as early as we had planned because we were both just too tired. The next night was Saturday and by 9pm the noise got significantly louder. We wanted to go to bed but even if we had purchased earplugs, the thumping of the bass was enough to disturb us. We called the front desk, and they offered to move us. After about 40 minutes, we were moved to another building about 3 blocks away. They tried to explain that noise is a common issue in the neighborhood, but I don't think it is since our new room was nice and quiet for the rest of our stay (and on a Saturday night). Additinally, I don't know if our complaining had anything to do with the fact that when we called in for a razor, they came back 20m later to say that they were out of razors and didn't offer me any alternative solutions (like, where can I go buy one, will they have more the day after, etc.??).
While I greatly appreciate their moving us to a different room without much hassle, I also really don't understand how they can operate their business this way. The entire first building we stayed must be a nightmare to stay in at night. Also, when I asked, the front desk assured me that the resraurant/bar closed at 11pm- but they had their music and custormers outside well past 1am! If you're going to try to cover that up, at least try harder. She sounded confused as to why I would complain, and I had to justify it by saying that we slept early since we like getting an early start.
Overall, I really don't think we would stay here again or recommend it to our friends. If you like to party late into the weekends, this probably wouldn't bother you as much. But either way, it would've been really helpful to know beforehand.