I recently completed my first visit to this hotel. At the risk of sounding condescending, I can't help but wonder how many of these 5-star reviews were written by people who frequent five-star hotels on a regular basis and know what their expectations of such hotels should be. I do, and when reviewing the Trump, or any hotel of this caliber, I don't review it as a hotel as much as I compare to the other properties of that caliber, especially in that city. As a hotel, the Trump is above average. As a five-star, elite luxury hotel, the Trump falls short.
The good? The decor is modern and classy, and balances it well without being overbearing (a mistake some elite hotels can make). The rest of the good - the front desk service is stellar and the hot towel and concierge tour of your room were nice touches. It's also right in the heart of the business district and close to shopping, restaurants, Union Station, the Air Canada Centre, etc. Finally, the lobby lounge "The Calvin" makes great drinks, had good music, decor, and views of the city streets.
The mediocre - the restaurant "America" at the top floor is good, although the service was mediocre, and the food was good but overpriced. Shortly after my stay I read a pretty bad review of it in a local newspaper that seemed to back a lot of the same observations. Same thing for the room service food, only replace 'a little overpriced' with 'remarkably overpriced'. You know when you get room service, it'll be overpriced, but the Trump prices were absurd. For one person, breakfast typically ran $ 65-$ 80 and I was not ordering anything special (i.e. - french toast, eggs, etc.). Even worse, the portions varied with each order.
The front desk is also a little unreliable, as I was not given the suite I was guaranteed but rather a downgrade. The suite itself was a decent size, but fall short of the suite accommodations provided by their competitors like the Ritz-Carlton. With the exception of the check-in, I would also classify the rest of the service I received as subpar. A couple of simple requests made to housekeeping were never fulfilled, and when they did do the room, they often missed things like emptying the garbage, replacing used glasses with clean ones, providing bottled water, etc. Sometimes they got it all right, other times they didn't.
Overall, housekeeping was like the rest of the service - inconsistent. Room service forgot to bring part of the meal I had ordered - twice. The phones in my room weren't working and they never got around to fixing it over the five days I was there. When working properly, the internet speeds were good, but the service was spotty and unreliable, and I speed tested them as low as 1.8 Mbps, which would put it in line with the service one would expect at a 2 or 3 star hotel chain.
This may not sound like very much, and certainly had I been staying at the Hilton or a similar three-star hotel, I wouldn't have been as disappointed. However, when you stay at an elite, five-star hotel like the Trump claims to be, what is supposed to set them apart from every other caliber hotel is exceptional service and attention to detail. If they don't have that, they do not hold up to their category competition. The fact that the service fell short on a variety of levels, and that a lot of other reviews indicated similar observations, leads me to conclude that the level of service at the Trump is consistently mediocre, and well short of exceptional. Unless Trump either begins to price itself as the 3.5-4 star hotel it is or completely overhauls and drastically improves the level of service it provides, I would not stay here again.
Overall, I would give the decor five out of five stars. I'd give the amenities 3.5 stars and the service two stars and would be generous in giving the hotel overall 3.5 stars. Because that's not an option here, and the service was so disappointing, I rounded down to 3 stars.