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Reviews of the Hotel Grand Pacific Victoria
29 July 2011
A great hotel , fabulous position, very comfy. Loved it.
Reviews of the Hotel Grand Pacific Victoria
29 July 2011
Great find. We scored a last-minute 'reduced rate' room at the Hotel Grand for a
one-night stay (July 27-28), and my wife and I were very happy with our
accommodations.
Upon arrival, the valet service were courteous at informing us that we had a
choice of valet parking or self-parking. Not a big difference in price, but we
like the flexibility of self-parking...and it's very easy at this hotel, once
you figure out which elevator you are closest to. I don't like paying for
parking as much as the next guy, but that's the going rate in certain cities.
Just be thankful it's not downtown NY or San Francisco!
Check-in was listed at 3pm; we arrived at just after 1pm. The attending lady
informed us that our room wasn't ready, but asked us if we would like another
room instead. So she gave us Room 717 in the East wing, with two double beds.
That was perfect for myself, my wife, and our 16mo. old. We were able to push
one of the doubles against the wall, making for a perfect homemade "crib" using
the extra pillows on the opposite side.
You'll notice complaints in here about the East wing in 'huge need of an update'
OR 'no room to stretch out' OR 'tiny bathroom' OR 'terrible view' OR 'when are
they going to get flat panel tv's in here'...yada yada. Perhaps some of the
floors/rooms are different. On the 7th floor, we had a great view of South
Victoria with the Washington Olympic Mtns in the background. And it's always
great to have a perfectly baby-proofed balcony, so we could just let our son go
in and out, without any worry that he was going to squeeze through a hole
somewhere. I suppose the only thing that felt really dated to us was, yes, the
TV....but I think we watched TV all of 10 minutes our entire stay. When the
weather is nice (like it was during our stay!), the last thing I want to do is
lounge around in a hotel all day watching the CBC!
Reviews of the Hotel Grand Pacific Victoria
29 July 2011
Didn't try any of the restaurants in-house. There are so many places within
walking distance, and my wife loves the Old Spaghetti Factory (2 blocks east).
So you have all sorts of culinary choices within a 10-15 minute walk.
Definitely the best thing about this hotel is: location, location, location! You
are in a prime spot for foot traffic in the downtown waterfront area. When the
weather is nice, this is where you want to be!
Another plus was the pool area -- just a quick ride down our East wing elevator
to the health club. The small 2 foot pool was absolutely perfect for our 16mo
son, as well as perfectly temperature. My wife was mad she didn't bring her
goggles for the lap pool! Great hot tub with strong jets. Usually when you
combine "health club" and "pool for kids"...the result isn't pretty. But it
works. It looks like there are always 2 lanes reserved for adults who want to
get their laps in, leaving the other 2 lanes open for kids to play in. And they
have two blocked times during the day for 'adult only' swim. It's not a Las
Vegas hotel pool, but the kids will get some fun out of it.
Some people complained about lack of wifi. We were able to get wifi....SOME of
the time! The signal was strong throughout, but it "timed out" almost every time
we closed and opened our computer. Sometimes it let us back on pretty quickly,
other times it took a while! Hopefully, they are small kinks in their new system
they will be worked out soon. When my wife really needed to get some work done
on her laptop, she just plugged into the hardline (using their provided Cat5e
cable). It's not perfect, and I can see why some people might complain about not
being able to check their email while watching the news on a nice LCD TV. But it
worked fine for us.
While we we're on the topic of 'upgrades'....it would nice to have a power
plug-in built-in to the desk for those business travelers and their laptops.
Lots of other business-type hotels have them, so it's a little more noticeable
when they aren't there. Just a small suggestion (if hotel mgmt is reading
this!).
Reviews of the Hotel Grand Pacific Victoria
29 July 2011
Various complaints were also waged about the cost of various amenities. I'm
sympathetic to the complaints, as I don't want to pay $12 for a shot of Bailey's
either! I don't know who pays that much for such items (I sure don't), but it is
what it is -- that's what 4-star hotels charge for their items....anywhere in
the world! If you don't like it, then do like me and don't buy them!
I suspect the BIG question at the end of the day is what you get for money. When
I checked the normal mid-week rates, our discounted rate was around 40% off
that....and at the discounted price we paid for our room, we feel like we got
EXCELLENT value on the dollar. If I had paid full price, my expectations would
probably have been higher...especially since the cheapest room at the Empress
across the street (a Fairmont hotel, no less!) was only about $10 more than the
cheapest at the Grand! Perhaps the newer West wing is comparable to the
Fairmont, I can't say for sure.
All and all, we really enjoyed our stay.
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