worldtraveller73

Four Points Kelowna, British Columbia, CANADA YLW

I recently stayed at the newly opened Four Points Kelowna Airport for a business stay and thought I would post for those planning on future stays at the property.

The property is brand new (opened summer 2013) and situated immediately across a 4 lane highway from the Kelowna Airport. It is very convenient for airport stays, but the hotel is about 15 km from the downtown area and situated in a developing area of Kelowna. This means that there are no restaurants situated nearby.

The hotel offers an on demand shuttle to the airport in a Mercedes Sprinter (seen in below photo). It is practically walkable in fair weather (10 mins / 150 meters).



The lobby has a Westin style feel to it with contemporary design and high ceilings.



I was recognized as SPG gold on check in and received the reserved Deluxe Room as booked. The Deluxe Room is slightly longer and offers a couch. The check in agent seemed surprised that I was staying for more than 1 night.









The bathroom area was a standard single person bathroom set up - too small if travelling with a family and you were wanting to get ready at the same time. A bath / shower combo was offered.





Being in a developing area, there is not much directly around the hotel at the moment. My south facing view was of a vacant lot and toward the Kelowna area.



I was pleased to see that there was a large (by hotel standards) gym and pool area. The indoor water slide that is attached is seasonal (summer only by the looks of it). It was closed in October on my visit.







There is an attached restaurant and lounge to the hotel "Ric's Grill" which is a local franchised bar. The restaurant / lounge offers room charging ability in the event you are trying to increase SPG points. Breakfast started at 6:30 AM, although the room cards stated that the restaurant opened at 7 AM.







In closing, the hotel is welcome addition to the Kelowna scene. I used to stay at the Kelowna Fairfield Inn by Marriott. However, while the Fairfield offers a better location in town closer to restaurants, the Fairfield does not offer a gym (essential for running during Kelowna winters) or a full service restaurant in the building. The Fairfield does offer the usual "instant" complimentary breakfast, which is a plus or a minus depending on your perspective.

The major disadvantage to the Four Points is the drive required to Kelowna downtown area if you are working there or visiting wineries which would be even further (20+ km). The Four Points would offer reasonable access to the ski area "Big White" as the highway interchange is on the north side of Kelowna.

At the time of booking, the hotel was offering Cash and Points availability on the mid week nights that I was there. It has opened as a SPG Category 4.

Best of luck for your future leisure and business stays.

yyznomad

Thank you for the thorough review! Very helpful. ^

Cana2013

The best hotel in Kelowna is still the old Delta, which is sad.

BenSenise

I was quite curious about this hotel and your excellent post satisfied that curiosity perfectly. Thanks!
This would be an excellent beginning of a master thread for that hotel.

Braindrain

Thanks for the review! I travel to Kelowna often and also stay at the Fairfield Inn. At least there's now a SPG prop!

Cwynj

Thanks for your very thorough review!! Love it! Will check out the property soon!!

MSPeconomist

Category 4 seems high as the initial classification for a FourPoints. I would expect them to open as about a Category 2, although this area might be expensive.

worldtraveller73

It does seem high but Kelowna seems to be like Las Vegas; at times it's dead and some weekends / weeks in the summer it's totally sold out. I would imagine that this hotel will be along those lines - among the first to be completely sold out during busy periods.

I certainly have no problem with that - although mods will have to adjust the title since I can't do it. ^

mahasamatman

We just spent two nights here on points for the long weekend. It was a decent property, and we scored an upgrade to the "Presidential Suite" (the Argus Hospitality Suite) using SNA. I suspect this property doesn't get too many Platinums.

The location isn't very good. It's across the street from the airport, but there's still pretty much nothing else around.

The desk staff were friendly, though they could use a bit more training. It took us three tries to get the right keys (the suite has to be handled specially). The restaurant staff, on the other hand, was very variable. On Sunday, the breakfast staff was pretty unmotivated and substandad. On Monday, the staff was much better, though it took five minutes for anyone to come out to seat us.

The water slide wasn't open, even though it was over 30 degrees and a holiday weekend.

Even though the property is only a year old, the air conditioners are already showing wear and were quite noisy.

I don't expect to stay here again just because of the location. There are other chains and hotels in the area with far better locations for wine touring (which is probably the only reason we'd go back to Kelowna).

3Cforme

As shown in the photos by the OP, the property spent some money on public areas (lobby, restaurant) but rooms show more typical of-4P cost cutting. Development (and landscaping) of adjacent lots appears to have stalled and it's just a mess. Props to the sun screens on the windows.

There are plenty of respectable wineries on the north side of town for which this location can work. We split our stays and our tasting routes. Other than the airport one needs to go about five miles north or south to find anything. Maybe this property can get by on airline crews and SPG junkies but I am skeptical.

worldtraveller73

I recently completed another two night stay here.

The restaurant has been reflagged from "Ric's Grill" to "Gulfstream". There were no changes other than less of an emphasis on steaks with the new menu.

There were several flyers staying here looking to catch earlier flights, making for a little bit of hallway noise at 7 AM (sounds of doors closing) depending on the placement of your room. Several customers were Europeans before or after a ski holiday.

The wifi is exceptionally fast for a commercial hotel property.

Still a highly satisfactory stay.

CRAZ8

I own part of a condo at the Royal Private Residences at the Delta Grand. The Delta management have been constantly improving the property since they took over a few years ago.

Marriott just announced they are taking over Delta, so we'll see if that improvement continues. I'm not a big fan of Marriott, but it's good news if you are a member of the Marriott program though!

CRAZ8

For better food that isn't too far away, try these two options, in different directions on 97.

North on 97: http://www.ricardos.ca/Restaurant.aspx
South on 97: http://www.poppadoms.ca/

I've eaten a number of times at Poppadoms, but never at Ricardos, but friends have recommended it. There are probably the closest, nicer restaurants to this hotel.