I stayed one night at the Park Inn and Suites Montreal airport, as part of a long weekend trip to Montreal that met several point-earning objectives (Club Carlson 44K bonus for Park Inn, UA 10K bonus for my flight on a weekend special fare, and two SPG bonuses for a one night stay at Le Centre Sheraton). I was somewhat apprehensive about the Park Inn based on the number of negative TripAdvisor reviews, but I figured it would be OK for one night. It barely was. My stay started on a bad note when no one answered the phone at the hotel when calling from the airport to get the shuttle. After five or ten minutes of going through their telephone loop and making a second call when the system disconnected me, someone finally answered the phone and sent a shuttle, which arrived in about 15 minutes. Upon arrival at the hotel, no one was at the front desk. I waited almost 10 minutes (I called a couple of times from the lobby courtesy phone and listened to the phone ring in the empty office). The front desk clerk was polite, but he did not even apologize or offer any explanation for the complete absence of staff.

Room: I requested a second floor room and agreed that one bed was fine (my reservation was for two double beds, but apparently all the rooms with two double beds were on the first floor). I also mentioned my Club Carlson (gold) status, mostly to see how he responded since I did not expect a real upgrade, and he told me that he was giving me an upgrade to a “nice business class room”. Upon reaching the hallway with my room, the smell of cigarette smoke was noticeable. My room and the others I passed before getting to it all were non-smoking rooms, so I assume the part of the corridor (at a slightly different level with a small set of steps) beyond my room had smoking rooms. The room itself didn’t smell great, but at least it didn’t seem like people had smoked in it recently. I’m not a complete hotel snob (I have stayed at several Hampton Inns or similar quality hotels without any complaints), but I felt that the room (and obviously the service) at the Park Inn was well below the standard of a Hampton Inn. Based on the recorded message I heard many times while trying to contact the property about the shuttle, I think this hotel might have been a Ramada property at one point, and my limited experiences with Ramada properties all have been negative. My room at the Park Inn was small (one queen or double bed), dated, and worn. There were stains on the bedspread and ceiling, there was an old conventional (not flat screen) TV, there was no hairdryer, the bathtub metal stopper was not in the drain, and the bathroom surfaces (sink, vanity counter, floor) had dirt or chips (I didn’t explore these defects closely enough to see if they were dirt because I really did not want to know). The sheets and towels seemed clean enough. There was a coffee maker, small refrigerator, and microwave. The internet signal was OK at night, but very weak (dropping the connection frequently) the next morning.

Value proposition and location: The price (I paid about $100 for one night with taxes) wasn’t low enough to make this hotel a good value IMO. In contrast, I thought the Sheraton was a decent value at just over $180 given its superior location, amenities, and elite benefits. I guess the Park Inn may work better for people who want to do a park and fly package or who have a car and don’t want to pay downtown hotel parking rates. The hotel is a few miles from the airport, but in a kind of odd industrial area on a side road next to a divided highway under construction. There are a few other hotels in the same area. There is a bus stop right outside the hotel. I bought a three day $16 pass for the Montreal public transportation system, which included unlimited bus and metro rides and the airport express bus, so I was able to take the bus from outside the Park Inn to one of two metro stations to get to where I wanted to be in Montreal in about 45 minutes total. I did not figure out how to cross the highway and return to the hotel easily. After my first experience, which involved a long walk and crossing under the highway in a construction area that did not feel at all safe, I decided to take the bus to the terminating point and catch another bus back in the opposite direction that would drop me off on the correct side of the road.

I would not return to this hotel, and if I had planned a longer stay, I would have considered checking out early and seeking other alternatives.