escape4

Introduction I recently had a 2-night weekend stay in Ottawa. I am familiar with Sheraton and Westin, and I also like other properties from other chains like Andaz Ottawa and Hilton Gatineau, but for a change I thought I would try Delta. Hotels in downtown Ottawa tend to be cheaper on weekends and I could have had a good rate at Sheraton or Westin for my dates, but $110 CAD per night at Delta was unusually low and it was part of the reason why I thought it would be a good time to try it especially because since August the Starwood Platinum-Ambassador benefits transfer to Marriott legacy hotels. Room I informed my Ambassador ahead of time that it would be great if we could have two connecting rooms, or even better if we receive a suite upgrade for one of the rooms as hotel occupancy was going to be low, then no need for connecting rooms. Once I arrived at the hotel I found out that we had two adjoining rooms but not connecting, and none of them being suites. I asked if they got the message from my Ambassador regarding connecting rooms and suites, and after checking, they changed one room to a suite, and as a bonus they were kind enough to change the second room as well to connect with the suite, which was a great service recovery and was even better than I originally asked for. The suite is exactly double the size of a standard room because the living room is a standard room except that it is furnished with a sofa bed and a round table with chairs, instead of having bedroom furniture and instead of having a bathroom. So with this set up we had two bedrooms with a living room between them, and the living room connected with both bedrooms which was great. The living room even has a room number xx05 and it can be used as a suite either with room xx03 or xx07. As you can see from the pictures the room is adequate but nothing luxurious and is of a similar style to Sheraton Ottawa given that both hotels are a bit old, unlike Westin which is a newer construction. Sheraton recently renovated its rooms so the rooms there are marginally nicer than at Delta, but Delta’s rooms are somewhat bigger, except for the bathroom which is painfully small and it’s difficult to squeeze in there between the door and the counter/toilet. Room xx03 had a stand-alone shower and the other (xx07) had a shower in the bathtub. Water pressure was very low in the shower; otherwise the bathroom was functional, clean, and quite good. Dining To my disappointment I found out that the lounge on the 25thfloor does not serve breakfast or happy hour on weekends, although it can be accessed with the key card for soft drinks and some snacks during the day. For breakfast we received coupons for the buffet in the restaurant. Technically I think I should have had coupons for myself and one guest as a Platinum benefit, but they were very generous by giving breakfast for free to everybody in both rooms: 4 adults and 4 children in total. Breakfast in a North American hotel is usually not my kind of breakfast but I would say it was somewhat above average. They had a good selection of fruits including blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries, rather than only the standard hotel fruits. They also had a few choices of smoothies which were nice. Perhaps because the hotel was not particularly crowded, I found the breakfast to be enjoyable unlike some hotels were breakfast is chaotic. In the evening on weekends they offer a substitute to happy hour in the lounge. Platinum guests can go to the hotel bar 4pm-6pm and have a special Platinum menu to choose one dish in addition to free soft drinks. Once again they treated us very generously: we received coupons to cover 8 dishes both evenings so one dish per person including children. We had way more food than we needed because portions were quite good. Also on the first night they served us food even though we arrived after 6pm. The environment of the hotel bar is inviting and was an enjoyable place to spend for happy hour. Overall Overall I was very pleased with the stay, despite the fact that originally they did not arrange for connecting rooms as requested via my Ambassador and not being proactive with a suite upgrade, but they more than made up for it. Sheraton has a good lounge and they do not close it on weekends. However Delta was very generous with breakfast and happy hour – at 110 CAD per night with all the freebies this was fantastic value, and we had access to the lounge too for extra space which is something we cannot do at Westin since there is no lounge. While I like Sheraton’s lounge, they do not have suites at that hotel so the potential for suite upgrades is an advantage that Delta has over Sheraton. The Westin is clearly in a category above both in terms of luxury but it comes with a higher price tag and no lounge so in my opinion Delta is better value for the money. If I am willing to forego a lounge and I want a more luxurious hotel, I usually prefer Andaz rather than Westin for those purposes.