Hotel Review: The Westin Bayshore, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

For a more detailed version of this post, please see The Westin Bayshore Vancouver at www.worldtraveller73.com

Arriving to the Westin Bayshore:

Being Vancouver residents, we self drove over to the property. Although it’s an older property, it’s been well maintained, given it’s prime real estate location.

During our check in, we were given the option of self parking at $41 CAD per night. We were going to park at the nearby Marriott Pinnnacle but the parking rate had gone up there and was now $36 CAD. For the $10 savings, we just opted for the convenience of parking locally, along with the “in and out” privileges.

During our check in process, we were thanked for our loyalty as Marriott Titanium level members. As a nice touch, we were offered the choice of two available room assignments in a Panoramic or Lanai suites. We were offered one Panoramic Suite on the 20th (top) floor with a south west orientation, facing over the West End and Stanley park, or a Lanai Suite on the 19th floor with smaller lanai balcony but facing the North Shore Mountains with no outdoor space. We opted for the Panoramic Suite on the top floor, and ended up being really happy with the room.

In terms of a Marriott Bonvoy Welcome Gift for it’s elite members, as Marriott Titanium’s, we were offered points or a breakfast option. The breakfast option during the pandemic was an offer of room service breakfast consisting of a entree + beverage with a waived delivery fee, or an offer of breakfast at the restaurants pop up restaurant “On the Drive” consisting also of an entree + beverage. We ended up taking the breakfast option instead of the 1,000 Marriott Bonvoy welcome points, and received two vouchers that we could use at either location.

The Lobby Reception and Check In were situated in the Main building. We led ourselves over to the Tower, which is a very short walk through a connected walkway. Being that we were staying within the pandemic, many of the lobby restaurants and retail outlets were closed by Provincial Health Order. As a result, the lobby looks a little quieter than it would during normal times.


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The Room: A Panoramic Suite

One Bedroom Larger Suite, 1 King, Sofa Bed, Bathrooms 2, Harbour View, Tower

We led ourselves up to the twentieth floor and the top floor of the Tower building through a key carded elevator. We headed up to our assigned Panoramic Suite Room #2084.

The Panoramic Suites likely started off life as two separate rooms that have been joined through the removal of adjoining doors. Despite being older rooms, they are actually quite generously sized by modern day standards.

Upon entry into the room, we found yourselves entering into a small passage way between the two rooms.



In the Suite Entry hallway, there was a coffee station over top of a mini fridge. There was also a water station with ice bucket, with two bottles of local water.

The Panoramic Living Room:

Stepping out of the entry hallway, we immediately ended up in the living room and the corner “panoramic space”. The room featured a contemporary refreshed carpet in white and blues. There was a sofa and two chairs for entertaining. The couches were typically firm, and along with hotel furniture, was more built for industrial standards instead of actual comfortable sitting and relaxing.






The room also featured a sofa bed in a Murphy bed styled wall unit. The wall unit was a little imposing in a teak brown color, but fortunately, it wasn’t a focal point of the room. There was also a small suitcase stand space built in the wall unit.

For those relaxing on the couch and not looking outside, the room featured a desk and flat screen television.



Immediately off the living room, the panoramic suite living room featured a full bathroom including a stand up rain shower. The ensuite off of the living room had a somewhat small counter space by the sink, but was perfectly fine for an ensuite bathroom.





As if a sofa and two chairs and coffee tables were not enough entertainment space in a well featured room, there was also a chaise lounger by the window. The window featured a world class view.





A Chaise Lounger offered great Stanley Park views from the comfort of the dry indoors. The Panoramic Living Room featured a wrap around deck. There were two padded and comfortable loungers on the bed with excellent South and West facing views towards Stanley Park and Coal Harbour.





Wall

A Separate One Bedroom:

Heading over to the bedroom, the Panoramic Suite had a large king sized Westin Heavenly Bed. The bedroom was in a completely separate room, consistent with a true suite configuration.





The bedroom was rounded out by a chair lounger and coffee table combination, along with a corner reading light.



The bedroom also featured a combination desk, chest of drawers and room fridge. There was also a flat screen television that allowed for television viewing from bed.



The integrated desk cabinets featured a half sized fridge and the usual in room safe. Bottled Water was available in the bedroom, in addition to an ice bucket.





The bedroom featured a secondary deck, although this particular one was not a “wrap around” variety. It featured exclusively south facing views towards the high rise residential neighbourhood known in Vancouver as “The West End”







Just off the bedroom was the bedroom ensuite bathroom. The ensuite bathroom was a second full bathroom, featuring the usual Westin Shower. There was a bit more counter space here, which became the space to store all bathroom toiletries.






For those that were interested, the floor layout of the twentieth and top floor of the Westin Bayshore Tower was as follows:




MrsWT73 had her comments about the room. She specially called the room “old” but that the location of the hotel was the best.

The Panoramic Suite room was not the best suite night upgrade we’ve ever used (that award goes to the JW Marriott Los Cabos) but it was better than letting the Suite Night Awards go to waste. It was pretty cool to think that we were staying in the same room level as royalty and likely other VIP dignitaries that have stayed here over the years as well. I couldn’t help but notice the ever so cool Howard Hughes Suite on the opposite side of the floor, that was immediately opposite to our room. It was likely the same Panoramic configuration as this suite we stayed in as described above.

Features of the Hotel:

Room Service:

We were give the opportunity to redeem breakfast vouchers towards breakfast courtesy of Marriott Titanium status. These vouchers were either redeemable for the hotel’s pop up “On the Drive” restaurant, or for room service. At the time of our visit, for it Marriott Elite members, the hotel was offering one full entrée and one beverage for it’s elite breakfast benefit.

At the time of our visit, the Province of British Columbia was under a pandemic health order that only allowed dining in outdoor or patio space, or restaurant take aways. All indoor dining was prohibited. As a result, the hotel offered dining at “On the Drive”, a socially distanced pop up restaurant, which was situated immediately adjacent to their lobby arrival area. While it was in a covered area, there isn’t much ambience in dining in dead space at the conference center entrance.



At check in, we were given the breakfast menu for the pop up restaurant. Seating at “Off the Drive” was limited by space and offered on a first come, first serve basis. As Marriott Titanium members, we were given the opportunity to order any item on the menu (not limited to continental offerings) to enjoy at the restaurant Off the Drive.



While we had all great intentions of enjoying breakfast in the restaurant setting of the pop up Off the Drive, we ended up ordering room service on both mornings of our stay. The menu for In Room Dining room service was a slightly less exciting version of Off the Drive, missing Avocado Toast and Eggs Benedict, among other things.



On the first day, I was able to order Avocado Toast off the Off the Drive menu as room service without any issue. However, on the second day, the staff taking my order got wise to this and when I went to order some scrumptious Eggs Benedict, I was limited to the Room Service menu which was substantially less exciting. As a result, I settled for Two Eggs any Style, served with Bacon, Hashbrowns and Grilled Tomato and Toast.



Avocado Toast & Three Egg Omelette



Three Egg Omelette and All Canadian Breakfast.

Still, the breakfast was tasty and delivered within twenty minutes as ordered. On both days, our room service breakfast order came to $67.94 CAD ($56 USD) including the taxes; provided courtesy of our Marriott Bonvoy Elite Status.

Around the Hotel:

Outdoor Pool:

During our stay, we used the outdoor pool. While the pool doesn’t have any modern or new features like an infinity edge, or integrated waterfall, it does have an exceptional mature growth garden making for a beautiful setting for an outdoor deck and pool area.





The outdoor pool did have a surprisingly deep section at one part of the pool, making it an area where you’d have to strongly supervise children, if you were out here.

Indoor Pool:

The hotel offers an indoor pool that was more popular with the children. It was deserted while we were there. It also featured an indoor hot tub that was equally deserted. While indoor pools aren’t normally too exciting, this one had a floor to ceiling window view of the Vancouver Sea Wall that ran along the side of the hotel.

My Thoughts on the Westin Bayshore:

The Westin Bayshore is a premium Vancouver hotel that is perfect for first time leisure visitors to the city. It is situated in a unique world class location, with water on almost three sides of the hotel, in addition to the absolutely massive Stanley Park right next door. The twenty eight kilometre Vancouver Sea Wall runs right past the hotel and is a great feature to have. Although the property is a little older, it’s perfect for a leisure stay if recreation is in your schedule. If you’re visiting Vancouver for the first time, this is the hotel that you’d want to stay at, in order to take advantage of everything that the Pacific Northwest has to offer

For a more detailed version of this post, please see The Westin Bayshore Vancouver at www.worldtraveller73.com