stinger

Even better than I rememberd:

"Fairmont President's Club Platinum Complimentary Night and Premier Third Night Complimentary Certificates cannot be redeemed at the following hotels during the following dates:

The Fairmont Acapulco Princess:
December 20-January 2

The Fairmont Pierr Marques:
December 20-January 2

Only two properties and only during x-mas. Kudos to FPC once again!!

Altaflyer

Yeah! Hope they keep the same dates for the following benefit year and Hawaii will be more than a dream!

propofol

Hello all,

Could anyone who has stayed on the gold floors at both of these hotels in Vancouver let me know if one Gold floor is better in some respect than the other? If there was a strong opinion to one or the other I would take your advice, since they are both equidistant to where I am going.

I am attending a conference and thought I would take advantage of the NFAF rate, since Fairmont Gold would end up being cheaper than my "specially-discounted" conference hotel rate!

Thanks.

Jagboi

They are both nice, just different. I prefer the Hotel Vancouver myself because I appreciate the railway heritage of the building. If your tastes go more to the modern side of things, then go for the Waterfront.

tcook052

Waterfront. Nice upscale and modern gold floor and a cut above the sister property which is of a different vintage. Nothing majorly wrong with the Hotel Vancouver as it has its fans but I prefer the Waterfront.

Cascadia

I agree.

kokinos

I also prefer Waterfront but I think the Gold Floor at Vancouver was very recently renovated and haven't stayed there since.

fly-yul

Without a doubt. Better hotel. Nicer location.
Nicer gold lounge. Better staff.

I stay in Vancouver at least 15 nights a year. Either at Fairmont YVR or Waterfront. I only go to Hotel Vancouver if Waterfront is full.

pdx_fam

We arrived at the Hotel Vancouver a little after 2:00 in the afternoon, so we were about an hour early for check-in. Valet service did not see us at first due to other cars being parked ahead of us. Once we were spotted, service was efficient and business like. There was one party ahead of us at the President's Club check-in, but after a minute or two we were helped. We were advised that the swimming pool and fitness centre were closed for renovations. As an alternative, there were some cardio machines available in the sunroom on the 14th floor, and we were also given the option of using the YWCA or the Waterfront pool. Our suite was ready for us, so we were given our keys and map and sent to our suite. We found the lobby and hallways spotless. Carpets and paint seemed to be in good condition. The lobby at the Hotel Vancouver is busy to the eye with shops, lobby bar, registration, hallways and people transiting.

We found our suite to be better than expected. I was impressed that Fairmonts rooms are actually a little more spacious than what their website pictures show. Everything in the suite appeared to be in good order. The parlor and the bedroom each had what looked to be a 37" flat screen and each was well equipped with traditional styled furniture.

Our porter arrived and was straight forward with no enthusiasm at all, although he perked up a little when given his tip. We noted that no one had asked if we wanted turndown service.

We went out to walk around a bit, down Robison Street and then down to the waterfront. The weather was sunny, very nice for BC in January, so we walked over to the Fairmont Waterfront where our reservation was for the following night. I inquired about the cost to upgrade our city view Gold room to a harbour view room, and I was told that they already had placed us in a harborview room. Hooray!

So we had dinner (at Red Robin - It's what the kids wanted), and when we returned, we found we had the turndown service. No chocolates.

We slept well, and arose to get ready for the day. There was some noise from adjacent neighbors, but not at a disturbing level. The shower head was the adjustable massage type and worked well. There was a slight bit of variation in water temperature and pressure during use, but not enough to be a complaint. Once everyone we were ready and my wife had passed around some snacks, we called for the porter. After what seemed like 10-15 minutes the porter arrived. I had tried to check out via the TV, but the system kept crashing, so I did it via the phone. This porter was very chatty, much more personable than the previous one. He stayed and waited with us while the valet was still retrieving our car.

We happened to observe something during our stay that some guests would find rather disturbing, and I discretely reported it to the hotel staff. Two different managers at the hotel discussed the issue with me and I felt that as a whole, the hotel handled the matter well.

We were planning on spending most of that afternoon at Stanley Park. We didn't want to park there with our luggage in the back, so we drove over to the Fairmont Waterfront to drop off our bags. After the porter cheerfully unloaded our bags for us and I got back in the car, my daughter noticed that her small doll that he has slept with for fourteen years had fallen to the pavement along with the claim tag for the luggage. So she jumped out of the car and handed them to the porter. I don't know if he would have noticed he had dropped them, as he was distracted.

We parked around the corner and went into the little underground mall adjacent to the hotel. The wife and daughter had Tim Horton's and my son and I had Subway. We headed over to Stanley Park and enjoyed three hours at the aquarium and a scenic drive around the Park.

We arrived back at the hotel around four o'clock to check into our room. We saw our bags sitting out in the open in a corner of the lobby by the porter desk (we thought they would have a room hidden away that they stored luggage in. Hmmmm...) We checked in downstairs, and headed up to our room. Again we noted that no one had asked if we wanted turndown service. The gold room was nicely appointed with furnitur of a contemporary style and a 42" flat screen. The linens and towels may be nicer in a gold room, but I could not observe a significant difference from what we had at Hotel Vancouver. The harbour view was limited by Canada Place and Convention Centre buildings, but the barge with the Olympic rings could be seen and also the Lion's Gate bridge off in the distance. A porter arrived with our bags and was friendly and helpful.

We stepped over to the lounge and Mark, the Gold floor Concierge on duty gave us a detailed run down on what was included, the honor bar, etc. No one was present in the lounge. We all had a soda, and headed back to the room to watch a little TV until the 5:00 canapes would be ready.

The canapes were some of the best sushi I have ever had and some other hot dim sum that were also quite tasty. I had some Jack Daniels ($8.50) and poured the wife a Tanqueray Ten ($12.00?) gin and tonic. So my honor cost me a little over $20. We discussed dinner options with Mark, and he provided us with suggestions and menus. We chose a restaurant nearby named "Steamworks" and Mark happily made our revervations for us. The food at the restaurant was very good. After dinner, we took a walk to see the steam powered clock in Gastown. In the 15 or 20 minute walk to area by the clock and back, we saw three panhandlers, a group of four people sharing a bottle in a doorway and another fellow across the street from us pull out what looked to be a 12-inch long kitchen knife and he flashed it around while chasing off another street person and yelling at him in some eastern european langauge... We only saw one other group tourists other than ourselves during the walk. This was at 8:30 on a Sunday night.

On arrival back at the hotel, I told Mark that the food was good, the street people were interesting, and that we had seen a guy pull a knife. He said that was worse than anything he had seen in the past three years. Considering how outnumbered we were by those on the streets, I'm not sure these events wouldn't be more frequent.

The turndown service had been done, similar to Hotel Vancouver, but with slippers added. We had a peaceful night in our room, with the exception of some noise from carts in the hallway in the middle of the night. The shower was good and hot, but did have some slight variation in pressure and temperature. Breakfast in the lounge was good. I had a large bagel loaded with lox and sour cream. They also had the usual toast, pastries, cereals, meats and cheeses, waffles, fruit, etc. The warm item was what I would describe as an egg omlette wrapped in a tortilla, and sliced into 1-inch thick portions. It tasted good, better than my feeble description of it. During our three visits to the lounge, I saw no more than a total of four other guests use it, so for most of the time, we were only sharing it with one other guest.

I think that staying at the Gold level was definitely a good value for the four of us. If it was just the wife and I, it would not be as good of a value, but I would definitely consider it for a special occasion.

This time I was able to sucessfuly use the on screen checkout. The porter took a long, long time to come, possibly 20 minutes? We had just about given up, and my wife and daughter had already headed downstairs. The porter was friendly, and when I remarked that we had almost given up on him, he said that they were very busy, as a large group was checking out at the same time.

I took some pictures of the Fairmont Pacific Rim before leaving town. A fair amount of inside construction could be seen underway in the interior.

All in all, we had a very good time. At the end of March, we are headed to San Jose, down to Newport Beach and then back up to San Francisco. I will do my best to write up a review of those Fairmonts upon our return from that trip.


Pictures can be seen at: http://s873.photobucket.com/albums/a...r%20Fairmonts/

will5404

Thanks for the report. The area around waterfront station and gastown is "interesting", I've been around the area many times and I wouldn't characterize it as dangerous imo, but not a place I would walk through at night if I had other options.