Marriott Bonvoy hotels in Halifax, Canada
Aug 8, 2015, 4:46 am
Aug 8, 2015, 8:29 pm
Aug 10, 2015, 4:23 am
Aug 10, 2015, 5:56 am
Aug 10, 2015, 10:21 am
Aug 10, 2015, 10:49 am
* Halifax / Marriott Harbourfront Hotel / CLOSED; Cont'l brekkie in restaurant; $3 upcharge to full breakfast; 10/28/14 update
Can someone confirm if the brekkie vouchers are for cont'l & there's still an upcharge, or have they switched to full brekkie?
Cheers.
Aug 10, 2015, 12:46 pm
Aug 10, 2015, 1:06 pm
Cheers.
Aug 11, 2015, 4:17 pm
Jul 15, 2017, 7:50 am
I would start by saying I have stayed at this property 3 times now and it is very consistent. The Valet/bellhop is very poor. In our 3 stays, we have never had someone help us with our bags or even greet us after driving in. 2x we left our keys with the front desk since nobody was there to valet the car. On our last stay we called for a bellman to help with our bags. He brought the bags down and left them on the cart behind the vehicle to go assist another car arriving. My wife was left to put the bags in herself (I was inside checking out). Upon leaving we asked where the closest Gas Station was and told the valet we needed to refill the car before returning it. He sent us the complete opposite direction and didn't know actually how to get us there. Thank God for GPS.
The Lobby area is very nice and so is the bar restaurant. They have an outdoor patio bar that was never open even though the weather was nice. The looks of the Lobby make you think you are in one of the nicer Marriott's there is. The staff minus the Valet is very helpful and friendly. The location is very good on side of the boardwalk.
There is a Small Lounge closed on the weekend (liquor is only available via request) with the minimal offerings. Breakfast on weekend is very good downstairs. Lounge is closed for water/soda/coffee on the weekends. One of the nicer spreads I have seen.
In three trips, I have never been upgraded to anything more than what we paid for. In fact, on our 2nd stay we were in room 317 across from the service door. DO NOT STAY ANYWHERE CLOSE TO THE SERVICE DOOR!!!!! My guess is that Plat, Gold, etc do not get any special treatment in terms of room assignment.
On our last trip we were upgraded to the CL floor (even though it was closed the entire time of stay) upon asking for a room not near the service door. The room was the closest to the street/valet area and had lots of street noise. I can't believe this was the nicest room they could give me as the hotel wasn't full.
The rooms are in desperate need of a renovation. Think Standard Marriott with the Yellow and Red carpets, wallpaper peeling, etc.
One odd thing about this Hotel is the lack of view of the harbour from many of the rooms and perhaps the best location in the hotel being used as a staff lounge with wonderful full window views of the harbour. I would think this would be a great location for guests to have coffee or breakfast or move the CL lounge too.
So I would say this hotel has been very consistent in all 3 stays. The bad has continued to be bad and the Good has been Good. It will be interesting to see what happens with the DELTA hotel across the street. It is going through a MAJOR renovation soon. I wonder if it will force Marriott to renovate the rooms to match the quality of the rest of the hotel?
Last edited by jr1202sr; Jul 15, 2017 at 7:58 am
Jul 15, 2017, 6:07 pm
As a Gold I was 'upgraded' to the Club Floor for our one night stay but like jr1202sr said, the lounge is closed on the weekends. The very nice thing was we were given vouchers for full breakfast for all three of us. I didn't ask and hadn't complained about anything so it was a pleasant and appreciated surprise.
Excellent location and spacious rooms. But I concur with the previous post. Our room was clean but quite worn. Very friendly staff.
Jul 17, 2017, 7:06 am
Jan 24, 2019, 9:16 am
Halifax Marriott Harbourfront Hotel
1919 Upper Water St Halifax, NS CA B3J3J5
Halifax Marriott Harbourfront = Very Large Suite Upgrade (9 Photos)
Halifax Marriott Harbourfront Hotel
Initially I was unsure where to book in downtown Halifax but when I found a very low rate using Look No Further (Best Rate Guarantee) at Marriott I thought it was unlikely I would get better value somewhere else. I was pleased with my stay given the price I paid particularly with the very generous room upgrade.
Location
The location of the hotel is great as noted by several others on FT. You are walking distance from lots of restaurants and centrally located in the city, right on the water. I used self-parking for 25 CAD per day with in-and-out access, which is not out of line compared to other parking options around the hotel.
Room
Some FTers reported not getting great upgrades at this property, as a result my expectations were modest in addition to the fact that I was paying a LNF rate for the basic room. I noticed a few days in advance that I was assigned to a 1-bedroom suite. The 1-bdr suite is supposed to have 1.5 bath according to Marriott.com but my suite had 2 full bathrooms. I was told that some of these suites have 1.5 bath indeed although the full bathroom is larger than the two bathrooms that I had. According to the floor plan this suite is exactly the size of three standard rooms and in fact we could access our room from three different doors, one entrance being for the bedroom, one for the dining room, and one for the bar / living area. Obviously the room is very large and the angled roof along with the fireplace with brick wall give some charm to the room. Both bathrooms are a bit small but having two full bathrooms was convenient so nothing to complain about plus the fact that the bathrooms were probably redone recently as they looked more refreshed than the rest of the suite. The hotel is currently going through some renovations and I can see that some of it is needed. The room was not modern by any means and particularly the windows need to be replaced because there was condensation leaking down the windows, hindering the nice view of the harbor the day we arrived. There was a sign in the hallway indicating that the hotel was in the middle of replacing windows which will be a good improvement.
Dining
The Club Lounge was also closed for renovations and as a replacement they had a small private room in the back of the hotel bar where Platinum guests could have soft drinks and snacks during the day.
Happy hour is 5:30pm to 7pm with hors d’oeuvres provided. I thought the offerings were quite light even for North American standards – there were veggies but only a small tray which they had to replenish quickly despite there being only a few guests in the make-shift lounge. It was similar for the hot appetizers: they were gone quickly and it took quite a bit of time for the kitchen to bring a refill and all portions were small. One evening it was a shrimp kung-pao with rice and another evening it was almost the same but butter chicken on top of the rice, still in the same small cup of rice.
The breakfast buffet was the same for guests in the temporary lounge than in the regular restaurant because they both shared the same buffet area. It is the sitting area which was separate for the lounge. Breakfast was nothing to write home about: standard hotel fruits (although they did have blueberries), yogurt, basic cereals, stale pastries, and traditional hotel options such as bacon, sausages, and scrambled eggs. The only thing that stood out was the poached eggs with tomato sauce which I enjoyed. Breakfast in the lounge normally ends at 9am which I find too early, but since the buffet was the same as the regular restaurant the time limit did not apply as it normally would when the real lounge is open, so I was told.
Overall
Overall if you set your expectations appropriately this is a good hotel and good value for the money for Platinums as they are willing to upgrade to superior rooms, although I might feel differently if I was paying a high rate in the middle of the summer without an upgrade because the hotel might be full. The lounge situation was a bit subpar but I can give them a pass because it was a temporary situation. I would return to this hotel in the future.