Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu, Charlevoix = Lazy and Comfy Stay During Covid Lockdown

100   Recommended
Deluxe
January 5, 2022 by

 Map | 2 Reviews | 50% Recommended
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Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu
 Map | 2 Reviews | 50% Recommended

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Deluxe

Liked:
Location
Service
Food
Amenities
Room
Stats
Room
Deluxe

I wrote a review of this hotel about 2 years ago; I returned this month and had a few additional observations to share, some of them covid related, and also because I had a different room type this time.  When a hotel has no competition in a relatively interesting destination, even if the rooms, service, and elite benefits are so-so, I am likely to come back nonetheless and this Fairmont is no exception.  So my previous review was not exactly glowing, and for my latest stay there were again some hiccups but overall I can continue to recommend it to people who would like to travel to that area.

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Room

In the past my room upgrades were not very impressive at this hotel, and this time I booked the Accor STEP rate via a travel agent which includes a room upgrade.  That combined with the power of Accor Diamond upgrades and very low occupancy (20%) due to covid closures of the casino and restaurants, I thought I had good odds of receiving a better room than in the past.  None of the suites were available (they have so few of them) when I checked in but they upgraded me to a Deluxe room which was not large, but still much better and more spacious than the mediocre room I had last time.  

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Dining

With all restaurants ordered to be closed, they offered breakfast as room service only which was actually quite nice for people desiring to have lazy mornings in bed, rather than going to the normally hectic buffet.  The choices on the menu were interesting and food quality was excellent, all charges removed from the final bill, well, kind of.  More on that below.  

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For dinner they offered a normal in-room dining menu and also for the festive season they had a couple of multi-course options at higher cost.  Somehow those kinds of special menus are a better fit for eating in a restaurant setting rather than eating in the room without even a dining table so we just stuck to the traditional in-room dining choices.

Facilities

Some facilities were closed due to covid such as the indoor pool, the kids club, and the gym, however outdoor activities were still available such as skating and they also had an inflatable castle for little ones.  The outdoor pool was open and it was possible to reserve it ahead of time to avoid sharing it with other guests.  

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Service

Similar to last time, I had issues with the billing.  First off they should have known that the Accor STEP rate always includes breakfast, but they took the liberty of adding the cost of breakfast in my base rate in an opaque way (instead of charging the total itemized cost of what we ordered), which I noticed and challenged.  In addition the amount due for the room shown on the travel agent invoice was labeled as “including taxes” but Fairmont added the resort fee on top.  I did not exactly dispute it, but recommended that they should have better communication with travel agents to ensure disclosure of the fee at the time of booking, not to mention that many activities were not even available.  As a result they waived the charge which was appreciated.  Also I was paying with Fairmont gift cards denominated in USD but they got the currency wrong and had to be fixed after I checked out.  All in all, everything ended up square but for Fairmont level of service it left to be desired.  

Overall

Overall we had an enjoyable stay and we will continue to return in the future.  For the hotel owners, that’s the beauty of having a property with a semi-monopoly.  If I stayed at independent hotels nearby I would not get upgrades, welcome drinks, etc. and service would be unlikely to be any better.  So Fairmont remains the only option in the area for me and my bar is much lower such that I am unlikely to criticize as harshly as I would do in a big city with many choices.  I could say the same for many Design Hotels (Marriott), SLH, and LHW hotels and resorts. 

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