The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living – Socrates
Posts tagged niagara falls
Review – Crowne Plaza Niagara Falls
Sep 7th
So as you have read, the price was right. We did in fact get the $139 room rate and even managed to get coupons for $40 off buffet night at the hotel next door. However, you should be aware that this is one of the older hotels in the area and although they have added Canada’s biggest water park, they have not revamped the rooms. Let’s ignore the fact that one of the elevators in the parking structure was out of order (there are only 2) creating major havoc for anyone wanting to get to the parking or the water park. Let’s ignore the fact also that the heat in Sonia’s room didn’t work at all and just talk about the room. With the 2 of us and the stroller there was ZERO floor space to use. The rooms are EXTREMELY small compared to almost all the other hotels we have stayed in and that is due to the age of the place. The amenities are fine, the water park is pretty spectacular but you do have to be prepared for the minuscule rooms and the bathrooms that look like they belong in your grandparents house. For the price and the dates we were staying it was a huge bargain but with anything other than a non-mobile infant, these rooms are too small to bear. Would we stay again? If it was a major holiday weekend and the rates were that good, sure. But on any other weekend you can get a much better room elsewhere. I still think that the Doubletree was one of the best, and the Hilton opposite the Fallsview Casino was also pretty good. You can Hotwire those rooms and get a good deal, just not the Crowne Plaza.
If I have to search for this hotel one more time…
Sep 2nd
For some reason I have a mental block when it comes to the hotel we always stay at in Niagara Falls. It is the Days Inn by the Falls but I fail to recall the name. I guess their marketing just doesn’t work on me..
http://www.daysbythefalls.com/
That should make it easier.
Niagara. Niagara Falls. Vacation. Holiday. Casino. Clifton Hill. That stupid hotel I can never remember.
By the way, it’s not our favourite for longer stays, but for a night before a flight it is awesome.
DIY and Babymooning
Apr 2nd
Thursday I took off work to work on finishing the wall. I managed to get it from being just a hole in the wall to a framed pass through that just needs drywall to be finished. As it turns out, it is too low to get built-in lights but I haven’t given up yet. I may be able to find some LED lights that are super thin to wire into the house wiring as long as they don’t require a transformer, and even then, I could just hide the transformer but that is less than ideal. I also managed to do my Pure Cardio workout and go coaching so all in all a very big day. I handed in my girls’ sheets for their routines so everything is up to date. Friday both Nicole and I were off since it was Good Friday however everything was closed so once we took care of our workouts and Nicole made the house look pretty for Brendan the cat sitter we packed up and jumped into the car for our trip to Niagara Falls and yes, finally, the Babymoon.
Traffic was oddly busy, we took a detour in Burlington to find a washroom for Nicole and ended up after stopping at an insanely busy gas station with a line up for the washroom at the local hospital. Nicole ran into the main entrance and we were on our way in no time. The hotel was really easy to find since it is right off one of the main streets, Stanley Avenue. We checked in, making sure that we upgraded our Hotwire room to a whirlpool room with a falls view. Even with the upgrade we are only paying the rate for the worst room in the hotel! Victory for Hotwire once again! Upon check-in, as promised, we were given warm chocolate chip cookies and all the information about the Wifi and the amenities. The room itself is small but nice, however I am not sure I would give it a 4 star rating. The room at the other Hilton attached to the Fallsview Casino is bigger, the rooms are noticeably larger however this place is, I think, newer. The view is nice, you can see the American Falls clearly but not the Horseshoe Falls which are blocked by the Fallsview Casino buildings. However since we upgraded and are on the 19th and top floor, the view is pretty spectacular wherever you look. The only disappointment is that the windows are not floor to ceiling as they are in the other Hilton which I have to admit is a little puzzling. All in all, the room is nice, big enough but only just. The tub is very spacious and comfortable and you can actually watch TV from there. The shower, however, is a joke. It is smaller than the infamous shower at the Ibis in Geneva which was, until today, the smallest shower in the world. This shower is so small I can only stand sideways and the shower head is only high enough so that my head touches it and I am only 6 feet tall!
There are several things that may bother some people about the hotel so I will mention them although so far they haven’t spoiled our enjoyment of the facility. The fit and finish of the bathroom is a little shabby, the door to the toilet/shower area doesn’t quite fit properly so that there is a gap between the door and the frame. One of the letters in the hotel name on the roof is out which speaks to the maintenance staff. However, I will let you know if it is still out at the end of our stay to give them the benefit of the doubt. The gym is very small, having only a few dumbells and nowhere to do pull ups. There are some machines, maybe 4 or so and 3 treadmills plus a bike and an elliptical. It’s a 7 out of 10, 9 being the Swissotel in Chicago. When we went to the gym, there was a water cooler but no water in the jug and no paper cups to drink from. Both should have been replenished by now I hope. The hairdryer overheated, something which the women out there will agree is a major deal. In addition, we had to ask the front desk where it was because it was located on the wall behind the bathroom door! The room has a fridge however it is so noisy that Nicole had to unplug it to get some sleep. The “Starbucks” in the lobby isn’t. They sell Red Rose tea and take forever to make coffee. The worst part of being here so far is in fact the TV. There are not the usual hundred or so satellite channels but rather only a select few (15 or so) channels to pick from. This is a major disappointment if you like to fall asleep to your favourite shows.
I know it sounds like I am bashing the hotel but in reality we are very happy with it. To whit, I have added a list of what we have liked so far about the place.
The location is excellent, only about 400m from the Fallsview Casino and maybe 1km from Clifton Hill. The room was very clean and well kept and the tub, as noted, is huge which for someone like me is both rare and a delight. There is a fresh air vent running the length of the window which allows you to get fresh air into the room any time which is fantastic and a feature which every room should have. The free wifi is great, working without a hitch so far which is more than I can say for almost every other hotel with “free” wifi we have encountered. The front desk staff were very polite and helpful and of course got points for giving us warm cookies. Parking is an extra $12 per day which I think is ridiculous given the size of the hotel and the location but unfortunately it is pretty standard around here.
Would we stay here again? I think so as long as we got the $84 rate that we got with Hotwire. As per usual, it’s not worth the $120 a night that the website commands but then again, I am pretty tight with my hotel dollars.
2nd Anniversary Weekend – Hilton Hotel and Suites Niagara
Aug 24th
It is weird to read what someone else’s experience is about an event that you share. It really depends on what you contribute to it and how that colours how you enjoy it. For example, according to Nicole I seem to have napped most of the time this past weekend and her overriding memory seems to be of the casino. For me, the poor sod who has to drive the car, the experience is completely different. Mostly I like driving, but when it comes to having to drive in torrential downpours and endless traffic jams my enjoyment is diminished significantly. My overriding memory of the weekend then is not the casino, which was a lot of fun, especially since I didn’t really lose any money. It is not the room, which was amazing, a pass through window to the bedroom from the jacuzzi bathroom and a view of the falls and the Casino. It is not our discovery of a brand new shopping and restaurant area in Amherst (I guess this would be like driving from Etobicoke into Mississauga and discovering all the different stores there) including the same ring store where we can now take Nicole’s engagement ring to get cleaned. It is not even the enormous pile of nachos that I had at the British Pub style restaurant at the casino as outlined below:
Their description:
After a busy day in Niagara, come meet friends or simply relax in the warm and inviting pub atmosphere of The Falls & Firkin. Enjoy a wide selection of domestic and imported draught beer, as well as wines and cocktails, while you seek refuge in a variety of comfortable seating overlooking the Falls. Their extensive menu includes traditional pub fare and delicious daily specials, covering lunch, dinner, late-night snacks and weekend brunch.
My description:
After a busy day in the Casino losing all your money and getting bumped from your machine by grumpy senior citizens with menace in their eyes even though you only stood up to stretch your legs, come and relax in the comfortable but oddly low booth seating in the Falls & Firkin. Enjoy watching us eject unruly Asian people as they attempt to eat their own food on our patio and marvel at the inappropriately tight Lululemon pants on our (obviously oblivious) slightly portly waitress. Enjoy a wide selection of food as long as it is fish and chips, nachos or beans and mash since our understanding of British Pub cuisine obviously comes from The Simpsons or Family Guy. You can have a myriad of different beers but in order to do so you have to catch the waiter with the weird hair or try and track down the bartender who is occupied chatting up some pierced face weirdo who looks more like a pincushion than a fashion statement. But take our advice, have the nachos, it will make all the rest of the experience go away.
My overriding memory of the weekend then was none of the above, and no, it was not even the traffic. My overrriding memory of the weekend was how amazing it was to me (if not to her) that Nicole was able to read tiny street signs, to see wonderful cloud formations and to see the beauty of the falls from our room without her glasses or contacts. It took me right back to when I had my eyes done and the marvel it was finally to be without contact lenses for the first time in 20 years. I know exactly how she feels, something which for men and women is rare. I even know how she will feel as the days and weeks pass which is even more strange. But most of all I know that she is happy which to me is the best Anniversary present of all.
The Hilton Hotel and Suites was nice, well appointed, comfortable and clean. The service was good, although we did not use any of the amenities. I would recommend the hotel but only of you can get a good deal on a room. There is no way I would pay $250 a night for it, but then again, there are very few places I would pay that kind of money for. The place is well built, pleasant to walk through which is nice, the lobby area is large and welcoming and the halls to the rooms are equally appealing and clean. The room itself as noted was very nice and interestingly laid out. However, the shower door seal leaked and the door did not close properly meaning that after I had finished showering the floor of the bathroom was completely flooded, not only a pain for me to mop up, but also extremely dangerous. The shower door has a full width handle on the outside but a very small and difficult to grip cylindrical knob on the inside. This makes it impossible to pull the door hard enough to close it should it not have been built properly, which our obviously had not. The windows were a decent size however I think that a flagship hotel overlooking one of the Wonders of the World could have full length windows or at least full width… Anyway, my enjoyment of the hotel was not diminished by these items. There was an amusing item as we walked from the parking lot to the hotel. Each floor has a “Hotel Events” large screen monitor encased in an expensive looking wooden display on which the hotel displays any conference information, helpful visitor tips and so on. The one on our floor however indicated that today’s Hotel Event was that “There are unused items on your desktop”. Maybe someone should call the helpdesk?
I am not sure if we reviewed the casino last time but the review is short and sweet. If you try hard you could imagine you are in Vegas. The casino itself is very nice, large and bright and well ventilated. It is not quite as loud as some of the Vegas casinos and certainly not as large but it is about as close as you will find anywhere around here. The machines play differently, there is no doubt that the payouts are less and that the variety is not comparable however it really doesn’t affect your enjoyment of the place. You can winn enough to keep playing which is the key and if you are very lucky like my wife (in more ways that one!) you can win enough to go shopping in Buffalo. One thing I did notice is that the Players Club works differently than in Vegas. They only bank points for the money that you put into the machine not for the time that you play. In Vegas you can put in $20 and play for an hour racking up credits enough to get you a free buffet in no time. At Niagara, unless you are putting cash into the machine you don’t get credits. Playing isn’t enough in other words, you have to pay! Their system calls for 100 points to get $10 play cash. However it notes that you have to put in between $40 and $60 to get ONE POINT!!! Enough said. Basically if you can’t get to Vegas and you want the next best thing go to Atlantic City. If you can’t leave the country then go to Niagara Fallsview. Just check the weather and the traffic before you go!
If I have to search for this stupid hotel one more time…
Aug 6th
For some reason I have a mental block when it comes to the hotel we always stay at in Niagara Falls. It is the Days Inn by the Falls but I fail to recall the name. I guess their marketing just doesn’t work on me..
http://www.daysbythefalls.com/
That should make it easier.
Niagara. Niagara Falls. Vacation. Holiday. Casino. Clifton Hill. That stupid hotel I can never remember.