Priceline and Hotwire Forum: Canada Montreal Downtown Sofitel - Priceline and Hotwire Forum

Just returned from a six day stay there. Here are my 2 cents:

The hotel is fairly new and located on Sherbrooke Ave almost at the foot of Mont Royal. It is a glass and concrete building with about 20 floors. On entering I found myself in a very modern, relatively small lobby, housing a small business center with two computers, free internet access and printer. There also is a small gift shop and a restaurant/bar adjacent to the lobby.

Check-in: Very friendly staff. No mention of Priceline. The hotel automatically assigns rooms with one king bed for its Priceline customers. I asked them for a 2 double, which they said was only available at a surcharge of C$40 per day. They finally gave me a room with two beds at no extra charge because I was a member of their frequent guest program. I also received a complimentary welcome drink at the bar. Complimentary coffee in the morning and apples the rest of the day.

Room: Like the rest of the hotel very modern and stylish. Not very large but enough room. Two very comfortable double beds with pillow top mattress and down comforter. Bathroom very nice in grey and black marble. Separate shower cabin and bathtub. Fancy French bath amenities and a candle. Two bathrobes, slippers. Minibar (Cave: If you remove anything from the fridge to cool something, you will automatically be charged. There are sensors within the fridge. So check your folio every now and then - can do that on the TV - and have any erroneous charges removed. I had about $80 of minibar charges because I had cooled some food. Removal of the charges was no big issue though.) One of the quietest hotel room air conditioners I have ever experienced.

Service: Everybody I interacted with was very friendly and helpful. Absolutely no complaints. It was real fun to tip these people. Requested complimentary turndown service which resulted in two small bottles of Evian water every night. Very nice!

Facilities: Exercise room with standard equipment and a sauna. No pool, which would have been really nice with the summer heat. Didn’t try the restaurant which has upscale pricing but also a choice of appetizer and entrée plus coffee for C$38. Not too bad.

Montreal is a city where you can get around very easily without a car. The hotel is located just one block from the next Metro station (Peel). A weekly pass (Mon-Sun) for the metro which is clean and runs quite frequently even later at night runs C$18. A taxi to/from the Dorval airport is C$31 flat (15-20 min ride). I would not recommend the airport bus, it took me almost two hours to get to my hotel.

Overall: A very good hotel, definitely a 4 star if not higher. Only things I really missed were an outdoor pool and an in-room coffee maker.

We stayed here for 8 nights at the end of May, 2009. Got a great deal on Hotwire for $96/night. A rather chic 4.5 star property with a sophisticated clientle. A smaller hotel with a "boutique hotel" atmosphere.
We had the smallest of the rooms available, with a very comfortable king sized bed and an elegant marble bathroom with shower (no tub.) Although the room was on the smallish side, the elegant appointments, floor to ceiling windows, and very nice bathroom more than compensated. Since we were staying for over a week, closet space for all our clothes was tight, but the built-in furniture used the space efficiently.
There was complimentary coffee in the morning and free internet access via three PCs (and a printer!) in a nook off the lobby. Nice amenity.
Our interactions with the staff were all positive. The front desk staff was very friendly and helpful...and completely biligual since our French is limited. The location of the hotel is very convienient to the Metro, shopping, restaurants, and museums. Montreal is a very safe city and we felt comfortable walking around and using the Metro late at night.