Canada Toronto Westin Harbour Castle Downtown

[pirate]

We stayed here 25th to 27th July on a Priceline bid of $69 per night. Checkin was professionally handled, the clerk merely saying our room was fully prepaid, he offered us an upgrade for $15 CAN per night, which I took. Our room was on a high floor (23rd ?) with a picture window filling the entire outside wall; the view was stunning, well worth the price!

Otherwise the room was a pretty standard 4*, clean, maybe slightly larger than average, quite nicely furnished; the famous Westin bed was indeed heavenly. The bathroom was again standard for its class, clean, nothing remarkable.

Reviews of this property on other boards have remarked unfavourably about its position. It is about 6 blocks from the hotel to Union Station and the start of downtown proper, but to say that this area is "edgy" in any way is paranoia. There is simply some office buildings and a couple of empty lots currently under redevelopment. My wife and I happily walked through at all times of the day and night.

Overall I would be perfectly happy to win this property again when bidding 4* in downtown Toronto.

:) Pirate

[mijin75]

I ended up getting the Westin Harbour Castle for 70 dollars a night between 8-11 of October. Here is my review of the Hotel that I sent to them on their comments form.

Very nice hotel. Enjoyed my stay and loved the Lake view upgrade. There were problems though. When my girlfriend and I arrived to the Hotel and checked in, we were given a room on the 10th floor that was supposed to be for preferred guest only. When we checked into our room, we notice that the Queen bed (originally wanted a King) was the type that flipped out from the wall which looked very tacky for a 4 star Hotel. There were wires showing from the base board that appeared to travel the wall to the lamps sitting next to the bed. That also looked very tacky as well. Both my girlfriend and I were not at all impressed with the room so we decided to go back to check in and complain to get a better room. We found out from the woman at the front desk that the room we received was for "Priceline" guest. Which I was somewhat insulted by that. While I do have the income to pay full price for the rooms there, I do believe in saving money where I can. When we were told that, it made us both feel as though we were the "Priceline" people and we were odd ball guest of some sort. Anyway, we ended up having to get a lake front view in order to get a room with a King and had to pay the extra 30 CN a night for it. Also, other than the complimentary bottled water, we saw no other benefit in being a starwood preferred guest. The second somewhat bad experience that we had was the concierge. We arrived on the weekend of the Canadian Thanksgiving. We got there on Saturday. On Sunday we visited the concierge to see if there was anything happening or things we could do. We were told that due to the Canadian Holiday, everything was closed and the only thing going on was the boat tours and the CN tower tour. Therefore, we spent most of our Sunday walking around the pier and not really seeing much or doing much other than doing the CN tower tour. Monday, we decided to go to the Toronto Mall area and to our surprise, we saw hundreds of businesses open, people everywhere and plenty of things to see and do. We were somewhat upset at the concierge that he did not suggest the area around the mall because it appeared to be so much livelier around there as compared to where the Hotel was located. We felt that we wasted an entire day of our vacation because we believed the concierge at the Hotel. Another somewhat miner thing was the parking. We were there for 4 days and I thought that it was ridiculous to pay 30 CN a day for Valet parking. While I have no problems parking my own car, I thought it was just wrong that the Hotel would make their own guest park nearly 2 blocks away in an uncovered parking lot for 17 CN a day. If only staying at the hotel for 1 or 2 nights, 30 CN a day may not be all that bad, but if staying for 3 or more nights, that can add up. I felt that the alternative to valet parking was an attempt to coerce guest by making the alternative too troubling. Besides those things I mentioned, the Hotel was a comfortable stay and we did have a relaxing time. If I did visit Toronto again, I would probably choose a Hotel closer to the mall area. The area around the Westin did not have much going on.

Hope this helps anyone.

[afredus]

Stayed May 1-3, 2009. Paid $52 on Priceline. I was offered a $30/night upgrade at check-in that I declined. Room was spotless, bed ultra-comfortable. Large flat-screen tv. Very nice view of the water and part of the city. Bathroom was clean and up to standard for a 4* hotel - Kohler sink, toilet, shower. Marble countertop. Internet was $11/ni ght. Parking was two short blocks away for $20, or $40 for in-hotel valet. I was very happy with this hotel and would be happy to return. Since the hotel is on the waterfront, it is a couple of blocks from downtown proper, but this was not a problem for me.