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Mount Royal Hotel
7 reviews for Mount Royal Hotel
7 reviews in English
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Review from Paul B.
12/19/2011 3 Check-ins Here
We had the best room in Banff!! Room 200 at the Mount Royal Hotel. With a corner view overlooking Banff Ave and - Cascade Mountain - it was hard to watch television! It is the view from the middle of Banff Ave - except you are tucked away warm, dry and comfortable in your hotel room!
OK, on the down side, the flooring needed refurbishing and the street noise (from midnight to 3 a.m.) would not be acceptable to everyone, but oh that view! From the pink rays of sunrise painting Cascade to the mid day views of Vanilla Ice (ask a local) to the red/blue sunsets - the mountain was always a sight to enjoy. I wished I was a painter who could just set up in the room for days and work away.
As a hotel we found the staff friendly and accommodating. They delivered a corkscrew to the room within minutes of asking. Parking is free at the back although it is more likely that you will have to park on the street in busy times. The hot-tub was OK with some heat but very little water movement. Being right on Banff Ave it was a fantastic location for popping out into the -15 degree weather for some strolling. It is close to everything downtown.
In addition to the view, I must comment on the bed. It was fantastic with a great mattress below and a thick comfy comforter on top.
All this and the price suited out budget.
If you can't stay in #200 - maybe you can tip the bellboy to let you in for a minute to check out the view! Its worth it. -
Review from Elle C.
3/5/2012 1 Check-in Here
I really wish I could use fancy words like intimate, historic and vintage feel. But that would really be stretching it. There really isn't much to say about this hotel that is exceptional or great. Or even good. It just happens to be in a good location if you don't care where your unconcious body is at night. However, it would be a great place to stay if you just need a place to rest your head and you paid some ridiculous sale price. Otherwise, don't expect much.
Central downtown Banff location, old building, that really needs to be refurbished. The carpet is really used and looks like it's seen traffic from more decades than I have been alive. Watch out for nails under the carpet, we stepped on the tip of a nail coming out of the carpet between the bathroom door - remember to step over where carpet has been joined. We checked in a tad early and the front desk person was very nice. But when we checked in later, the front desk attendant was someone completely different in all aspects. Parking is in the back, although it looks like a big lot, half of it is for buses but there are a few spots and the others were covered by piles of snow. Why would you shovel snow into vacant parking spots??? Oh, yeah, cause no one stays here anyway.
The building itself stretches itself parallel to Banff Avenue so if you get a room at the other end of the street, it is best to haul your luggage outside, down the street and back in through a street level door. I have no idea what Paul B. is referring to either because we had a "prison window" that didn' t open and we had a view of NOTHING. Seriously looking into the abyss of sorrow and misery. The chairs and seating in our room were stained and gross, none of which I would like to even put my stuff on.
The bell service people also straight up refuse to do their jobs. Expect to haul your own luggage, in your very own bell trolley. And when you are doing this, also expect to uphold traffic as you navigate this trolley through a narrow hallway while people behind you get annoyed that they can't get through......and then SURPRISE! YOU GET TO SOME RANDOM SET OF 5 STEP STAIRS and then have to haul ALL your bags the rest of the way. NO ONE mentioned this to us.
Fail fail fail. I've stayed at my fair share of economy lodges but this one wins ALL the awards. -
Review from Michael C.
Vancouver, BC
1/24/2012 5 Check-ins Here
Below average stay in a great location.
This place is conveniently located right in the heart of downtown Banff. Only so many things can fit in their downtown core considering it's only 2-3 blocks long lol. You are across the street from liquor stores, food, shopping, clubs, and lounges. Pretty much all you need at your door step!
So we arrive late at night and checked into the hotel with 4 adults. We hurry up the elevator and took a long walk down to the room only to find 1 bed. Really???? Sure no problem, we'll just sleep on each other. Grown ass men! It was an honest mistake and I was grumpy and tired, but shouldn't you know? About 10 mins later we get another room and at least this time they got it right.
So the layout, starting from the underground up, you got the pub downstairs and hotel hot tub, lobby and Tony Roma's Restaurant, and business center on the 1st floor. This hotel pretty much stretches across the length of the block, however there are only 3 elevators that we discovered during our stay here. One in the lobby (slow), one about 10 meters away (the faster one) near the parking lot entrance, and the last one is allllllllll the way down the hall near the secret exit (half way down the block).
The hotel itself is pretty old, you could tell. They have renovated it to look more modern and at least got some flat screens in there, but they should do a little more. One of the rooms that we visited, the toilet wasn't fastened to the floor that well so the fear of falling over while trying to wipe your derriere was greatly experience by some. Shower curtains that didn't quite hold all the water in the tub which we had to clean up from time to time. I guess we did the housekeeping a favour cause that bathroom floor was spotless after we dried it up. TV channels were mostly fuzzy and the rooms were lacking outlets so sat in dim rooms as we happily caught up with our work back home. Thin walls and doors allowed us to creep on other rooms with was entertaining.... Take the walk to the shower for the men's was pretty nasty considering you needed to walk pass the dirty wet washrooms after the hot tub. Make sure you got flip flops!!!!
I don't mind this place being older or the misleading pictures, because the price was ok for the location in town. We parked at the hotel and pretty much walked everywhere and stumbled back with no problem at all. The pictures of this place is misleading and are smaller than they appear. The picture on their website is probably an upgrade version, the 2 bedrooms we got barely had space for us and our gear. I would have given this place 3 maybe 4 stars, but I'm -1 star for a special conversation we had with the GM.
So it all began on one cold Banff night. We were a bit rowdy and coming back from the club. We came in the hotel and proceeded towards our room. I wasn't quite with my group the entire time, but I did notice them greeting fellow drunkies in the hall. We arrive at our room and were maybe out there trying to find our key for about 30-45 secs before some half naked old man came out and told us to be quiet. Ok, we just got here and were aren't the only ones out here in this hallway, but ok no problem, "Sorry sir, we are just trying to get into our rooms. Have a good night and we'll keep it down."
We stay up and chatted a little longer before we passed up. The next morning we received a call from the big man himself, the General Manager. What does he have to say to us? We were being loud all night in the whee hours of the night (oh, I didn't know we partied at the hotel). Six rooms complained about us (really, they pointed us out out of all the rooms). He wasn't going to "PRESS CHARGES" it was our last warning otherwise he was going to evict us (don't talk to me like we are f*cken children now). Most of us wanted to march down there and give him a piece of our mind. We held our tongue out of respect of the CC holder, but I guess that's why there's also Yelp! Oh how I love you Yelp!
I understand noise complains are bad for other guest, but threatening your other hotel guest is worse. There are many other ways to handle this situation in a way that much better than that. We aren't the only people coming back from the club at that hour, it just happened to be that one room that just popped out and saw us so we became the scapegoat in this situation. How are we suppose to know how loud we are if we are inside the room. How about your staff address the issue immediately rather than telling us afterwards.
The situation was poorly handled by the General Manager and I would rate this place 0 if it was based on costumer service, however I am going to give this place 2 because of location and I'll be reluctant to refer people to this place.Listed in: Banff
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Review from Tiffany S.
Toronto, ON
10/20/2010
On a three week road trip across Canada with my boyfriend we were in a different hotel every night. We were on a budget and the Mount Royal stands out as both one of the nicest places we stayed and the place that offered the best value for the rate we paid.
The staff was professional and friendly and the room was large, clean and featured a beautiful high ceiling and view overlooking the main street. The beds were fluffy with big white comforters (not the usual tarp-like, dark floral comforters we had come to expect on our budget). After checking in as we were bringing our bags into the lobby the desk clerk, seeing how much we had to carry, offered to upgrade our room to one that was easier to access from the main elevator. Another employee passing through the lobby offered to grab us a luggage trolley. These small gestures stood out as excellent customer service and made us feel very welcome.
We will definitely return to the Mount Royal and highly recommend. -
Review from jef C.
4/10/2009
This place is just ok.
The rooms are small, the cable tv is fuzzy, and the internet is slow, IF it's working.
The only plus being your right in the heart of the action. Luxury this hotel is not. -
Review from Kristin K.
1/7/2010
For the price of this hotel, it was everything we needed. We stayed here for 4 nights and didn't have any problems at all. The beds were very comfortable, the room and bathroom were clean, it was in dead center of town, there was a big hot tub indoors for after skiing, and the shuttle buses came up to the hotel. The front desk was very friendly and talkative. I'm the type of person that will only stay in 5 star resorts if I'm on a beach, other wise I go for cheap, clean, safe, and convenient and all 4 were met here.
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Review from sue c.
Richmond, BC
9/10/2009
Do not stay on 4th floor. It is so easy to get lost. Pictures on the website are misleading, rooms are super small and hotel staffs are not helpful. When I asked to change room they did but asked us pay for upgrade.. after changing room, it was better.
