Tod "www.todmaffin.com" M.'s Profile

My mother always told me to say nice things, so here they are: The Westin Portland is in a good location -- close to the famous food courts -- and the decor is quite nice. The room had a window that opened a bit and the doorman is very nice and helpful.

From there, unfortunately, this hotel didn't meet my expectations of a Westin hotel at all.

Right from check-in, a bunch of things were missed. Didn't get a key for the minibar... things that I'd asked to be in the room were ignored... the Internet was supposed to be free but their system prompted us to pay, etc.

There's no hotel concierge, but the affable front desk clerk said he could help -- wanted to know what plays or musicals or shows were in town. He only knew one show in town (the big one) and in the end just had someone bring up the local entertainment newspaper to the room. Granted, he wasn't a dedicated concierge, but I sort of expected a Westin front desk person would be able to do more than get me a newspaper. Hell, I could have done that myself.

The room had no desk phone, only a wireless phone which could only hold a charge for about 10 minutes before going dead (once, right in the middle of a critical call with my bank).

And then dinner. Ordered room service and there was a 22% service charge. I'm used to there being a small delivery fee, but 22% is quite hugh. And then, there was a $2.95 surcharge on the service charge. Huh?! Reading the fine print on the bill, it said that 16% of the 22% service charge would go to the server (so... 16% of 22%, meaning only 1/5th of the fee goes to her? or did they mean the majority of the 22%?) and yet there was an ADDITIONAL line reading "Tip."

I wanted to be sure that I tipped the server, so I asked her if the 22% WAS her tip, but she didn't even seem to understand English well enough to know what I was asking.

Worst of all, housekeeping seemed to be a pretty lazy job. A newspaper that I left on the floor remained on the floor -- and the vacuum marks on the floor showed that the housekeeper actually just vacuumed AROUND the newspaper instead of picking it up! Socks that were by the bed were also left there and vacuumed around. All in all, there wasn't a lot of evidence that they had cleaned the room at all.

The flat sheets on the bed weren't tucked in -- they were just placed on top of the mattress. So within minutes of lying down, the sheet was all bunched up and you were sleeping right on the raw mattress itself all night. I mentioned it to the front desk person on the way out, in time for them to, you know, tuck the sheet in, but upon returning to the room at the end of the day, the sheet still wasn't tucked in.

Of course, none of these are dealbreakers. You might call them "first-world problems" -- and no hotel is going to get everything right. But it seemed like there were so many of these little things that it really made me wonder why I just didn't stay at the Holiday Inn where the service quality would have been about the same and the price one-quarter of what the Westin charged me.

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UPDATE: The manager was very polite and apologetic and comp'ed our entire stay. Still not sure if I'd try them again, but it's nice to know they listen.

This new sushi restaurant opened up in my neighbourhood so I was excited to try it out. It is, curiously, right across the street from another sushi restaurant.

We visited on their first day open, so there are bound to be some stumbling blocks.

The venue itself if tastefully decorated, if a little cold (in temperature and design aesthetic). Seats about 13 in the front and there's a single big booth in the back that could seat probably eight or so in a pinch. There's also a cute little two-seat sushi bar. You get the sense they probably could fit more tables in if they wanted to, but it was nice that you weren't crowded.

Bonus: They have organic brown rice available on the menu, but don't ask you if you want it (missed upsell, and I forgot to ask for it which wasn't great).

On to the food.

It was good sushi overall. The tuna sashimi (my own personal bellwether for whether a sushi place is good) was excellent but very, very cold. Almost still frozen in the middle. Thus, the consistency was firmer than usual. I ordered it spicy and they used a nice spicy soy sauce instead of the west-coast standby of spicy mayonnaise.

The yam tempura roll was excellent -- sweet and the California Roll... well, how back can they screw that up? :-)

Here's the problem. It took 40 minutes to get the tuna sashimi (where the preparation simply involves cutting it into squares!) and the above two other rolls another five. I've had DELIVERY sushi arrive faster (seriously). This might be because they're new?

I tried their Soho Roll (not much to say there - a roll wrapped in cucumber instead of rice) and their Viva Roll which, despite the little Hot Pepper symbol, wasn't hot at all. In the pictures, it looks like it's barely any rice (which appealed to me) but when it arrived it was full of double-layered rice, which was a little disappointing. :(

Overall, it's probably a good place to order from and pick up (so you're not there waiting long) and get some pretty decent sushi. Nothing to write home about.

It's simple. I called them and they didn't answer their phone. I left a clear voicemail message. Days later, they still hadn't called back.

Maybe they're busy, who knows. But the lack of a courtesy call doesn't bode well. I went with http://www.yelp.ca/biz... instead who did a great job.

P.S. Thanks to the owner who wrote the update, below. Classy response. :-) Show owner comment »

It doesn't get much better than this place. I often will just walk-in and stay in one of their rooms after a long flight, even though I live in Vancouver! Get the rooms with the floor-to-ceiling windows and soaker jacuzzi tubs!

Very happy with this place. The room was basic, but well appointed -- comfortable bed, wireless phone, and a real coffee maker. The room service was excellent, service was friendly...

And free wifi -- not only in the room, but seamlessly throughout the meeting room area, the lounge, the lobby... didn't even have to log in again.

The only things I didn't like was that the iron in the room had some ort of sticky residue on it which made it impossible to iron. Luckily, I always iron inside-out just in case something like this happens. And their in-house coffee tastes like an ashtray.

Beautiful location and all, but that's where the positive experience stopped for me.

I requested a wake-up call and they forgot about it. (I was the keynote speaker for a major event at their resort. Had I been speaking early in the morning, this could have been disastrous.) I'm assuming they never even realized they missed it, because no mention was made of it and no apology offered.

Room service charged me $28 for a $20 breakfast. If there's a delivery fee, it's not listed on the menu, and when I asked the server if there were any additional fees added to the cost of the room service meal, she said she didn't think so but would call me to confirm. She never did.

This wouldn't have been too bad, had they gotten my meal right. Instead of a full breakfast (toast, hashbrowns, tomato, as described in the menu) I got two eggs and a bagel. Not at all what I ordered. When I called back to ask if I could get what I ordered, the server said "Well, he told me that you only ordered the bagel and eggs." Defensiveness is never a good sign.

The coffee was okay but the sugar packets were ROCK SOLID (with nothing provided like a spoon to stir it with). I didn't even know sugar could become that form. It made me concerned that if they're not even rotating the sugar packets well enough, what other mysteries lurk in my meal. So I decided I'd better not tempt fate, and didn't eat the rest of it. $28 down the tubes.

I was going to mention the sugar when I spoke to the server, but she had already hung up on me. She did, though, bring me a comicly large plate of the missing items.

The room itself was nice with a beautiful view and a small but well-appointed bathroom.

Just don't plan on getting any work done because their wireless Internet didn't work. I checked on three different devices. I rebooted all three first. When I called the front desk, the best they could offer was "Well, it SHOULD work." No offer to have someone come up and check, no phone number to tech support, and they didn't even tell me there was in fact a hard-wired Internet connection hidden in the room -- something I only found out quite late into the evening by accident.

And then, to add insult to injury, when the housekeeping lady was at the door (to her credit, she did knock and wait) and I told her I'd be out of the room in about a half-hour, she turned her back on me right away and mumbled "Okay." Or it might have been "Thanks." Whatever it was, it felt pretty dismissive. :-(

Finally, when I checked out, I was told "Oh we've already checked you out." Never was asked if my stay was okay or anything. Worse, never gave me a chance to review my bill. I still have no idea what they charged me. (I called the following day and, indeed, the room service charge stayed as it was. No adjustment, no explanation for the nearly twice-as-much-as-the-menu price.)

In short, if you're coming to admire the view, play golf, and stay outdoors, this is probably a great place. But if you plan on doing anything inside your actual room -- ordering food, surfing the web, etc. -- pick somewhere else.

UPDATE: A week later, after I left the URL of this review on their in-room "How did we do" comment card, still haven't heard a peep from the resort. Lousy. :-(

UPDATE: It's now been a month. Left a note weeks ago on their Facebook page which they don't appear to monitor. Rest assured, if you have any problems with this resort, they don't seem to care.

Honestly, if you're going to run a car rental place that offers a GPS system, you should probably try taking one out on the road yourself to see if it actually works.

Three times (!), Budget's GPS tried to direct me down dirt roads -- roads which paralleled the main highway (which, of course, I should have been on). In one case, I drove for five minutes along a dirt road convinced it knew where it was going. (I don't live in the area so I certainly didn't know the right route to the resort I was going to. That's why I got a GPS!) That particular sojourn ended, literally, in a dead-end.

Getting the car and returning it seemed to be an unusually long process. Checking the car out, in particular, took forever. I have bought companies whose contracts had less places to sign, initial, and place a thumbprint of your own blood.

I had the car for about 24 hours. The guy told me it would be $19.99 plus $6.99 for their "top-up" insurance in case my Gold credit card wouldn't cover anything. (I thought that was the point of those cards!) Whatever. So I figured I'd be paying about $32 or so.

Only when I checked in did I discover that the fee would be for two full days (even though I was close to a 24-hour window) for both the rental and the extra insurance. So it ended up costing me double what I had expected.

I supposed someone who rents cars all the time would have known that, but I don't. I assume when people say "That's going to be $6.99," that that's the price I'll pay. If it's going to be "per day," don't you think they should tell you that?

There was nobody at the return spot outside so I went in to return it -- friendly young woman helped me, took the GPS fee off, and gave me an additional 10% off, so that was a nice touch. And, like the check-out of the car, this process seemed unnaturally long. Apparently "the system" kept booting her out as she was trying to process the discount.

Best part: One of their employees, Jonathan, wears a nametag which proudly says "Working Here for 3 Years!" It's proudly stamped into his nametag. I guess turnover is pretty high if you're celebrating three years!

The difference between getting FROM the airport and getting TO the airport was like I was dealing with two different companies. The first one was great, the second was horribly unreliable.

Getting picked up at Toronto airport was great -- I guess I was the only passenger because a nice private towncar picked me up and took me to nearbyb Niagara-on-the-Lake. This was a great experience.

Now then.

We turn to the ride back. Those of you with weak stomachs may want to close your browser.

First, I get a call -- worse: just a voicemail on my hotel phone! -- telling me that they were now picking me up 15-20 minutes earlier than I had booked. No phone number to call them back. No asking me if that'd work. Normally that's not a huge deal but in this case I was going to be on-stage in front of 300 people at that time. I was going to have to rush past people after my speech as it was to make the one I'd booked.

No dice. It was the new time or the highway. No, wait, NO HIGHWAY because they wouldn't take me at the time I had booked.

They said they could get me on their 3:45 p.m. shuttle so, with no other options, I agreed. That required a call to Air Canada to change my flight (I no longer was going to be able to make the one that I would have had Niagara Air Bus not done this). Which cost me a $75 change fee.

It would take two hours, said the guy on the other end of the phone, to get from where I was to Pearson airport. That would be 5:45 p.m., including usual traffic. That would make it tight again but doable.

At 3:45 p.m., sure enough a shuttle arrives. As we pull away, the driver says "I'm not taking you to the airport. You know that, right?"

WTF?!?! No, as it turns out, he wasn't. He was going to collect some more people around time, then drive to a parking lot where they would transfer us to ANOTHER shuttle. Eek. I said "They told me we'd be at the airport around 5:45. That's still the plan, right?"

"5:45 they said?" he asked. Then... wait for it... he started laughing. LAUGHING. "Oh no, you're not going to make that." Good. More travel panic. I'm beginning to think Niagara Air Bus doesn't have any clocks in their offices.

Sure enough, we pull into a parking lot to wait for the new shuttle. We wait. And wait. (Apparently, we were five minutes early.) Then, without explanation we were off again in the same shuttle. I looked back and there were more than a couple of confused faces. We drove to a second parking lot and transferred there.

Instead of 5:45 p.m., it was 6:15 p.m. by the time I was out and on my way with my luggage.

Thirty minutes may not sound like a big deal, but when you're booked on an airline's schedule (especially one overbooked, still trying to get over a bunch of shuffling owing to an averted strike) you really don't want time screwups like that.

Is it too much to ask a shuttle service to adhere to the timelines they tell their customers?

There were some good points.
1. The drivers were friendly enough. One told us to tell him if it was too cold, which it wasn't. A nice touch.
2. We didn't crash.

Not a great experience. I went in to order a "tropical" smoothie and the server (who spoke very quietly and with a thick enough accent that I had to ask her to repeat herself a number of times).

She said: "Oh the Tropical Smoothie is made with syrup, not real fruit. Do you still want it?"

I thanked her and said, no, I'd prefer one with real fruit. So I ordered the strawberry-banana smoothie. Sure enough, she pumped syrup into that one too. So I stopped her and said "I thought it was only the Tropical one wasn't real." No, she said, they all were (which, of course, wasn't what I'd inferred). It was too late and I ended up with it. (I suppose if I wanted to be a prick, I could have refused it.)

It was good, but tasted more like sugary syrup than strawberries or bananas.

Also ordered a large Americano and it was horribly weak.

I was really impressed with this hotel -- it felt like a very upscale mid-range hotel (think a high-end Holiday Inn). Renovations are great.