Hotel Valcartier

The staff were friendly, accommodating, and spoke great English. The atmosphere felt welcoming, and the ice hotel is mind blowing, definitely a must-see. We liked the lifts for the sliding hills, since you don’t have to walk back up, and the waterpark was convenient, although our group found it chilly. The arcade is open great hours, 0700-2300, but you can’t bring food or drinks in, even though they sell them there and have bar tables and stools. There’s water and ice by the elevators on every floor, and having restaurants on site is handy if you don’t want to leave. The rooms didn’t feel as family friendly as I expected. There’s no microwave or food prep space, the family suite only has a small mini fridge, and the hallway soundproofing is poor. At night, you can hear people walking quietly while you’re trying to sleep. The indoor waterpark is only open on weekends, and the day pass only gives you access until 3. To return later in the afternoon or evening, you need to buy a separate pass. Hotel guests also pay a separate, quite expensive fee per person for the waterpark and sliding. Food on site is overpriced and underwhelming in quality, though the breakfast buffet is good and free for kids under 6. For the hotel price, continental breakfast should be included, and the kids’ menu costs a lot. During busy periods, waits for each sliding hill can reach 20-30 minutes. The coffee shop doesn’t open until 8, and the souvenir shops have short hours.

I’ve stayed twice, including nights at the seasonal Hotel de Glacé. Those extra experiences are unique and make this a fun place to visit, but the high ratings are really for them, not Hotel Valcartier itself. The hotel is more like three stars: clean rooms, basic amenities, nothing fancy. Housekeeping is quick when you ask for a fold away bed, blankets, pillows, towels, or other extras. Daily turndown is basic but fine. The front desk helped with booking and questions, although nobody was there for several minutes when we first arrived to check in. The ice hotel is an amazing work of art and a must-see at the very least. This year there’s a three course restaurant inside, which sounds so cool, but we didn’t know about it in time to get the required reservation. The winter resort also has a huge snow tubing park, like a whole small ski resort made up of tubing runs. It’s so fun for all ages. There’s an extra charge for the parks outside the hotel. You can also rent skates and try a neat trail through the woods. Hotel Valcartier has an indoor waterpark too, a change from the snow activities. It’s medium sized compared with others we’ve visited, and our family enjoyed it. The main drawback is being somewhat rural and captive to the hotel restaurants. Food quality is poor, often processed, overcooked, or greasy, and allergy awareness and safe dining choices aren’t great, though there are some options. The pizza and Italian restaurant didn’t open on the Sunday we were there. Even guests with reservations hadn’t been told, so the backlog of people looking for meals meant long waits. Servers were polite but understaffed, and could use more training with refilling water, taking drink orders, clearing tables, and keeping condiments stocked. One restaurant ran entirely out of nachos and wings, and the cafe had no coffee syrups for the drinks it sells. On Sunday the computers went down. At the cafe they froze instead of sorting out billing or payment, leaving people standing around without service. Management didn’t seem to decide how service should continue, how to tell people about the closed restaurant, or how to order and stock supplies, even though Quebec City proper is only 30min away. There are just two main elevators and they’re slow, so waits can be long. One was out of service on my first visit. There are quite a few areas that could be improved, a lot of them managerial issues in my opinion. We expected this kind of hotel, so it is what it is, just not a four star resort. It’s unique, memorable, fun, and jaw dropping in plenty of ways. Visit, and make time for Quebec City too!

The hotel itself is good, the restaurants are okay, and the pools are great. But pay attention to where they put you. I booked the expensive family suite on the third floor, right over the arcades, and it was impossible to sleep until late at night. Those were probably the worst nights I’ve ever had in a hotel.

At night, the fire alarm in our room went off after we showered with the bathroom door open. There’s no bathroom fan. Once we figured out it was only our room, we called the front desk and were told this happens commonly. Their advice was to shower with the door closed and wave a towel in front of the detector to stop the alarm if it happened again. That’s a terrible design flaw. The hotel should have bathroom fans, and the detector may be too close to the bathroom door. Since they can’t rebuild the place, they should at least put up a sign telling guests to keep the bathroom door closed while showering, to avoid an issue they clearly know about.