Holiday Inn & Suites Vancouver Downtown by IHG

The hotel has a nice lobby, with chandeliers over the staircases, and the rooms are nice too. Breakfast costs extra, $22 for the standard option or $26 for the full hot buffet. As an American, I found that unusual. I’d go for the full buffet, since it’s only $4 more and includes pancakes and waffles and so on. There are plenty of good places to eat just a block or two away. The annoying part is the layout: many rooms are in a back section of the building, much farther away than the usual rooms, which is a pain with bags. Still, it’s a good place to stay.

We were staying here for an appointment at St Paul's hospital. The person who checked us in was friendly and informative, upgraded us to a larger room, and gave us breakfast vouchers because of my IHG status. The rooms seemed recently updated and were clean and quiet for a downtown building. Parking was secure and covered, though steep at $45 a night. We’ll definitely come back for our next appointments.

The staff were welcoming and very polite, and the location made it easy to get around quickly. Our room was spacious, with twin double beds and plenty of sleeping space. The bathroom had only a fixed shower head, and I would have preferred a handheld one. The air conditioning didn’t work very well. Adjusting it on the control pad had little effect, and the room stayed warm, so we had to open the window to let in cool air and avoid waking up sweaty.

We found out only at check-in that the pool was closed, even though it was one of our main reasons for booking. Breakfast wasn’t included either. I’ve stayed at Holiday Inn Express hundreds of times for work and personal trips and have always had a buffet breakfast included, but apparently that isn’t the case at the HIE downtown Vancouver. It’ll be my first and last stay here. The location is downtown but not in a great part of it. There were people with crack pipes a block away, and I didn’t feel comfortable walking at night. Other hotels I’ve stayed at in the downtown core felt much safer. Our room was clean, but the walls were paper thin. We could hear guests talking in their rooms late at night, and construction started at 7:30 AM with no warning from the front desk. We tried taking the stairs down before dinner for a bit of exercise, but they led to what looked like a locked cage. You can only exit the stairwell on certain floors, so we had to go back up and take the elevator. When I asked the front desk, the man answered in a snotty tone that it was the right stairwell, but you have to push the cage door and it sets off the fire alarm. If guests were panicking during an alarm, they could go down those stairs, think they were trapped, and cause a serious evacuation backup.