Basecamp Suites Banff — Hotel in Banff

Mixed experience at Basecamp.

Positives: spacious interior and good location (but you absolutely pay for it; we booked a 3 bedroom for 6 people)

Negatives: no service at all; no help to answer questions or provide amenities during the stay. Everything is self help / self service

This property is at most a glorified airBnB charged at 5 star hotel prices. Do not expect any service. There is absolutely no cleaning during your stay, not even periodic takeout of trash or refill of towels.

There is no front desk service. There is someone sitting at the front desk during work hours, but she will not assist you with luggage, or help you open the door (even when she sees you struggling with opening the door while maneuvering the luggage), or answer any questions outside of what’s available in the website FAQ (will tell you to text a number who also only give canned answers). I think this might be because these are all seasonal workers so no one bothers to try very hard to make sure customers have a good stay.

There is no real amenities, not even one set of bottled waters to start, which is disappointing for this price point.

You have to start the dishwasher and clean up the room before leaving. They literally have a sign that they will fine you if you don’t do this. Of course this is just a sign on the fridge. Staff at front desk did not remind you at check in.

The jacuzzi photos are misleading. You will be soaking next to the rooftop parking lot. Not comfortable at all.

Like many other reviews have mentioned, you hear everything on the street and the hallway. But we expected this going into the reservation. Confirming here this is true.

All that said, just be prepared that you are paying a huge premium for location. Don’t associate this price with what you can expect at a...

Perfect location for a ski holiday to Banff/Lake Louise. Clean, comfortable, decently stocked kitchen tools, and the IGA grocery store is right there. Walking distance to lots of shops and restaurants, and the shuttle stop. It’s not fancy, but perfect for a family ski trip. Loved the rooftop hot tubs at the end of the day.

I’d say there are a few possible negative factors to be aware of, which may or may not be relevant depending on your personal situation.

1 - Parking. There is a garage, but you have to pay the daily rate, and the clearance is quite low. If you have a big SUV with a roof rack, it will not fit. That said, we had no problem getting street parking, which ended up being cheaper than the garage daily rate. And since we were visiting end of March/early April, we didn’t have to deal with super cold temps or big dumps of snow. Your situation may be different, but this is not a factor that would prevent me from staying here again.

2 - storage in the unit. If you are the type who likes to unpack from a suitcase into a dresser, you will be disappointed because there were no dressers in our 2 bed unit. However, there are ample hooks and hangers in every room (main, both bedrooms, both bathrooms), and we made it work. Again, not a factor that would prevent me from staying here again.

3 - no laundry in unit. However, there is a coin op laundry in the adjacent shopping area. I think this is something to know going in and pack strategically. We packed knowing we wouldn’t be doing laundry during our stay. Again, not a factor that would prevent me from staying here again.

Hope this is helpful intel. Basecamp Suites Banff was great and I would definitely stay again and consider their properties in other locations as a result of our stay. Also - The view from our unit...

We were here Christmas week so pricing was incredibly elevated.||Overall we enjoyed our stay. Our two bedroom suite was spotlessly clean and modern. The rooftop hot tub was AMAZING and we were surprised to find that we had it to ourselves nearly every night (this was very unexpected due to the time of year!). The view of the mountains from our room was quite beautiful.||Location would be hard to beat - right in the middle of town and a five minute walk to the collection areas for many of the tours (the high school and the train station). The IGA is literally next door, there are two liquor stores within a few hundred metres and so many food options that you are spoiled for choice.||It operates on a self check in model. Great for privacy but it does feel a bit impersonal compared to other hotels. You help yourself to additional amenities and staff are available by phone if necessary. There seemed to be someone usually manning the front desk but they are in a separate office so we didn't really talk to them until it was time to check out.||All that said, I'm not sure that I would stay here again. It's modern but is definitely missing a bit of the charm and personal service that we saw in other Canadian hotels (especially at Christmas time). The beds were really comfortable but oddly warm. They seemed to retain body heat just where you were laying - it was to the point that my son ended up opening the window in December just so that he could sleep.||Overall it was a really nice stay but we paid an absolute premium for it. For the price I think I'd consider other options if we were to return to Banff again. Christmas pricing was more expensive than many of the other highly rated hotels that we'd been considering (Moose etc) and it didn't knock my socks off in the way that...