The Pearle Hotel & Spa, Autograph Collection — Hotel in Burlington

Wedding Planning - Sometimes it’s hard to get a hold of the event planner person you are talking to and planning with as you will probably see that’s the most amount of complaints you will see online. They did give us faster responses the month before the wedding which makes sense. My guess is the planning staff is probably overwhelmed - as I think there’s like 3-4 people who do most of it. So forgive them for emailing slower. Also a good thing to take in account is their work hours and days. so we were able to coordinate our questions better

Overall the events planning team did a great job - though slow sometimes I have heard from a personal friend who works events planning of the stress involved with wedding planning that she would rather touch hot coals before touching a wedding event. Side note: the event planners are really knowledgeable as Megan even knew days of lent and Chinese ghost months as well as lucky and unlucky days due to religion or superstition. ( we almost planned our wedding day during lent but luckily Megan reminded us and stopped us before we locked in a bad day for our respective families ) so kudos to her for that.

$Pricing$- Pricing is a bit on the higher mid end You won’t be getting a budget deal BUT one thing we did ask is that for the venues they do have a minimum guest amount. Saying that - do ask if instead you can aim for a minimum spend. So rather than feeding 160+ people of some who you don’t like - we fed 140 people with add-ons ( pasta , extra canapés etc )

They do offer deals on non prime days. Sunday , weekdays - etc. and none prime months. So always ask. Also definitely definitely keep track of emails and contracts as if you do get some deals it’s pretty much your job to keep track of. Overall though for what we paid for I am content with what we got.

Food - You’ll see some reviews that food is mid but honest unless you’re someone who goes to nobu on a daily basis the food was really really good.

I was worried about canapés as they don’t really have a picture example or any videos but from what I heard from our guests there was more than enough - I was really happy hearing that guests went into the set dinner already full the canapés we personally tasted were really good - I really enjoyed the steak bites and spicy chicken.

Kids meal was your basic tenders with fries - but the smart thing is that they brought out the food for the kids first ( a starving child is a loud child lol )

The only meh thing for us was the burgers/ sliders as a late night snack. That was generic but what do you expect - we did get the pierogies ( NOTE they are fried “western” type - to my polish wife’s disappointed haha ) and we also had the dumplings - which as an Asian I can say were not bad. ( note for us our plan was that people going into late night were not still hungry so really the late night options should not matter to much.

Concierge and maître de -

I’m not 100% sure what is what - but I do know we had Sabrina who focused on us ( bride and groom ) - she was definitely amazing; not sure what a day of event coordinator does as we did look into one but Sabrina helped us out a lot and honestly made the whole day for us personally - go seamlessly. She did things like made sure we had canapés set aside for us in the hotel room ( after the ceremony ) so we had something to eat while we took photos. Which we never thought of as we were starving after we did our photos during cocktail hour. So that was a blessing. Overall 11/10 service by that the concierge / maître de service ) - and The Pearle if you read all of this give Sabrina a raise or something.

-Overall thoughts- Would me and the wife want to re live the events of that day ? Yes ! Would we recommend the venue ? Yes ! - in fact 3 couples that got recently engaged are now pestering us about the venue which in the end made me also just write this review to sum it up...

The Pearle is absolutely a 5-star hotel! We've stayed 3 times this summer, and everything about this property is amazing.

The location is right on the waterfront, and most rooms have a beautiful view of the lake. It is walking distance to many restaurants and bars, with ample amenities nearby. The hotel is brand new and every detail was carefully thought out from the lobby to the guest rooms. It truly feels like you are at an urban oasis when staying here, perfect for a relaxing getaway.

The welcoming lobby has a beautiful staircase and is nicely lit. The pool and gym are well-appointed with a great size and large windows. Oversized bathrooms feature double sinks and a soaker tub, with separate huge shower and toilet. Rooms boast a large wall-mounted TV, closet with robes and slippers, an iPad directory of the amenities, mini fridge drawer, and a new espresso machine. Some rooms offer terraces which are nice to have in the summer as well. The restaurant is beautiful with a large outdoor terrace and a lakeview. The lovely white wood with matte black accents can be found throughout the hotel. They also have banquet facilities where many events and weddings are hosted throughout the year.

The staff is what makes this property stand out, as everyone from the valet/ doormen, to front desk, housekeeping, room service, and restaurant were very friendly and eager to make our experience excellent. It is very clear that the staff are very well-trained, with the utmost hospitality in mind. A special thanks to Aisha in guest services for making our recent 5-night stay so special. She went above and beyond in many ways to make our special staycation perfect! All the front desk staff were always available to make recommendations and took pleasure in providing any help when needed. The "At your service" phone line also was a nice quick way to get anything we needed from ordering breakfast to extra towels.

There are two dining options on-site, with Bread Bar serving absolutely delicious breakfast which can be had as room service (they also have lunch on-site). We loved everything we tried from there, and our meals kept us full for hours! Isabelle is their full-service restaurant with large dining room, bar, and patio. Although the prices are relatively high, the quality is excellent with a unique menu and large wine selection. It is nice to splurge here for a special occasion if you're staying in town.

My only feedback would be the following: -The restaurant was absolutely slammed on an August Saturday night, leading to long waits and slow service for drinks and food. At the price being demanded, there needs to be more staff hired for efficiency. As mentioned, all staff were very friendly but these kinks need to be worked out with this new establishment as we were not impressed. Also I had made a note on the reservation about my partner's birthday (and confirmed with front desk), but unfortunately this was not passed on to the wait staff which was disappointing. -Housekeeping did a great job, and we were even fortunate to have turndown service one night with a nice note and a welcome amenity. However, some mornings we could hear housekeeping staff loudly conversing while getting supplies and cleaning the room next to us. -Along those lines, given this hotel hosts many weddings we also unfortunately heard some noise from the hallways very late one night. We were the closest room to the elevator so experienced a bit of disturbance from those guests staying in the hotel partying into the night.

Overall, this is such a great hotel and I will be back over and over again. They are truly in the business of hospitality and know how to make guests feel welcome and appreciated. All of the amenities are top-notch, and I would highly recommend visiting this beautiful hidden gem for a special occasion or a nice relaxing...

Booked this venue for our upcoming wedding.

The wedding consultant is the one who sold us on the wedding venue promised us that we can sleep in the hotel the night before the wedding, wake up there during the day and have the bridesmaids and groomsmen get ready in our rooms on the wedding day. All of this was complimentary. Plus she said she will throw in 2 extra rooms for our parents since they will be coming from out of town.

Sounds great until it never happened

Now we're getting charged for our rooms to stay in the night before and on our wedding day. That's not what the wedding consultant promised us at all. Now we are stressing about this because this is extra thousands of hidden charges to us.

KEY NOTE: the hotel where you sleep in and the wedding coordinator are completely different entities. They don't communicate with each other. So here, I have to come in and say the wedding consultant promised this to the hotel team. I shouldn't be doing this. The wedding consultant and the hotel team should be sorting things out and communicating with each other.

The next problem is the hotel team. There's only 1 single person that books the room. Yes only 1. I found this out when I called the hotel and pressed 2. The reservations coordinator didn't return our calls. I've asked the hotel when she works so that I can call during her working hours... nobody knows. I asked if she has a boss so I can speak to. Guess what... nobody knows. She's a rogue agent running things. Very hard to get a hold of her on the phone. Through email she promised to call my finance to clear things up... we're still waiting on that phone call.

We had scheduled with the the wedding consultant to see her at 4:30pm on Friday at the hotel. This was confirmed by email. Next thing her assistant or someone does a follow up email saying they'll see us on Thursday. We had to correct that person and tell them it's Friday. Just so disorganized it's frustrating.

So yes the wedding sector of the Pearl and the actual Hotel itself are separate entities and don't talk to each other. Also the people are very hard to get a hold of. The communication is extremely poor. Appalling for a high class hotel.

Just be aware that you will have to do the coordinating yourself.

Just a follow up, Samantha Hillis followed up with us and sorted out everything. Thank you Samantha for getting on the phone with us and addressing all of our concerns. We were stressed for months with our room bookings and we are glad you phoned us up to sort it out.

POST WEDDING UPDATE I want to say my wedding day was amazing. Everyone that attended said it was the best wedding they've ever been to. There's 3 people I want to mention that made this day amazing. Megan Martin. She was an absolute joy to work with. She actually made planning the day fun and easy. Also we did many follow up emails and she was on point with sorting out the finer details. She's an absolute all-star. If you get to work with her, you're blessed! Another mention is Shannon for our day of coordinator. On our wedding day Shannon was there making sure everything ran smoothly. She was absolutely amazing! A lifesaver! She made our day so stress free. Bless her! And lastly Carter. I ran into Carter for our food tasting and also for our wedding day and he was so helpful with attending to any needs we had. I can't stress enough how helpful Carter was. He's amazing and has a wonderful contagious smile. He really makes everyone smile when we see him and we all love him.

Overall, I wish I could have given the Pearle a 6 out of 5 because everything came together so beautifully at the end. But because of the terrible start, I'll leave it at 4/5. Would I do the Pearle...