JW Marriott Edmonton ICE District — Hotel in Central Core

We stayed at the JW for the Weeknd Concert and my daughter’s birthday. It was a very special time for us and I have previously stayed at JW’s with the absolute best experiences. The JW Marriott Ice district is one to skip!||I will start by saying the hotel staff was fairly helpful upon check in. Lots of information on how to get to the venue and kindness. That’s basically where the great treatment stopped. We went to eat late into the evening after a full day on the road as one daughter flew in from Vancouver. The restaurant was inside called Kindred. The food was terrible. I had a salad that was swimming in sauce and some steak sticks that were blue rare in the middle. I ate them and as much as I could muster of the salad as we had a long day and needed food. Both my daughters ordered burgers. One of them got violently ill about 1.5 hours after wards. I told the hotel in the morning in the chat on the app and no one bothered to contact us. I eventually called the day we arrived home to let them know that indeed no one has reached out yet. I then called and submitted an AHS complaint. I would not eat at this particular restaurant in the hotel ever again: the hotel reached out only to ask what symptoms but asking 4 days after the fact was sort of a mute point: we were not refunded and we were made to feel as though we had done something wrong. ||The next thing was that I noticed an odd bite pattern on my skin. I called the hotel and informed them that this was indeed the only place I had stayed and asked if they thought it was possible to have bed bug bites? The supervisor assured me they would look into it. I sent photos of the bite and left my luggage in the garage for fear it could indeed be bed bugs. Again, not one person took the initiative to contact me back and put my mind at ease, I had to call them to ask if they had indeed checked the room. They said their quality control went through the room and it was not noted to have bed bugs. This was the only place I stayed at so I called local pest control to ensure that we didn’t have them in our home. Our home was cleared after inspection and when I showed them the bite they agreed it was typical bed bug pattern bites called breakfast lunch and dinner. They had further recommendations and before I even gave them any information about the area I had been to they asked if it was perhaps Edmonton I had been to as they have had an elevated level of people reporting bed bugs. The GM contacted me and said that while they’re sorry for what happened, they will not accept liability and will go either their own internal investigation. They definitely dismissed my concerns as being unfounded and wouldn’t accept any culpability. I have since filed an AHS complaint for the bed bug issue as well: ||JW is supposed to be top notch. They’re supposed to be reliable and trustworthy. Delivering exceptional service. I’ve stayed with the JW in Costa Rica on multiple occasions without issue and paid double even triple the price for the room, because I had come to trust the brand and quality. I will not ever stay in Edmonton at the JW again and I will carefully consider any further stays. I am also a Marriott member and while I’m only gold status I work as hard as I can to stay loyal and try to earn rewards. I’m not sure I’m going to stay a member after this experience. This hotel is willing to die on a 1200 bill and make me feel as though they don’t value my feedback or take it seriously, so I would encourage people to stay elsewhere. Somewhere that they prioritize your health, your safety and...

This is a really nice new hotel that is in the heart of downtown Edmonton. The location was perfect right in the center. We stayed here for 2 nights initially and ended up extending another night because we were happy with the experience and wanted to stay for one of the Oilers games.

ROOM AND EXECUTIVE LOUNGE The base room is honestly a bit on the small side given the price, but it was very clean, modern and well appointed. The king bed was comfortable and the shower pressure was surprisingly good (better than we've seen in the hotels in this city). The room was pretty much exactly as shown in the hotel photos. I booked the executive room, which basically gives access to the executive lounge but is just the base king room on a higher floor. Normally the charge for this is around $100-150 per night extra. The main reason I booked this was because I wanted to have a nice quiet space to work whenever I wanted to on this trip. The executive lounge is nice, the staff is super friendly and helpful and there is a good selection of nonalcoholic refreshments. The breakfast was a bit underwhelming, we only went 1/3 nights, it lacked choice and was a bit bland; I had higher expectation. Possibly it was just a taste difference and I wanted to see bacon lol. The Hors d'oeuvre they served in the evening were actually really good and changed every day; we went all 3 days. Overall unless you really need a quiet space to work, it's probably not really worth it to book the executive rooms. It is an option though if you really need a comfortable space to work from that's not in the hotel room. I think it would be nice if they had better selection and at least some variety of alcoholic drinks were included.

AMENITIES Talking about space to work, there is actually a lot of seating on the first floor that you can use when the restaurants are not open. Furthermore there is also some nice comfy seating on the 2nd floor where you could get some work done. Lastly there is actually a lot of seating in their gym area. The gym is very nice and large, lots of different workout rooms and equipment. They have a room with heavy bags, my only complaint is that they do not let you borrow or rent boxing gloves or wraps. You can only buy them at $150 a pair. They also don't provide water bottles in the gym, but you can grab one either from your room or from the concierge space on the first floor. They also have a small pool and hot tub area, but we didn't end up using them.

PARKING Parking was $35 for self paring per night I believe. There were a lot of stalls and they were all very spacious, could easily fit a truck. Downside is I did not find any EV charging, but that seems to be the norm in Edmonton.

Overall, after extensive research of the hotels in the area, this is likely one of the best ones to stay at, albeit a bit pricey especially during hockey games.

I want to say that all of the front desk staff and the lounge staff were especially friendly and pleasant to talk to. We enjoyed...

Welll…the rooms were nice however the beds were pretty small..bathroom was nice.. however, not any area designated for storage.. so the counter was continually cluttered. I was under impressed with the fact that unless you’re a premium member or pay $120 per day you’re not allowed to go to the rooftop restaurant which is part of the reason why we wanted to stay there in the first place so that was disappointing and also the fact that the parking is $55 a night or $40 every time you pull in , which tends to get quite pricey when you have people staying in town and people who live in town visiting or coming to say hello”it gets a little costly $$ for the Family members and guests…other than that the valet gentleman Steve was amazing and all in all it’s a nice place ☑️pricing for food, and restaurants was a little bit excessive based on what was received. I would not stay there again I could think of many other places to stay at for a much better deal…. The pool and spa were nice but the pool was underwhelming and didn’t have much atmosphere. And I never got to go to the alchemy bar because every time I tried to go, it was closed… 🙃 I did look at pricing for the spa to go get massages for my family that was staying at the hotel, and the pricing was off the charts .. $400 for a massage is a little bit excessive. I would say I have travelled all over the world and I’ve never seen pricing such as this for any of the services that were offered. It was a little disheartening that we couldn’t go down to the spa and get the treatments that we had intended.. oh and also, the steam room was shut down the entire length of our stay so that wasn’t accessible. . on a lighter note the house cleaning staff was amazing. They cleaned everything to perfection. All bedding was perfect and completed in a timely manner . They were great.🧚 all of the staff were very polite, very kind and very helpful. just one other sidenote it was a little underwhelming that all of the restaurants in the JW stop serving food quite early and we could not get any late night snacks without leaving the hotel to go to basically any dive bar in the area…. Or the local Denny’s, which was what was suggested. All in all. It is a very high-end resort but I’ve seen better and I’ve stayed at...