Coast Edmonton Plaza Hotel by APA — Hotel in Edmonton

We booked this hotel through Expedia, where it’s advertised as a 4-star property — but it felt much closer to a 1-star stay. it really feels like one of those seedy motels you see in the action movies. While the room was clean, the hotel overall is very dated and in serious need of upgrades. The bathtub looks like it needed changing a long time ago, and all the wallpaper on the walls is peeling. The appliance and mechanical noise in the room made it almost impossible to sleep, and the soundproofing was poor — we could hear noise from the hallway and adjacent rooms. I have to say that the check-in experience was good, Sofia checked us in quickly, was friendly and we had no issues. I'll add that the hotel is located in a seedy part of downtown with a strip club right in front of it and construction happening to the side. Overall the surrounding area isn't great.

Anyways we were out exploring the city and had come back late to the room. The AC was extremely loud so we had to opt to turn it off, ending up trading air circulation for some quiet, or so we thought... Even turned off the AC emitted a loud mechanical drone; furthermore the fridge also did the same. At 3 am we called the front desk to try to resolve the issue. Someone had come up to our room and helped relieve the pressure in the old system a bit to soften the noise briefly. When questioned, he said that the system is from the 70s and there really wasn't much that he could do to reduce the noise further. After he left it got even louder. Despite this we tried to get some sleep.

The next day we decided it wasn't worth staying at the hotel for the full three nights that we had booked. It would be detrimental to our health. I went to the front desk and explained our issue and how we hadn't gotten any sleep. They offered to move us to a different room but told us that the appliances are the same in every room. Rather than risk another sleepless night we decided we wanted to leave. I politely asked the hotel to refund the two unused nights — I was happy to pay for the first one, despite the poor experience — but was told no refund could be issued because I had booked through Expedia.

Regardless the experience was so poor that we decided to leave anyway. After we had packed and vacated the room, I went to the front desk to ask for a receipt or invoice for the night I stayed (standard practice for any hotel), and even that was refused. This was very strange, as having booked many hotels through expedia in the past, I was always provided with an invoice upon departure. Furthermore they even told us that we were free to leave early, but they wouldn't be able to check us out as per the hotel's policy. They said they would have to leave the room under our name until the actual check out date. We just left the room cards at the front desk and decided to leave.

The front desk staff were generally professional, but the manager on duty (Mary-Ann) was rigid and lacking in empathy, which made the situation more frustrating than it needed to be. She is mostly who we dealt with. Mary-Ann called me when we arrived at our new hotel. She tried to tell me in a very roundabout manner that they would be doing me a huge favour and refunding less than half a night's stay... I hung up, choosing not to deal with this kind of toxicity.

Overall, I would recommend you stay away from this...

The staff were amazing! We booked Fri-Mon to celebrate our daughter’s 29th birthday and attended the Evanescence concert Sunday night, checked out Monday. ||Check in: we arrived around 4:30pm and to our surprise there were about 40 people in line to check-in! What was amazing is the hotel had all registration desks open, and the team behind the counter did a great job and getting people checked in. By the time we got to the desk, it was quick, we had room cards in hand and happy to get settled in after our 6 hour drive! ||Adjoing Rooms: There were 6 of us so we booked 2 adjoining rooms, each with 2 Queen size beds. The rooms were dated, but clean 👍 The main issues we had with our rooms, was there were absolutely zero chairs! So with 3 adults per room, the only seating option was a little cushion along the window ledge to sit on. It was incredibly uncomfortable so our option was to always sit on the bed, which none of us enjoyed. We had driven 6 hours, arrived late afternoon and ordered food in so we could relax. With nowhere to sit, again, it was super awkward and uncomfortable to be eating on our laps on the bed. We did consider requesting chairs, but there was no place to put them, nowhere as the rooms were much smaller than we expected. I’m also an early riser so to have to perch myself on this narrow ledge cushion each early am was awful, very uncomfortable. ||Restaurant: Don’t do it! With 6 of us, I wanted to order a carafe of coffee for our room rather than using several little packets that were provided. That wasn’t an option, we were advised we would need to go to the restaurant and order coffee. We opted to skip order Timmies box of coffee. Later, 2 of us opted to go for breakfast on Saturday and were advised it was a breakfast buffet, so we were happy with that, until we actually grabbed food. The scrambled eggs were tasteless/dry, as were the potatoes, the “chicken sausage” was like rubber and barely cooked, the oatmeal looked like paper mache, the fruit was either mushy (watermelon) or rock hard (pineapple). Not good at all, probably the worst breakfast I’ve had at a hotel and I’ve eaten at those hotels where the “continental breakfast” is included. The tipping point was when our bill arrived and it was $50!! 2 adults who hardly ate anything and each had a coffee?!?! Brutal! I think the only item we actually enjoyed was the bacon.||Parking: EXPENSIVE! I drive a standard size F-150, there was NO way I was getting it in the parkade without a lot of maneuvering and super tight spots. We paid the $75 x 3 (vehicles) and opted to use the open parking lot across the street. As it was the weekend and events were happening, we were warned that the lots fill quickly so we would be better off not moving it. Which really sucked, when you pay that much and you’re not guaranteed a spot! Designated hotel spots would be a good idea. It was awful as well for myself, with mobility issues, to have to cross 4 lanes of traffic, it was incredibly busy most of the time. Oh and I won’t even get into the lack of disability parking, pretty non-existent.||Overall, the hotel was clean, the staff are wonderful, but the odds of us staying again are slim to none between the parking and lack of on-site...

My advice for people is to avoid this hotel because of the front desk people do not know how to treat customers, even regular customers. My experience: It was -40 in Edmonton. I got several delays in my flight and asked to check out at 2:00 pm. The hotel was not busy. I wanted to check out at 2:00 pm, requesting one more hour. I was dealing with several delays in my flight because of the weather conditions, and I wanted to reduce the number of hours I stayed in the airport. I come to the hotel every three months, and if those who care about their business review my history, they will find that I have been a regular customer for over a year. I have made a booking through the hotel website, so no third-party fees deducted from the business. The front desk could not make a decision, adding more stress to the stress I already had. I worked in customer service before, and I know how to treat customers. If the policy says no extension after 1:00 pm unless you pay $75, the front desk people do not care about a regular customer. I did pay an extra $75 for late checkout when I was staying until 6:00 pm. I will NEVER stay at this hotel again. If the front desk people do not value regular customers and care about money, regardless of the unusual circumstances, the best response to the poor skills and the stressful front desk is to lose the customer entirely. Later after I left, I received a message on my phone saying that they declined my one-hour request because of the housekeeping schedule. Really? Truly, liars? What if I paid the $75? Would not this affect the housekeeping schedule? My advice is to the owner of this business is to get people on the front desk who understand what customer care means because they are totally ignorant about those things. Or, get them to think from '""""sales"""" point of view. This is an honest advice. I won't come back to this hotel, no matter what. Put people who can decide how to respond to customers stress during unusual circumstances, and find a manager who can take phone calls from the front desk when customers are facing unusual circumstances. You, utterly, have a team that is illiterate about customer care. From sales point of view, all your team cared about is to get me to pay $75 for an extra hour beyond the late check out. I did not pay it and left waited in the lobby. Now you lost me as a regular customers, with negative reviews about the experience everywhere. How much would this cost you? Your team has Zero sales skills. Manager expected response (as usual) I expect the manager to express sorrow for the inconvenience they caused, reiterates the policy about late check out, telling me that I could have stayed as much hours as I want in the lobby, and that they did their best. 😂😂😂 This part of the review is to the manager: You do not really to respond. Save your time and effort, and work more in getting employees who know what customer care means and have some sales skills. I do not want an apology. I have already made a decision not to come back to your hotel based on how front desk team treated me in the worst weather and...