Radisson Hotel Sudbury — Hotel in Greater Sudbury

Let me begin by saying I don't blame the staff at all. In my interactions with them they were helpful and friendly. But I think management understaffed the hotel over the August holiday weekend and this caused a lot of problems.

The hotel itself is old and probably due for refurbishment. But our beds were still firm and everything in the rooms worked well and the wear-and-tear wasn't too bad so I give the room quality 3 stars.

The location is really unfortunate. The hotel is attached to a mall that--like many malls across North America--has a high vacancy rate and is pretty sad. The neighbourhood seems to be a high crime area and there are security guards around all the businesses. I would not feel safe walking alone at night, and in fact I could not recommend that anyone walk around alone at any time of day.

The breakfast was a major disappointment. The restaurant capacity was insufficient for the number of guests. The coffee and juices were watery. The selection was poor, with only scrambled eggs, hash browns, and sausages available. No bacon, no pastries or muffins, no vegetarian options. I would not recommend anyone pay extra for the "complementary breakfast". You're better off going to the Tim Horton's around the corner.

The one highlight of the hotel is the pool, which is surprisingly large for a hotel pool. It must be 20m long and it reaches a depth of 8ft. It was also clean and the lining was in good shape. Unfortunately a hot tub is present but it seems like they've given up on trying to keep it maintained because it's covered by plywood with potted plants on top. Sadly, I do not have the same level of praise for the fitness centre. A recumbent bike, an elliptical trainer, some kettle bells and some dumbbells. Not even a flat bench!

Let's talk about housekeeping. I'll reiterate that I think the hotel was just terribly understaffed for the number of guests over the holiday weekend. We visited the pool on Friday afternoon and the laundry bin was full and there were perhaps 8-10 fresh towels remaining. Surprisingly, the bin was still full Saturday mid-morning and there were no fresh towels available. I informed the front desk and she said she would tell housekeeping. To their credit, a guy did come down with four (!) towels but did not collect the dirty towels. We visited the pool one more time on Sunday morning and the dirty towels had been collected but there were only 6 fresh towels available. I don't know how they thought this was sufficient when the hotel was almost full.

We were away from the hotel all day Saturday until late in the evening and we were surprised to come back and discover that housekeeping had not even visited our rooms. We did not leave "do not disturb" signs on our doors, so I think the housekeeping staff were simply overworked and were unable to get to our rooms before their shift ended.

In summary, management should know better and should staff up for holiday weekends when they know the hotel is busy. This sort of corner-cutting is just going to destroy them over time because nobody will want to go back after a bad experience.

Having said that, I think outside of busy times the hotel is probably fine. Enjoy the pool (maybe bring your own towels), skip the hotel breakfast and grab it elsewhere, be careful when wandering outside, don't set a high expectation for the freshness of the hotel, and I think the price is a...

We visited Sudbury last weekend on our mini family vacation. This was the first time I booked hotel rooms without reading reviews and completely relied on the brand. It was a big mistake. I booked our room with my Air Miles. It gave me choice to pick room with one queen or one king bed or deluxe room with two doubles with balcony.

First few positives:

Location is very good. Staff was very cooperative.

Now lets discuss our issues with our stay, specially first day:

Room was not ready until 4 PM.

Room was not cleaned properly. It smelled cigarette smoke everywhere in the room. As soon we entered room, we saw dark brown beans type of stuff on the carpet. When my kids looked above they saw spider on the ceiling. I called frond desk about the issue. They sent their cleaning staff guy who vacuumed the carpet and cleared spider. He apologized to us that he missed the spot and told us that it was dog food left from the previous occupants of the room. Next morning I found more spider in the bathroom ceiling.

Kids used bathroom and we noticed that bathroom exhaust did not work either. It is old building, there is no separate exhaust fan. They use old central exhaust system. I checked the exhaust vent by putting paper tissue, it will not hold it. I called front desk again, they said they will send the guy to check it . The guy came and said he would go and check it somewhere in the building to fix it. But he could not fix it. I asked front desk to change our room but they told me that they were fully booked and no room was available that night but told me that they would try to change room next day.

bathroom door handle/knob is very old and hard to use. Kids had hard time opening and closing the door from inside the bathroom.

Squeaky mattresses.

Next day, frond desk changed our room and gave us room on the lobby level which was clean and fresh. No bathroom exhaust issues and door issues but mattress coils were squeaky again. I did not bother calling them again because there is only so much you can complain and after that you give up.

Our problems did not finish yet. Once we checked out and reached home. I checked my credit card, they charged me for both nights when it was already paid with Air Miles. I had to call Font desk again and explained to the girl. She told me that she would check it soon as she was busy with customers and call me back. After waiting for hour and half , I called them again to check it. She told me that she spoke to her manager and confirmed that it was a mistake on their part and they would reverse the money to my credit card within 48 hours. They did reverse money next day.

Swimming pool remained closed until Monday the day we checked out. We asked them first day, they told us that it would next morning. Next day we checked again, it was still closed. They told us that it would not open. But they finally opened it on Monday when were were checking out. May be short staff was the reason?

I think Hotel needs to keep pet friendly rooms separate and be given to people with pets only. Specially room on the fist floor with door opening in their courtyard should be avoided if you are a non smoker and don't have pet with you. I think people sit outside their rooms and smoke and all cigarette smoke comes inside the rooms.

It was not good experience staying in this hotel. I would probably...

1. Apparently this hotel has pet friendly floors but they put us on a floor with pets even though we don’t have pets and they didn’t even ask if anyone in out group has allergies or not.
2. the floors of the corridor aren’t clean. I haven’t seen them vacuumed for our entire stay of 4 days. Yes I can tell because the same dust stuff is still around.
3. there is some kind of leak or something in our room which leads to the carpet being wet. It’s wet even though we didn’t spill anything. They supposedly cane to “clean” the room but they did nothing about this.
4. i put my swimsuit on the chair to dry and I came to find it on the floor. Not to mention the room carpet is also not clean.
5. they say they will come to clean on the third day of our stay but I still needed to go talk to them to make sure. I asked specifically to ensure they do renew our towels and they still didn’t take all the towels even though it’s clear they had been used and they didn’t even leave enough many clean towels. It’s clear from the reservation how many we are, we already had to ask for extra so they collected 3 sets from the room, so they should know how many are needed.
6. When I specifically asked about the “cleaning”, I told them “yes please change the sheets” (because for some reason they ask about it?!?! You are already not giving housekeeping every day, you can at least change the sheets when you do it on the third day) but came to find the same sheets again—I know because they actually gave us sheets with stains so I can recognize them.
7. they didn’t even refill the carton cups they gave us in the room. They literally only took the garbage and fave less towels than they took. They promise “full housekeeping every 3rd day”. I do not recommend anyone to stay at this hotel.
8. the room stinks.
9. dogs bark all night (again, we didn’t ask for a pet friendly room or floor).
10. bathroom smells bad.
11. the bathtub wasn’t cleaned during the “housekeeping” and I don’t think it was clean in the first place either.
12. the drains are bad. Water takes a long time to drain which makes the sink and the tub gross.
13. entrances from garage is not accessible. There are stairs and doors without automatic buttons.
14. signage to parking lot is non-existent. Signage for coming from parking lot back to hotel is also non-existent. We had to ask the...