Choice Inn by the Falls — Hotel in Niagara Falls

The name of the hotel seems to be chosen so that it implies an association to a well known chain. The logo appears to follow the same pattern, though less obviously so (different enough so that it does not trigger visits from lawyers I guess). In any event, it feels deceptive and that is one star off right off the bat. Not let's proceed with the actual review.||||Pros: location (tens of meters from Clifton Hill), well sized and reasonably clean rooms, outstanding WiFi.||||Cons: location (in the seedier area of the town), must make a choice (see what I did here?) between light and privacy, ultimately uninviting.||||This is obviously a no frills, old motel-like accommodation, which is fair enough. The room are accessible directly from the parking lot (ground floor) or from a long balcony along the whole facade (second floor). The rooms themselves are of a good size and clean. They feature kind of a kitchenette (microwave on top of a small fridge in a nook at the back but no counter). Our room was large enough to allow for a sitting area with a small table and a small armchair in addition to the typical large desk at the foot of the beds. The beds are comfortable. The air conditioning is an old unit somehow (but not excessively) noisy and with the temperature control on a scale from 1 to 10. We set it up by trial and error and it did a good job controlling the temperature afterward. The coin operated washing machine and dryer on the premises are nice. The pool is clean, but it is very small and placed dab in the parking lot. We did not encounter any noise issues.||||In all, this is a pretty decent accommodation, well worth five stars for its class, so let's see now where did those stars go. I already mentioned one star off for the deceptiveness of the name. Another goes off for the darkness of the room. There is a big window toward the long access balcony, but it only features blackout curtains. One can have either light or a bit of privacy, but never both. Going the privacy route results in a room that is very dark and thoroughly uninviting. The only two light sources in the room are very dim.||||The last star off is for a je ne sais quoi that ever so slightly keeps people away. The owners seem to be aware of this and so charge the price for the whole stay at check in, as if afraid that the customers will otherwise run away. We did not feel like running away at all, but we still resented the upfront charge. Additionally, we discovered that the rather high August rates in the Niagara touristic region fall rather steeply if one books only a few days before the stay. The owners know that too, as seen in their cancellation policy (reservations cannot be cancelled in the last week before the stay, when the full price rather than the usual first night will be charged). Again, there is nothing wrong with this policy per se, just kind of sneakily deceptive. Were this policy not in place we would have stayed in Niagara at a three-star hotel for only a minor additional charge.||||In all we could have done better, and will certainly do better in the future should we find ourselves in...

The Choice Inn (formerly the Cavalier?) is an older motel that’s been recently renovated. The grounds appear well kept, the room was clean and well equipped with a fridge, microwave, and coffee maker. There are no irons (they did not claim there was). The bed was super soft and comfortable. The keycard system for your room is NFC, unlike most hotels that are swipe cards, so you can leave the keycard in your wallet and just tap the lock to open, which is handy. The motel is located basically at the top of Clifton Hill and is a short walk to all the tourist stuff, yet was surprisingly quiet likely due to the road being closed to vehicular traffic. I had read complaints about the post-Covid continental breakfast; I did not see anything to do with breakfast at this motel, but there are several good breakfast joints in town, and if convenience is your concern there is a diner and food truck right across the street.

The internet worked fine for personal devices, but for the Roku TV (Netflix, etc) it was hit-or-miss, likely due to the weak signal strength. If watching Netflix or online contact is important to you, I suggest bringing an HDMI cable and connecting the TV to your device. TV stations were limited. If you require room cleaning or towels, I recommend speaking with the office and let them know when you are leaving for the day. Coming back after being out for the day I had to ask for fresh towels, however, I was given them without issue. I’m not sure if it’s because the motel is old or if it’s a Niagara Falls thing, but there were several brownouts, in addition to the breakers tripping randomly. Keep this in mind if you’re concerned about your electronics, thus I recommend bringing a travel surge protector or charging via a battery bank and then charging the bank from an outlet separately.

The Choice Inn was the best value I could find, its closest comparison was $40/night more, and not walking distance to the Falls or any of the attractions. From this past experience, I would not hesitate to recommend this motel and look forward to a...

First time my s/o and myself have been away alone with out kids ever. We drove 3.5 hrs to stay at the falls for the night. We booked the king room with jacuzzi. Everything was great until we tried to fill up the jacuzzi and brown stuff started shooting out of the jets. This was after 11pm and we were tired and cold from being outside on Clifton hill all evening so we decided to just call it a night and we would tell them out checkout the next morning. The staff was anything but apologetic to us, made it seem like we should have expected that and if we had a problem cleaning it out ourself we should have told them the night before. I get that, but it was after 11 so by the time we walked up to the office, had someone come to our room, fix it clean whatever, it would have been well after midnight. The hotel was also booked solid so there was not another room we could have been moved too and honestly didn’t want to move rooms at 11pm. The front desk wasn’t willing to even apologize to us and told us we could email management, which I did. Their response? Basically the same as the front desk, telling me this happens even at big chain hotels ( I used to work for one of the biggest hotel chains and something like this is always APOLOGIZED for and refunded or discounted in some way). Basically telling me it couldn’t have been anything brown coming out because it’s not connected to the sewer. I have it on video. They declined to offer any sort of refund or an actual apology for ruining our trip. The only reason we chose this hotel was for the room with the jacuzzi tub. Instead they said if we come back they will offer us some discounts and free parking. I mean I guess that’s something but overall the way they have handled this and treated us we will most likely choose other accommodations next time we visit this area. We didn’t even mention that we couldn’t sleep the entire night because of the party going on in the room above us until 5 am. All in all, location is good but it’s not worth the poor condition of the rooms or the poor attitude...