The Oakes Hotel Overlooking the Falls — Hotel in Niagara Falls

I have to give this a 1 star. To begin with we came on 06/19/24 We did arrive about 45 mins prior to our check in time. We waited in a very long line over 25minutes. We dealt with a man who did a pre check in and gave us a card and said to return after the check in time and our room would be ready. We parked and went to the falls. Came back and it was an hour and a half after check in and our room was still not ready. We were told they were still cleaning it. My husband requested a discount, and was told they couldn’t reduce the rate on the stay, but gave us $50 Applebees breakfast voucher. We booked the three bed room for 6 people. Finally after waiting another 45 mins in the check in line, our room was ready. We got the key and was told our room was an outside exterior entrance. It was off the parking lot on the Applebees side. It looked like a run down motel from the outside. Not to mention we walked in and it was just as hot on the inside than the outside. The front air conditioner was not working, there was trash on the floors so it was clearly not swept. There was what appeared to be dried blood on the end table by the phone that had a layer of dust on it. Called the front desk, they answered and said they would send maintenance and call me back. Didn’t receive a call and it was 91 degrees outside and inside, so I walked to the lobby. Once again a super long line. At that point I walked up to the lady who I believe answered my phone call. She said she was getting ready to call me back. I told her that I was very dissatisfied. The room looked nothing like the picture, it was not clean, and the air conditioner was not working. We were given the option to switch to 519. It was way better. Still needs some improvements, but did appear clean and the a/c was working. Another issue was after we stood in line on two separate occasions for a very long time, a customer began to yell and get upset he was in line for 25mins etc(which honestly I don’t blame him-I was upset we waited for forever it seemed like). He asked for a manager and the employee informed him there was no manager on duty. This was during regular business hours on a Wednesday. They really need to do a better job at checking in people. Another issue is charging your paying guests an additional $50 to park. I think this is a joke. Every room should be allotted one parking space as part of their stay, not charging $50 extra per DAY! Lastly, but not least… my son got stuck on the elevator with two other people for over 20 mins. It stopped in between floors and they were stuck. The elevators were very hot too. We did watch the fireworks from the 14th floor, which was nice, but it had no air conditioning in the hall way. It felt like a heat wave walking off the elevator. Now for the lady at the desk, she was nice and respectable and god love her she was really trying to accommodate. I do appreciate it, but I feel like more should have been done. This place has potential, but you need to hire more staff and make better improvements. The pics: first of the questionable stain- appears to be dried blood. The stairs pic, there was no do not enter sign or tape on the bottom level, Only when you get to the second floor there was caution tape on the door. We were walking back to the lobby and saw this employee only room, the trash etc. just not a good look. There was an elevator with trash laying in bags and looked terrible too. These should not be visible to patrons. Lastly so the pic from room 519. The outside building from Google, and honestly it looks better on Google...

On New Year’s Eve, we were looking for lodging after traveling from Texas back home to Toronto. We flew out from Buffalo and planned on driving back… however unforeseen flight delays forced us to look for a place to stay.

I googled hotels near the border and Oakes came up first, I booked through Hotel.com a courtyard room with a king bed. I wasn’t looking for any views and all, it was more so the king bed itself that we wanted since we were traveling with our toddler.

Location: Great location, close to entertainment, Applebee’s right beside. Parking is a little complicated. If there’s no parking in marked locations, you can park in other designated areas but it is a walk from the hotel itself.

Room: 3rd floor, small, overlooking the parking lot and beyond that, the falls. Tv was 32” with an oversized tv stand that made it look disproportionate. Two arm chairs by the window, no room for a coffee table.

Service: They do not offer a continental breakfast.

We asked for a crib if possible and the woman who was attending me, kept saying yes, I will connect with the person that can see if we have one. After registering, she forgot to give them a call. Had to ask someone else and they filled request.

Once we went to our room, it was two beds rather than a king and the travel crib was way too small. Our toddler is 2, but rather tall and too big for it. This is where my disappointment with the king bed comes in.

The woman who helped us, failed to mention that there were no rooms left with a king bed. She just went ahead and gave us one with two. My son, has never slept with us, and I was very anxious about the hotel not having a travel crib. But even though I knew that may be a possibility, knowing that I booked a king bed would be big enough for the three of us. So seeing two without any forewarning was unnerving.

When I called front desk to ask, they said they had upgraded us to a room with a view since the third party website sold us a room they didn’t have. I said I didn’t care much for a view since that was not our priority. They insisted it was an upgrade and that we should be happy. I said, that nothing was mentioned during registration, and I would have not gotten the room in that case. We could have gone somewhere else. At that point, I asked if they could at least comp the overnight parking and they said no.

My husband and I decided to place pillows all around one of the beds and prayed he would be safe. When he finally fell asleep, they called back 20 mins after the conversation I had with them. They said they did have room with a king bed… so my question is, why not offer that one from the get go? Why have me start my new year with so much negativity? It’s very upsetting when staff are not transparent or upfront. They need to remember that they HAVE to let their patrons know if they are upgrading, downgrading, or offering something that they did not anticipate. That’s all.

I couldn’t sleep, I stayed up for a few hours and when I felt he was ok, I finally closed my eyes. Not a good way to start off a new year.

To make matters worse, we accidentally forgot his bath towel at the hotel. That night, it was pouring rain, and with our luggage being out at the airport, some of our clothes got wet. Including his bath towel. My husband set it out to dry. When we realized it was gone. They did find it for us. However, they had UPS charge us $45 to get it back. Any reputable hotel would have swallowed that cost, especially after our experience with them. Just one more thing to add to...

Our first night there water started leaking from the ceiling in our bathroom in the middle of the night. The floor was soaked and slippery. I called the front desk at 4:30am to report it. They asked me if it was a lot of water. Which was a weird question to me, I would think any water coming from the ceiling is too much, but apparently they have a different threshold for what is an acceptable amount of flooding in their rooms.

I told them yes, as it was hazardous and I had slipped when I walked in there. They said they would send someone up, and sounded annoyed about it. I sat up for an hour. Then another. At this point it was clear no one was coming, so I tried cleaning it up as best I could towels, and left another towel on the floor to prevent us from slipping.

Went back to bed and eventually fell asleep, woke up around 8:30. I called down again, as the leak had continued through the night, there was now visible water damage on the ceiling, the towel I had left on the floor was soaked through, and large pools of water had seeped through the baseboard on one side of the bathroom.

Maintenance guy finally comes to the room, has a quick look and says he has to go check the room above us, where the leak was coming from. He was in the room for barely a minute, gave us no indication of when someone was coming to clean it. Around 10am someone else comes to the room with some towels to clean up the mess, but that’s it. No mop, no cleaning supplies or anything.

No apology was given from ANY of the staff during this time. No effort whatsoever to make things right. No offer of moving us to another room. They may not have been responsible for the initial problem, but their response to it was absolutely abysmal. Ignoring the problem to start with, leaving us to deal with the mess, and worse, letting it continue for several more hours. No one checked on us, or the room above us to see what was causing the flood after my initial call, it wasn’t until I had to call again 4 hours later that they bothered. One of us could have easily been injured with the state the bathroom was left in overnight. I twisted my ankle slightly when I slipped, and had to catch myself on the counter to avoid falling. What if it had been an elderly couple in our place? A pregnant woman?

Then, to top it off. That night we tried to use the jacuzzi in the room, only to find that the plug was damaged, and water wouldn’t stay in the tub. By this point I was fed up with the whole experience, I didn’t bother calling down for someone to come fix it. It was already 10pm so they probably wouldn’t have shown up until the following morning anyway, when we would be checking out.

I have never asked for something to be comped in my life. I am an extremely patient person when it comes to other people making mistakes, but this experience was well beyond what I find acceptable. I spoke to the manager at checkout and told her I wanted our whole two-night stay to be comped, which was a little over $1100. She gave us $100 off our bill. That’s it. I told her it was unacceptable, and I would be escalating it.

If they had made even the slightest effort to make up for what we had to deal with I would have probably let it slide. But their response did not make us feel like we were valued at all as guests, and I urge everyone to stay anywhere else if you've...