Residence & Conference Centre - Niagara-on-the-Lake — Hotel in Niagara-on-the-Lake

The residence itself is actually not too bad. The people who run it, on the other hand...

I arranged a contract with the Residence back in February of 2016 to block off 10 rooms for my wedding. Mike Parente sent me the contract, I signed and returned it, and the agreement was made and solidified through e-mail. I was promised that these 10 rooms would not be sold off to anyone else (both in the e-mails and in the contract), until after the cut-off date, which was set for June 23rd, 2016.

On May 26th, a guest contacted me to tell me that there were no more rooms available under my block. I contacted Mike Parente to find out who had booked all the rooms, and to my dismay, was advised that they had gone ahead and booked my rooms to random people!

When I pointed out that he had breached our contract, and asked him for an explanation, this is the exact e-mail he replied with:

"Unfortunately it’s not about the contract being honoured, we simply sold out the entire building with confirmed reservations. As we explained the building sells our quite fast and we simply cannot guarantee to hold blocks as long as we do. Like I mentioned, I can look at overbooking a few more rooms – if you can send me a list of individuals, I can squeeze them in and try my best. "

He couldn't guarantee to hold the block that we had a contract for...?? Then what's the point of having the contract to begin with!? That's the point of blocking off rooms!!

When I quoted the parts of the contract that stated 1. my blocked rooms were in fact guaranteed, and 2. he was required to give me at least 24 hours notice if anything in the contract were to be changed, he sent me this:

"We are offering a 24 hour first right of refusal for your rooms, if you can secure payment for your total required rooms by tomorrow morning, we will be able to honour the bookings. I’ve attached a credit card authorization to ensure that payment can be made and guaranteed for the additional 3-5 suites."

This e-mail, which was received at 10:36PM, states that I get 24 hours 'first right of refusal', but need to action it in about 12 hours. This is, mind you, for "3-5 suites", despite having blocked off 10 and only having 2 booked (therefore, I should have had 8 available to me). To top it off, I am expected to pay for them all, in full, without having any reasonable time to contact my guests to see if this is even a manageable request.

Instead of paying for it myself (a giant risk), I urgently directed my guests to follow-up with Mike directly. Despite at least 2 people doing this, (both of them in my wedding party), trying to contact him via phone and e-mail, they were both unable to get rooms. Apparently he was ignoring their calls/e-mails.

If I had the money, and a lawyer, I would take these people to court over this. It is beyond unacceptable to do this to someone, let alone a stressed out bride in the final months before her wedding. If you cannot honour a contract, then don't have them period. It's not ok to do this to people, and moreover, not offer ANY form of apology or compensation for it.

Do yourself a favour and book with a hotel that has some integrity and is managed properly. Trust me, the stress and anxiety with their not-actually-a-contract contracts is not worth the little bit of...

We were sightseeing around the area so ended up checking in late (10pm) for a reservation we booked online. The check-in process was long and slow and we went straight to bed (20-21st May 2017). We paid ~160 for a night.

Next morning we woke up early as we had to get back on the road - only to be living a nightmare. First off there was no hot water in the shower. I called the reception and they asked us to wait for the water to get warm. Even after the wait (~20-30min) it was still not warm enough to shower. Next, the toilet was not functioning (imagine having crapped in the toilet and not being able to flush it). With all this going on finally the receptionist came into the room, only to realize nothing could be done. She apologized and asked us to contact the manager (who was off due to the weekend). We checked out, and I called the manager right away. There was no response so I left a voicemail. To this day, there has been no response or effort of getting in touch (maybe an apology would do?).

There was also a free breakfast included in the stay, but by the time we checked out it had finished. Without a doubt this was one of the worst experiences I have had staying at a hotel. Honestly, it would have been better if we slept in the car and went to washrooms at a gas station the next morning. I highly recommend you guys avoid...

We were here for a conference and found the two-bedroom unit very affordable -- my unit-partner and I each had our own bedroom and privacy, and the bedding, towels and kitchen were very clean. Because of the busy conference schedule we spent very little time in our unit other than sleeping. But much better than a hotel because of the privacy -- most hotels with two beds, the beds would be in the same room -- here we had a room of our own, and a full-size fridge not just a bar fridge. We took full advantage of the free tasting coupons given to us at check-in, which allowed us to sample wine and beer made on campus by the students in the brewery and winery programs.The greenhouse was lovely at this time of year and the resident greenhouse cat Basil was a delightful sweetie. The on-campus training restaurant has excellent food -- the best pepper steak I had in years. And the conference meals catered by the campus staff were good quality and generous in quantity. A much better experience than last year's conference in a higher-priced big-name chain hotel. And a much better experience than the previous week's conference at the University of Guelph's...