The Westin Harbour Castle, Toronto — Hotel in Toronto

This has been my go-to hotel for years for a convention I always attend. After they “lost” my reservation in 2021 due to changing of convention dates I’ve gotten into the habit of calling the day prior and confirming details. I did this, made sure my coworker was on the reservation so she could check in as her plane was arriving before I would arrive. I made sure my Bonvoy acct was added too. Day of, I’m driving through snow squalls when my colleague calls me saying they refuse to let her in, saying she’s not on the reservation. I ask her to have them call me, they refuse. I’m dealing with white out conditions, but manage to connect to them and after a painfully long and awkward conversation, where they admit she was on the reservation yesterday but was removed that day, but they don’t know who did that. They reluctantly agree that yes they’ll let her in the room because no one is manning the email anyways at this time (they wanted me to pull over and go through email reservations to make the adjustment). When I arrive, Valet offers no help, just rushes me out of my car, bellmen didn’t help (previous times they’ve brought over a cart for me, and it’s later brought to my room). I struggle to the desk with my luggage to check in and get my key. I mention the mix up, how I was just rushed out of my car, and how the awkward 30 plus seconds of silence from the associate I talked to on the phone was odd. I was told to complain through the bonvoy app. So I did, was promised 5k bonvoy points for the screw up and awful check in experiences. THE POINTS NEVER CAME. Fast forward to the last night. I go to the desk as I’m leaving at 6am and want to make sure the parking is on my card, and pay for my half of the room. The agent makes it seem like this is putting her out, but does it. I go to bed satisfied I just have to leave tomorrow and my colleague has her late check out. Boy was I wrong. My car is returned to me and it’s overheating, check coolant light is on. So I go over to the little office and ask the guy “hey did my car start like this?/ when did this happen? (They moved my car the first morning so I could retrieve signage for the convention). So he admits it just started like that this morning, but not to worry he has a similar car so I should be safe to drive it home. I move my car off to the side, ask them “hey I have to get a tow truck out of here is this in the way?” They tell me it’s fine where it is. Bell men are visibly annoyed. Not once though does anyone say “hey we’d like you to speak to the front desk” or”hey we have to get an incident report started”. I did ask the bellman “as I’m checked out, is it still okay that I wait in the lobby CAA said it will be 3 hours for a tow truck” I was told it was fine. So I drank my awful mocha I order from their little cafe nook. Pro tip, it’s not Starbucks ingredients in their specialty coffees. I saw them whip out the can of carnation mock hot chocolate, and let me tell you it was the most disgusting tasting mocha that I have paid Starbucks prices for. After a few hours my colleague comes down to check out. The not so lovely desk staff refuse to give her a copy of the invoice, but assured her that her half has been paid under her credit card she checked in with. This detail is important later in the review. She leaves and I tell her I’ll get a full itemized bill later and we can figure it out for our respective expenses. CAA shows up, the bellman aren’t going to let us tow. I’m ready to lose it on this hotel, but my tow truck driver deals with the nonesense. They help him push my car out of the ramp and on the road, but then start giving us a hard time about how bad it looks. I think the nightmare hotel experience is over. Days later my colleague asks how long holds stay on credit cards. She had an additional ~800 on her bill. With both bills I do the math, they’ve charged her an extra night a full rate (not the convention rate) they literally billed us for the same room, twice getting them $1400 plus tax extra. She calls, they refund her that night, and for one night of parking, to her card. Parking was on my card since I had a car. I’m angry at this point as I also have not received bonvoy points for the stay or the earlier promised 5k points. So I call to make a general complaint. The manager I talk to agrees it’s an awful experience. Promises to refund me one full night and all my vallet parking as a gesture of goodwill. I thank him and accept. 2 weeks later, nothing comes. I try calling the hotel, they keep hanging up on me. So I escalate to corporate. They call back fast after that. It’s now a month later and they’re questioning why I didn’t talk to security, or front desk, that there’s no incident report, no tow companies were on site. After they “investigate” I’m promised what I was initially promised for the issues. I did finally get a refund of one nights stay and...

First the good which significantly outweighed the bad on our first night. We booked a best available room with breakfast and received a nice upgrade (we are Bonvoy members) to a water view room in the south tower on the 15th floor. A lovely updated room with two double beds which were very comfortable, decent pillows and nice amenities. At an excellent location water front location and only about a 5 min walk from Union Station. ||We really enjoyed the pool, hot as well as the steam and sauna rooms in the women's locker room. The fitness center was also quite nice. The pool area/locker room was clean and serviced regularly. Breakfast was excellent and well worth it with plenty of fresh fruit, lox, omelet station and numerous other premium options to satisfy every taste. The service staff at breakfast was also excellent and attentive, especially the gal (with the lovely Polish accent who's name we didn't retain) on our last day who went over and beyond to ensure we were taken care of.||Gerry at the service desk was our service rock star because he righted the wrong on our first night....We were told at check that the south tower where our room was located was undergoing renovations. I specifically asked about the noise level and time and told any noise would be during the day before 6PM. It was 6PM by the time we got to the room, no noise....until that is 10:30PM when the drilling and hammering woke us up after a long day of traveling. We called the service desk and were immediately passed to manager Dimitry who apologized profusely but basically initially told us there was nothing he could do about the noise, gave us a myriad of excuses how it was unplanned, an emergency (not a leak or fire!), out of his control (um you're the manager dude and your guests are unable to get to sleep in your hotel!), no other rooms available and no ETA on the noise subsiding. We also were not the only guests affected and while we were tired unhappy campers, we felt especially bad for the guests who had to attend a work convention the next day. The second time we talked with Dimitry he said to stop by the desk the next day for compensation and to see about relocation while the noise persisted. Thankfully I had some ear plugs and at some point in the night the noise subsided and I passed out. Now back to Gerry...after breakfast the next day, we stopped by the service desk and talked with Gerry who took excellent care of us. Not only did he quickly move us to the quiet and more convenient to the pool North tower, he gave us an upgrade to a lovely Jr. Suite with views of the lake and city on the 17th FL as well gave us credits for the rough 1st night. We felt fairly compensated and well taken care of by Gerry. While I will give Dimitry the benefit of the doubt about not having rooms, we were in our new room by 10:30AM so either the room wasn't slept in or the maid service is lightning fast when someone checks out early (before noon). The maid service we had was excellent and timely. Overall the hotel was excellent and we would stay here again. I probably would have given 4.5 starts on service due to the manager's handling of a bad situation the first night but don't want to ding the rest of the staff who were truly 5 stars including the gal who took my initial call the first night and was still apologizing on our 3rd night. Issues happen but it's how they are resolved that differentiates the good from the bad and we appreciate how well the issue was resolved for us. |Tip: [pun intended] tips go a long way, even a few US dollars are appreciated by the...

First the good which significantly outweighed the bad on our first night. We booked a best available room with breakfast and received a nice upgrade (we are Bonvoy members) to a water view room in the south tower on the 15th floor. A lovely updated room with two double beds which were very comfortable, decent pillows and nice amenities. At an excellent location water front location and only about a 5 min walk from Union Station. We really enjoyed the pool, hot as well as the steam and sauna rooms in the women's locker room. The fitness center was also quite nice. The pool area/locker room was clean and serviced regularly. Breakfast was excellent and well worth it with plenty of fresh fruit, lox, omelet station and numerous other premium options to satisfy every taste. The service staff at breakfast was also excellent and attentive, especially the gal (with the lovely Polish accent who's name we didn't retain) on our last day who went over and beyond to ensure we were taken care of. Gerry at the check in desk was the rock star because he righted the wrong on our first night....We were told at check in the south tower was undergoing renovations. I specifically asked about the noise level and time which was during the day. It was 6PM by the time we got to the room, no noise until that is 10:30PM when the drilling and hammering woke me up after a long day of traveling. We called the service desk and were immediately passed to manager Dimitry who apologized profusely but basically initially told us there was nothing he could do about the noise, it being out of his control, no other rooms available and no ETA on the noise subsiding. We also were not the only guests affected and felt especially bad for the guests who had to attend a work convention the next day. The second time we talked with Dimitry he said to stop by the desk for some sort of compensation while the noise persisted. Thankfully I had some ear plugs and at some point in the night the noise subsided and I passed out. Now back to Gerry...after breakfast the next day, we stopped by the service desk and talked with Gerry who took excellent care of us. Not only did he quickly move us to the quiet and more convenient to the pool North tower, he gave us an upgrade to a lovely Jr. Suite with views of the lake and city on the 17th as well gave us credits for the rough 1st night. We felt fairly compensated and well taken care of by Gerry. While I will give Dimitry the benefit of the doubt about not having rooms available, we were in our new room by 10:30AM so either the room wasn't slept in or the maid service is lightning fast when someone checks out early. The maid service we had was excellent and timely. Overall the hotel was excellent and we would stay here again. I probably would have done 4.5 starts on service due to the manager's handling of a bad situation the first night but don't want to ding the rest of the staff who were truly 5 stars including the gal who took my initial call and was still apologizing on our 3rd night. Highly recommended! Tip: [pun intended] tips go a long way, even a few US dollars are appreciated...