Evolution Whistler — Hotel in Whistler Resort Municipality

Edit: 2 1/2 years later they respond. A 2022 Jan 5th trip and they respond in 2024 June 22.

TLDR: bedding saturated with cigarette smoke, couldn't sleep. Asked for extra night compensation but only offered half refund. 2 night ski trip ruined since skied for only 1 hour due to exhaustion. Sorry for the lengthy review but wanted to detail everything so the management can't reply by blaming us for this and that.

Unit 105 cigarette smoke saturated furniture in bedroom. Pillows, mattress, comforters you name it. The room itself smelled slightly of cigarette smoke but was heavily masked by air freshener.

Hotel advertises as smoke free. Not true. They don't have smoking detectors. They only rely on cleaners which pretty much just sprays more air freshener to mask the smell. Most hotels do that.

Couldn't sleep because it was like sleeping in a cloud of cigarette smoke. My child of 11 already asleep by 9pm in living room to ready for early 8:30am skiing. I went to bed by 10:30pm but couldn't sleep and broke out in hives from nicotine allergies by 11:30pm.

Called front desk at 11:30pm to confirm a room change for next day since changing rooms at midnight would ruin my child's sleep.

By next morning before 8am called to confirm room change and wanted to speak to manager. Manager doesn't come in till 10am. Busy packing for room change by around 9:30am.

By this time my wife and I haven't slept a wink. Finally unpacked and wiped down room due to covid protocols. Around 10:30am at which time we finally got hold of manager.

Asked for extra night compensation since the whole trip was ruined otherwise. It was 2 nights stay for 1 day of skiing. Driving to Whistler and back in bad road conditions is hard to do day trip.

They only offered free night parking. What a joke. I can park free at home. Ski trip ruined anyways. Might as well have stayed home. Talked to 4 more levels of supervisors since each couldn't make a decision. Repeated the story to each. By this time it was 1pm.

Finally they just emailed us that they can only refund half of first night stay and free parking. That half is not the price we paid. It's half of what they received from Expedia.

So finally we tried to ski with zero sleep, pack and unpack to move, covid sanitize new room and 3 hours of waiting and negotiating for compensating us an extra night but to only get half back. Skied 1 run and everyone exhausted. Total waste of tickets.

Entire trip ruined. Everytime we asked for extra night compensation they pretty much blamed us for not calling in earlier to change rooms. We told them the room has hints of cigarette smoke but heavily masked by air freshener. Living room was ok but it's the bedroom furniture especially the bed and it's pillows and linens that are saturated with cigarette smoke. Claims the cleaners didn't report anything but the heavy use of air freshener tells otherwise. I was taken to 2 other rooms, 204 and 205 before confirming room change. 205 had cigarette smoke hints too and air freshener use.

As a side note, the washroom plumbing is very loud. You can hear every flush of toilet from all the floors above.

Unit 204 which we moved to had fur ball in the bathtub.

On a good note, all the staff we have encountered were very pleasant and polite. From the room cleaners to front desk reception at Legends. Yes even the managers and higher up supervisors on phone calls. Just very hard to negotiate and for them to understand your...

Evolution™ is a quarter-share owned condominium that offers rentals through the Lodging Ovations reservations system that also manages First Tracks Lodge™ and Legends™ in Whistler Creek. This is not a full service hotel, i.e., there is no door man, valet, on site concierge, room service; so if you are looking for full-service then keep shopping, but if you are looking for a modern condominium, with underground parking ($17.50 per day at the time of this review, but our reservation included parking so it was "free"), outdoor pool/hot-tub, games room, & bike/ski lockers, all located very close to the Creekside Gondola, then look no further than Evolution™. The front desk is located next door at Legends.

The condo offered a full kitchen, two flatscreen TVs, free wireless internet, stacked washer/dryer, deep tub, bathroom floor heating, & generous balcony.

There is a public transit bus stop directly in front of the property for quick access to transit served locations such as Whistler Village, Nesters, Meadow Park, etc. Whistler Creek offers restaurants, a grocery store, & liquor store, restaurants (Roland's Pub, Dusty's).

My only "complaints": the room was too hot despite turning all heating equipment off, there was no guide on the TV other than channel surfing, & lighting & climate controls would be improved by labels and perhaps some simple instructions.

Creekside is 4.5km south of Whistler village. It's not busy, frantic, loud or party driven at night (other than select nights at Dusty's). It features a dayskier parkade (No overnight parking!) that offers walking access (

UPDATE - dropped from 3 * to 1* Evolution replied to this review asking me to get in touch with their team. I already did and then tried again. Brianna Nettleship was the very unhelpful rep who falsely accused me of contacting Expedia "the day after I arrived", when I have the screenshot of my call to them and offered to send that along with the proof of my vet bill for my dog who was sick. I made a few attempts to rectify this situation and asked for a bit of grace, but was met with a cold personality who would not accommodate. Unbelievable.

Prior 3* review (which is now 1*) because of this lack of service:

I'm glad I brought my own sheet to lay on top of the couch for germ protection! Super grossed out 🤮 on day 2 when the sunlight hit the wall just right and I saw this!!! I don't even want to think what this is. Kinda made for an ick factor.

Bed was comfy. Nice kitchenette. Pet friendly (but you can't bring pet to the poolside, even if they're in a kennel). In room laundry. No front desk.

Had to check out a day early due to my pet becoming sick and needing to travel home to see our vet (I provided both Expedia and evolution with over 2 days notice as well as offered to send the vet receipt). They would not refund my last night, which was quite disappointing. One would expect a little bit of grace in this situation.

Decking material got so hot my pet couldn't step on it. Parkade was frustrating because the door doesn't open automatically when you leave, so you have to get out of your car and go over to a cage to push a green button.

Grounds were kept nice around hotel. Tim's right next door. Beautiful creekside walk...