The Sternwheeler Hotel & Conference Centre, Trademark by Wyndham — Hotel in Whitehorse

Everything about this hotel is middling to average except for its decidedly terrible internet speed. I'm talking dawn-of-the-internet slow, like two minutes to load a page, while charging $146 per night for a room. It is the year 2016 and to not have at least decent wireless internet in a large hotel that does millions in revenue is disgraceful and lazy, especially since upon me complaining, it was clear that this is an ongoing/chronic problem. I don't particularly care what tech problem you are blaming it on, get it fixed now, or you will hopefully face a dwindling clientele due to scathing reviews such as this one. Is it that only the elderly, who do not know or care how to use it, stay here? Or that the hotel is chosen for them as opposed to by them (hotel patrons are 90% Holland America tour groups). This place is basically just another Holland America cattle pen, same as you will see in Dawson, Fairbanks, and elsewhere. It sucks because management/owners are surely savvy enough to know that 90% of patrons will never have the opportunity to be repeat customers, so why bother improving? Get em through, feed em their buffet slop straight off a truck, get em on the bus and off to Dawson... Repeat... I know that in a city where there is virtually nothing to tell hotels apart, there are enough reasons to skip a stay here...also, beds are garbage and everything is grungy and dated. And there is what would be a beautiful patio area, marred by the following near its entrance: an overflowing open trash can, a bunch of old beer cans on the ground, various other discarded detritus, and for some reason, a very out of place looking sink which I would be surprised was plumbed in, sitting mysteriously near the door, as though someone had found it at the dump and was saving it there for later. Surely no one would attempt to wash their hands in that? I guess the staff was friendly, though unable to procure anything approaching a satisfactory...

Pros: The hotel staff were courteous and prompt. The linens and the room in general were clean.

Cons: My reservation was for two adults and two children in a room with two queen beds. I made the reservation weeks in advance. However, only one towel was in the room at check-in. Thankfully, the staff were quick to provide more towels. The door had to be closed with force from the outside for the latching mechanism to retract. It clearly needed lubrication. The toilet was running when we arrived. My wife opened the lid to find the stopper (rubber lid that should seal to stop the toilet from running) was taped. A replacement stopper is like $2 at a hardware store. The elevators have frames on the walls for informational displays/flyers, but they were empty during our stay. We probably would not have noticed their absence if they were not there, yet the empty frames showed an unfortunate lack of effort. An electrical outlet sparked when plugged in. Every outlet in the room was labeled, indicating to which panel it belonged. This suggested to me that the hotel has electrical gremlins. The temperature of the room was inconsistent. When we returned from our walk, the room was a little too warm. The air conditioning worked well to lower the temperature, but an odd smell coming from outside the hotel deterred us from running the A/C for long. The mimic plan (the "You are here" sign for emergency escape routes) was just glued to the back of the door and fell off twice (and oddly not while the door was being closed). After the second time, we just left it on a desk.

Overall impression: We enjoyed our stay. The hotel was probably grand in the beginning, but a lack of maintenance and effort to keep it nice was starting to show and detract from...

I wrote a review several years ago for this hotel, but want to write an up date. We were on a Holland America tour and Whitehorse was our first stop. We enjoyed the hotel very much. The rooms were nice, the food and bar very good and the show was amazing. But, the reason for this review is because while I was there I was changing my earrings and a ring. I had my small ziplock bag with the few pieces of jewelry I brought with me for the formal nights on the ship. I had my mother's pave diamond ring too. Several days later I realized my mom's ring wasn't in the bag. Long story short, several calls from my the tour leader to the hotel but no ring. I don't know why but I decided to call when I got home almost three weeks later. I talked to the hotel manager--wish I could remember her name--and she called me back saying she checked with housekeeping, etc. but no ring. I thanked her and figured that was it. Darn, if she didn't call me a couple of weeks later and they found the ring in the heating vent during a cleaning. I figure several people were involved and any-one of them could've kept it, but the cleaner turned it into housekeeping who gave it to the manager who called me. I have since gone back to work in a jewelry store and wear the ring often. Every time I think of this hotel and the amazing, honest and gracious people who were involved. I can never thank them enough! I hope to return there some day, but I'll be more careful....