When we arrived at the Dominion, I had recognzied this old building from my previous trips. It was across the street to the Cineplex Odeon which was next door to my favourite used record store, Lyle's Place. It's a great location - within walking distance to Victoria's Harbour while being surrounded by parks, shops and restaurants.
Our hotel room was simple, but clean, tidy and had the look of a recent renovation. We stayed on the 2nd floor at the end of the building. There was a pleasant earth tone deep brown/taupe decore, and the beds were quite comfy. They have wooden blinds which completely blocked out the light at night, however, while we didn't hear any of the other guests, I could hear the occasional bus drive by outside. While this didn't bother me at all, light sleepers expecting absolute silence might think twice about staying here.
The bathroom was clean, but unfortunately we didn't have hot water during our first night, and only luke warm water for showers in the morning. We mentioned this to the front desk at the morning, who responded by telling us that we should have called them. However, we didn't have their phone number in our room, and we didn't realize that "0" would have give us their front desk. As a result, the consierge deducted our parking fee (which was under $10 a night), and we were allowed to park there all day if we had wanted to.
Would I stay there again? Yes, but only if I wanted a simple, cheap place to rest my head for the night. If I wanted to be pampered, I would have chosen another hotel, or I would have tried to stay in one of their boutique rooms. The boutique rooms look absolutely beautiful!
The Dominion Grand is both a budget hotel and a boutique hotel located in one of the oldest buildings in the city. However, if you're looking for one of their boutique rooms, be sure to specify it, otherwise you'll be put in one of their regular rooms.
There is a nice-looking restaurant-lounge called Syn downstairs and it looked rather nice. You can get 50% off on an entree there if you pick up the Dominion's brochure on the BC ferries.
There's also a "Serious Coffee" coffee shop in their lobby.
The TV channels go up to about channel 80, but you don't get every channel in between.
There's free coffee in each bedroom, but we didn't make any.
