Across the Street from Ferries and Parliament
Supposedly, the Hotel Grand Pacific is one of the highest rated hotels in Canada, and at the discount winter price combined with the Victoria Clipper it seemed like a good deal, so I decided to try this one for my January stay.
Certainly, the hotel has lots and lots of services: a complete athletic center, a pool, sauna, steam room, weight room, squash court, business center, and various other amenities. The pool, hot tub and sauna rooms were closed for renovation (which apparently is part of the discount applied) but alternate arrangements were also made available. All rooms came with a letter explaining the situation, and each key card envelope came with a short printed message giving hotel guests various options for nearby hotel pools, and the size of each pool.
I could not hear most of what went on in the nearby rooms, but I could certainly tell when the water was running in one of the other rooms, and could also hear muffled voices from time to time. It wasn't bad at all, and not enough to be disturbing, but at the same time if the hotel is supposedly one of the top rated hotels in Canada you wouldn't expect that.
The room I was in came with a cordless telephone as well as a phone on the desk. The television also had some sort of game controller on it, although I did not examine what was available in terms of games.
All rooms come equipped with a small coffee maker, a container of coffee fixings and cups, two water cups in the bathroom, two more cups on the night stand between the beds, and a container for ice.
There is a refrigerator in the room, but it is built into the television stand, and has a key lock. Presumably this is to keep the children from stealing there parents cold beer? It does not come stocked with anything - instead you must obtain the "mini-bar" type items from the "service professional team" (I'm assuming this is a fancy way of calling it room service?) - not that I am that much into ordering overpriced snacks.... The refrigerator appears to be a thermo-electric type, as it didn't make any noise but was obviously working as it was cold inside. The TV stand is kind of nice: its a very large chest of drawers type so that you don't always have to have the TV staring at you in the face.
I found the bathroom to be quite small. Certainly it was more than adequate to the needs, but still, once again, this is supposed to be one of the best hotels in Canada. The bathroom is so small that some people would probably have trouble moving around in there. There is a narrow corridor created by the sink counter so that if you are slightly wider than reasonably well fit you would have trouble fitting into the space required to use the toilet. This arrangement also places the towel rack some 2.5 meters (some 8 feet) from within reach of the shower. All rooms do not have this arrangement, but even so it makes me wonder if the hotels "modern design" means "not well thought out".
Each room has an in-room safe, with operating instructions in the book that comes in each room.
Internet service is not wireless. Instead, each room has a network jack. The desk has a network cable in the drawer for connecting your computer to the hotel network. However, there is a tag on the bag in which the computer cable comes saying there will be a $10 charge for the cable if you wish to purchase it. As best as I could tell, this means there is no charge for use of the cable, so long as you put it back. However, rather than run the risk of a charge, I just used my own cable.
Unique Quality: There aren't too many larger buildings around this hotel, and as such almost all the rooms have a decent view. If it is a great view or not depends on the weather. "Harbor View" unfortunately also means facing north, which is a fairly busy street. The rooms on the south side of the hotel probably have the best view, though only during clear weather, as the Olympic Mountains are on the other side of the city in that direction, and as of now there aren't too many tall buildings that would block the view.
The hotel is very close to the ferry terminals, and across the street from parliament, and right in the middle of the tourist section of the city, so it is hard to complain about the location.
There are several restaurants in the hotel, both on the ground floor.
The balconies are very small, and each has only one plastic patio chair. Many of them have structural supports for the balcony above, so it isn't as if the view from here is completely unobstructed. However, they are at least balconies, so that you can have somewhat of a view. Many of them appear to be designed to offer as good a view as possible without interfering with the view from the other balconies.
Services available include hair cuts, spa treatments, massage, and an assortment of other things that I had no interest in using.
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