Province of Ontario Hotels

Other Reviews from VirtualTourist Members

Westin Harper castle: Westin Harper castle

by badrofalex

great hotel, specially lake view
Real health club
great breakfast "not on weekends"

Don Valley Crowne Plaza: ...

by canuckmike

The reasons I chose this place is because I saw special rates online and I didn't know where's where in Toronto and I guess the website looked nice. The staff was friendly, nice wide open reception, good cocktail bar and a decent little convience store. The rooms were I would say standard for this style of hotel except for the bathroom. I don't know if it was all the bathrooms or just the one in my room, but I found it to be very dated and not to the standard of other bathrooms. The next thing I experienced was the pool area. It was fairly nice but I think it was still undergoing some construction. The pool was circular with a glass ceiling. The location I wasn't too impressed with. It was a trek by public transport or a little more expensive that what I was willing to pay for a cab ride. If you had business in this part of Toronto, then it would be a good choice. If you are doing the normal tourist things, I would look for some place closer to downtown.

Michael's Inn: A Good Value Choice

by canuckmike

I enjoyed my one night stay here. The rooms were a little older but had a nice feel to them and not the same standard style all the hotels seems to have now. The tv was small but I guess it goes with the room. This place also have theme rooms for romantic getaways but I never saw them. There is an indoor pool and fitness area but I didn't use them. There is also free parking which I did use. ATM is near the lobby and there is a little gift shop there as well. The restaurant is not bad and had decent breakfast options. The location is really quite good and is in walking distance to just about everything here for tourists.

Travelodge Ottawa East: Just a place to spend the night

by Bwana_Brown

With living in New Brunswick, next door to the Province of Quebec, we had already enjoyed the amazing cities of Quebec City and Montreal on many occasions. As a result, our objective on Day 1 of the drive west to Saskatchewan was to make it as far as Ottawa, Ontario on the first day. We were off at 8:30 AM New Brunswick time (7:30 AM in Ontario) and made the 1000-km, ten-hour drive without any hitches, just slowing a bit as we made our way through construction work in Montreal (there is no way around that huge city located on an island).

I picked the Travelodge Ottawa East because it is virtually the first accommodation you will see when arriving in Ottawa from Montreal, and I knew we would not be in any mood to deal with traffic around Ottawa during the 5 PM rush hour. It worked perfectly as we took the exit and found the hotel very easily.

It seems to be tilted toward a younger family crowd, with a heated indoor salt water pool, pets are welcome and free parking. Our room was very nice, as well as comfortable but I could not get their data valet internet service to work properly on my laptop - so that was a bit of a bother. We had not eaten much during our drive, just stopping for some sandwiches to go at noon when we reached the southern shore of the St. Lawrence River about 4 hours into our drive. Fortunately, just across the street from the Travelodge is the Broadway Bar & Grill where we had an enjoyable evening meal with a cold mug of beer!

We paid US$119 including taxes for our stay.

Days Inn: A nice stop-over

by Bwana_Brown

We arrived in Kenora on the last day of the Ontario part of our trip west, after a 650-km drive from Nipigon and while managing to make stops at Ouimet Canyon, the Terry Fox Memorial and Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park - all during the morning and near Thunder Bay at the head of Lake Superior. We arrived some time after 5 PM and had no problem finding the Days Inn, located just inside the eastern outskirts of the city.

Kenora really is an isolated spot, with nothing but trees for many kilometers in every direction and with about seven months of cold weather, like everywhere else in Canada except for British Columbia. As a result, one of their main attractions is an indoor swimming pool area where families an bring their children for a weekend getaway. In our case, we had a cool and quiet ground-floor room not too far from the pool, but there were no noise issues at all. Everything worked well, the two Queen beds were comfortable, the wireless internet worked, no noise during the night and we had an excellent full breakfast at their restaurant in the morning. Then it was time to pack-up and head off on the final slog for home - 800 km as we left Ontario, crossed Manitoba and finally reached Regina, Saskatchewan at about 4 PM after seven days of sightseeing. Our room rate at the Days Inn was US$100 including taxes.

Innisfree Bed & Breakfast: This place definitely has 'location'!

by Bwana_Brown

Because the Bruce Peninsula was one of the Ontario destinations that we wanted to explore in a bit of detail, I booked our third night on the road at the Innisfree Bed & Breakfast located in Tobermory, right at the tip of the peninsula. Rather than have to backtrack 620-km from Owen Sound to go around Georgian Bay, a ferry ride from Tobermory via Manitoulin island would cut the distance to 270-km - so that was my plan. It worked, we had a great stay at the Innisfree and a lovely ferry ride the next morning!

The Innisfree is a very well run establishment, very tidy and with nice rooms. Their main selling feature is the fact they are located just across the street from the small and picturesque harbour (last photo) and they have a huge upper deck filled with chairs and tables for use by their guests. We had enjoyed our day of hiking and exploring, so were content to just sit there in the evening watching the town's activities and the docking of the ferry as it made one of its runs.

Although it calls itself a B&B, it is actually more like an Inn because it charges tax on the quoted rate, bringing our costs up by $10 to a total of US$120, including breakfast for two. I'm not complaining though because I knew that going in - it was just another great place to relax that just happened to be within walking distance of the ferry terminal we planned to use in the morning! The Innisfree has free high speed wireless internet service that I was able to use in our room to check the weather for the next day, so that was nice.

Northland Motel: Nipigon was a bit smaller than I expected

by Bwana_Brown

We arrived in Nipigon at the end of our 5th day on the road, with 2900-km covered so far. It had been a good day spent enjoying some of the many attractions along the north shore of Lake Superior, as we pulled over whenever something took our fancy. I had picked Nipigon because I thought that would be far enough for one day of driving (600-km) if we also wanted to sample a few things as we stumbled upon them. Nipigon seemed a bit smaller than I had imagined and it also happened to be where Canada's road and rail transportation system narrowed to a single funnel due to the remoteness of the area combined with the rugged and rocky terrain. Early in the evening, our motel room shook a bit as some of the semi-trailers rolled past, but fortunately we did not notice it at all once we hit the sack!

Check-in was very quick and efficiently done and our room had a nice view out the rear with Lake Superior off in the distance. Unlike the Howard Johnson of the previous night, this little motel in the middle of nowhere had fully functioning wireless internet access in our room, which helped us to catch up on various messages. It also came equipped with a mini-refrigerator which helped with the 'picnic' items that we had been transporting in a small bag with ice-cubes as we rolled along. The beds were very comfortable and we had a great sleep at the Northland. No meals are served on-site, so we just left our key in the room (as instructed) when we packed up and left in the morning - headed for Kenora, almost on the border of the Province of Manitoba. Our total cost was US$80 and I had booked our reservation with a simple telephone call a few weeks earlier.

Howard Johnson Inn Sault Ste. Marie: A bit of a disappointment in Sault Ste. Marie

by Bwana_Brown

With our ferry departure from Tobermory scheduled for 11:30 AM and taking about 1.5 hours to cross to Manitoulin Island, I was not sure how far we would get along Trans-Canada Highway 17 once we hit land again. In the end, we decided we should spend a night in Sault Ste. Marie, which was 350-km from our ferry landing point - the next sizeable town along the shores of Lake Superior would have been too far to attempt with such a late start.

Located on the eastern outskirts of Sault Ste. Marie, this Howard Johnson was sitting almost alone with not much life to be seen even on the streets of this sort of commercialized area. The front desk clerk was helpful, but the main hotel restaurant was no longer operating and the 'complimentary high speed internet' turned out to be a single computer sitting in the lobby beside the check-in area (and it always seemed to have people waiting to use it when we passed by). The bathroom was clean and our room with twin queen-size beds was quite comfortable but it was obvious that not much vacuuming of the carpet had been done recently. Their complimentary breakfast was so pitiful that we did not even give it a try, just packed up and headed onward to the nearest breakfast sandwich shop. Our total bill with taxes came to US$80. I would not stay there again.

Innisfree Bed & Breakfast: Breakfast in Tobermory

by Bwana_Brown

The downstairs front portion of Innisfree B&B has large floor-to-ceiling windows, allowing their guests to enjoy a great view of Tobermory while eating breakfast at the tables set up in this area. Behind the seating area is the large kitchen where the owner prepares the breakfasts, that are included in the rate.

We found a corner table in the morning and, with quite a few of the guests showing up, were soon joined by a young couple from Austria who we chatted with and found that they were enjoying their time visiting Canada. Breakfast is self-serve in the kitchen, where the various items are laid out in an orderly fashion. We had a variety of pre-cut fruit in a tumbler along with yoghurt for a starter, as well as fresh orange juice. To go with our decaf teas, we chose a couple each of regular and apple pancakes with a dollop of Canadian Maple syrup to sweeten things up, along with a few rashers of bacon. It turned out to be an excellent meal that kept us going for the next stage of our journey - on the ferry to Manitoulin Island (the largest island in the world surrounded by fresh water).

Bramblewood B&B: Pampered at breakfast

by Bwana_Brown

Just outside our bedroom door was a flight of stairs leading up to our private breakfast and entertainment room. It was beautifully decorated with lots of seating available, as well as a great view looking out over Georgian Bay. We sat down there for a while later in the evening for a glass of wine as we discussed this early stage of our trip and also returned there in the morning for an excellent breakfast.

Our hostess, Sue Ann goes the full distance when it comes to preparing meals. A nice little menu described the various dishes we would be treated to, starting off with a 'Bramblewood Smoothie' consisting of strawberries, bananas and fruit juice. That was accompanied by a delicious fruit cocktail served with homemade rustic herb bread. We both had our own de-caf tea (Earl Grey for me and Rooibos for Sue) as we really enjoyed the main course of scrambled eggs with ham, mushrooms and peppers served with toast! It was a great way to start our day. We were not in any hurry to leave and it was almost 11 AM by the time we said our goodbye's.