My wife and I had decided that we needed a little getaway to ease up some of the stress of living. So we booked here, as it seemed like a nice, out of the way place. We knew it was a bit out of the town of Banff, but were driving up anyhow, so that didn't matter.

We arrived before the checkin time and asked if the room was ready anyhow. The nice lady at the front desk said that it would be about another half an hour or so. No problem, we were hungry anyhow, so we went to the Mukamuk Bistro. The food there was quite tasty, but a bit on the pricey side, imo. A very nice touch was that the nice lady from the front desk came to find us in the Bistro when our room was ready, and she let us know that it was ready for us.

The first impression of the room was quite favorable. It was a large room, a nice king sized bed, a fantastic view and a little balcony thing. The bathroom looked amazing, and the big tub with a rainshower style head looked quite inviting. Then we tried to flip a light on, and the bulb was burned out. Alright, no big deal, right?

We had a nap (the bed is quite comfy!) and as we are getting ready to go out, it sounded like our shower/tub turned on. I went to investigate, and found that there was a lot of water coming out of the shower head. I play around with the taps some, but they are all off. The only thing I can figure out from it was that the suite above ours (we were on the second floor) had someone using their shower. When they stopped, the water stopped coming through ours. Ok...that's a bit more of an issue.

Opened the lid of the toilet to use it..an the stench coming out of the toilet was pretty powerful. I'm really now beginning to wonder about staying here. When we left, we talked to the lady (a different one from checkin) manning the main desk about our concerns, but she didn't appear to understand what we were saying or speak english very well.

We head out for supper, and after we come back decide to give the hot tub a shot. It's nice, but a bit small. I figure you could probably fit 8 people in there. It's outside, which I imagine would be quite interesting in very cold weather, too. We did have a nice chat with some of the other people in there, though.

We go back and decide to head off to bed...except we discover that the walls are paperthin with no soundproofing. There was a party of folks who spoke french to one side of us (I couldn't understand what they were saying, but could hear their conversation easily enough), a guy with a bad cough on the other side of us, and an amorous couple under us, I'd imagine. Not particularly restful at all. Any movement in the hallway could be easily heard, and with the #1 outside the window, there was loud traffic all night long.

In the morning, we hit the bistro again. The food was good, but again seemed a bit pricey to me. We didn't try the WiFi at any point, and the one public computer informed us that the internet wasn't available on that terminal at the moment.

Overall, I was pretty disappointed. For the price charged, I had expected a lot more of this hotel over a comfy bed and a nice looking bathroom. my wife and I travel often to Banff for weekend trips, and I don't think we'll be staying here again.

We were happy with our stay at the Juniper Hotel. It is in a great location for skiing at Norquay - at the end of the day you can ski down to the hotel from the hill. The price for the rooms was much below what we would expect for the quality of the room. Yes, it was a bit small but it was comfortable and reasonably clean. The hot tub was also nice and appeared clean. The decor is contemporary rustic which suits the surroundings. Unfortunately, some of our family members stayed in a chalet and it was not as clean as the main building. It could definitely use a little TLC. Otherwise, it was a great place to stay.

At first we were not impressed, however as our stay continued, we did change our opinion somewhat. When we first arrived the room we were given was on the Mountain View side. That sounds nice, however that is also the #1 Highway side which is very noisy. The staff accommodated us by switching us to the opposite side of the hotel. Anything we asked of the staff, they were willing and eager to do. The rooms are dated, but the bathrooms have been updated. The shower/bathtub hot water temp was disappointing, since the hot water from the sink was much hotter. The outdoor hot tub gives a nice view of the mountains while sheltering you from rain and wind, there for it is designed well. However what really made the stay memorable was the meal at the Muk a Muk bistro, which I will try and leave a review for separately. Overall, we were pleased with our stay. What made it pleasant was the the people staffing the establishment, which to me, is more important then the people running the establishment.

We checked into this hotel for a weekend getaway, and paid $30 extra to 'upgrade' to a King, Mountain View room. Umm, I'm scared to know what a standard room would be, because our King was tiny! You had to be careful about which doors you opened, because there was so little room to move around in. The bathroom wasn't not ideal. The shower was outdated with no water pressure, and it took about 4 minutes to get hot water out of any of the faucets.
The other problem? The noise! The actual hotel seemed to be pretty quiet and it's in a good location for that (away from everything else) but in our room on the second floor we heard this loud scraping and banging sound. It was so disruptive that we called down to reception to get someone to check it out, but they couldn't tell us what it was. I think it was just people on the third floor moving around- but not ideal for a quiet weekend getaway! The staff said it would be no problem if we wanted to change rooms, but it actually was, since we were already unpacked and it was late at night.
There were a couple pros: the view is nice and the hot tub, and the staff were helpful.
Anyway, I wouldn't book this hotel unless you got a crazy good deal or there was nowhere else to stay.