My spouse and I have stayed at the Bedford Regency many times in the past, but after this last visit we will never go back.

We've always been OK with the quirky nature of the hotel - the dated '80's decor, noisy plumbing, the incompetent staff, parking two blocks away for an extra $10 a day - because we felt it was a trade off for good rates in a great location. Not so any longer. We were woken in the early hours when the dance music started in the basement of the building. It was not just the sound of the music that woke us, but the vibrations. THE WHOLE HOTEL SHAKES FROM 1AM UNTIL 5AM.

I went to the lobby at about 3:30AM to see if we could change to a quieter room, and the front desk was actually moving with the base beat! They tried moving us up one floor, and when that was still noisy, to the top (fourth) floor, where you could still hear the base, but it didn't make your teeth rattle. We should have just left then. We didn't get to sleep until after it stopped at 5AM.

We checked out shortly after 10AM on Sunday. We hauled our bags two blocks down the street to the parkade, only to find it locked. I waited by the door with the luggage, and my spouse walked back to the hotel to get the key to the garage, only to be told that someone had it (they only have one, apparently) and we'd have to wait. When he asked the clerk why she hadn't told us when we checked out that the garage was locked and we would need a key, she asked him why he thought she would know that we had a car. He pointed out that she had just charged us for parking. We had to sit outside and wait for the place to open at 11 to spring our car and missed our ferry as a result.

The Bedford used to be a funky little hotel - I read the other recent Trip Advisor reviews before we left, and took them with a grain of salt because we'd stayed there before. What a mistake! It's not funky any more. It's a bad deal at any price.

I am writing to complain about our stay at the Bedford Regency hotel in Victoria, BC on Friday, April 11th 2008. The room itself was fine, (room #36) and clean which was good, but we had a very big problem. We come over from Vancouver every month or two to visit my boyfriend’s family, and were looking for somewhere to regularly stay when we do, as there is no longer a suite available in his mother’s building.

I had to return home on Saturday to study for a final exam in Vancouver, so we had to be up and out of the hotel by around 9am.

When we got to the hotel, we were told there was parking available for $10 a night, and it was about a block and a half away. As it is extremely difficult to find parking in downtown Victoria we made sure that parking would be available. What we were not told was that the parking was in an underground lot that could only handle vehicles up to 6’2” high, and we drive an SUV. So, we spent around 30 minutes driving around trying to find somewhere to park. Eventually we did, and luckily we weren’t towed that night.

On Friday we had dinner at Milestone’s in the harbour, and came back to the hotel at around 11pm. We were prepared to ignore a little noise outside as there are several bars around the hotel. However, when we went to bed, not later than midnight, there was some kind of rave music coming through the floor and the walls, shaking our room. We decided to try and ignore it and get some sleep as we assumed it would end around 1am or 2 at the latest. It finally stopped at 5am. We got maybe 4 hours of sleep, and I have not been able to get any studying done as I’m too exhausted. This was totally unacceptable. First of all, we should have been told on the phone that the parking had height restrictions, and we would have found another hotel that provided parking, and we should have been told that there was a club or whatever it was in or around the building so we could have chosen to stay somewhere else for the night.

As regular visitors to Victoria, we were hoping to have a nice place to stay regularly, and to recommend to our friends and family, but instead we were extremely upset about the whole experience.

I wrote to the hotel to complain, but haven't heard back from them yet.

The Bedford Regency has every opportunity to be a cool, quaint and perfect little urban hotel, yet falls short in so many areas.
It is located in Victoria, which oozes quaintness from every cranny (some would say Victoria oozes a tad too much quaintness), it is on Government St., and just a stroll from Bastion Square and all the sights of the Inner Harbour, it has a name which evokes the House of Lords, high tea and feather duvets, and a potentially grand lobby.
Granted it is an older property, but "old" need not equate to dilapidated and non-functional. Under sensitive new ownership with the willingness to invest a bit to restore its potential charms, it would be a worthy place to stay in Victoria. Alas for what might have been!
As other reviewers have pointed out the rooms are very hot and stuffy, even when the outdoor temperature was very cool. Sometimes old buildings are laced with steam pipes which emit heat 24/7 regardless of the season. I don't know the problem with the Bedford, but the use of the air conditioner, even in March was essential.
From the floor plan it seems that about half of the rooms face onto one of two "light wells". Seen from above the floor plate of the hotel would look like the jagged rim of a medieval castle, with the light wells corresponding to the gaps where archers would stand. The problem with the light wells is one of privacy, as rooms on opposite sides of the light well face each other - a distance of maybe 3 meters. Some creative use of trellises and vines could solve this I'm sure. All you can do to ensure privacy at the moment is lower the shades and plunge the room into darkness.
The bathroom had no ventilation or windows, despite there being a vent in the ceiling. But as in so many hotels, the vent didn't seem to be connected to anything - certainly not to an exhaust fan!
The double headed shower stall was adequate, but one of the antique control knobs (the kind with 4 spokes) fell off in my hand and crashed to the floor. Ditto the faucet in the sink (which was in the room, not in the bathroom) was loose and swiveled 360 degrees.
The bed was one of the squeakiest I have ever had the misfortune of sleeping in. You can decorate a room with period furnishings and fittings but which are of modern quality. A bed in an "old" hotel can look like it is Edwardian -- behaving like it is actually a century old is another story.
The lobby was being refitted while I was there with - get this - suspended fluorescent light fixtures. They will be in good company as most of the wall sconces lining the hallways have been fitted with compact fluorescent bulbs, bathing everything and everyone in a sickly blue-green light. With this "upgrade" of lobby lighting will go any last shred of opportunity that the Bedford Regency might have had to aspire to the title of a quaint historic hotel. Pity.

My wife and I stayed there looking for a nice central location in downtown that we could base out of over night. This was just the bill for that. The hotel itself is very retro and kitchy, which may or may not appeal to all. The room was not the most restful but service was good although I got the feel they are training new crews while we stayed there. Not the jakuzzi we were told of in the room but a jakuzzi tub that one at a time could fit in. But overall we have had much worse experiences in Victoria. The main draw back was the parking 2 blocks away but atleast the car was underlock and guard for the night.
Because of the great central location we will stay there again but will ask for a room away from the water next time as the noise of the street and the pub music was evident out back until 2am.