At this hotel had a brief business meeting on a fly-in fly-out. The meeting room was ready and a staff member checked immediately to be sure I had all I needed. After lunch in the restaurant on site I had time to put in before my departure. The hotel allowed me to stay on in the meeting room and they arranged transportation for me at the end of the day. No surprises.

We made our booking for 2 rooms, 2 nights through hotels.com, but later found that the price would have been better had we booked directly with the hotel through their website’s promotion. Well, I did came across that promotion on their website before the cancellation deadline with hotels.com, but when I entered the promotion code during online reservation, the promotion price didn’t show up and I thought the promotion had expired, as the promotion was called “Shades of Summer” and it’s already late October when I attempted the booking. It wasn’t until my friend asked about this promotion 2 days before our stay that I was curious and called the hotel about it to find that the promotion was still valid.

Anyway, not sure if it’s because we did not book directly with the hotel that the staff that checked us in wasn’t showing any initiative. The rooms we were first assigned were a few rooms apart down the hallway. After realizing this, we asked for adjacent rooms. Then when we checked into the rooms, we found that one of the rooms was actually connected to another room next door. We went back to the reception and asked if we could have the connecting rooms instead. The girl was helpful and allowed us to switch rooms. However, the first guy who checked us in could have shown more initiative and ask if we want connecting rooms, that would have saved us the trouble of switching.

Also, there weren’t any toiletries supplied in the room, I had to ask the girl at the front desk, who readily packed a bag of supplies good for both rooms.

I’ve read from reviews that the hotel has recently gone through renovation and that the new beds were really comfortable with a fridge and microwave in the newly renovated rooms. Obviously, the rooms we were assigned weren’t the renovated ones, as the mattresses were too soft, and we wouldn’t get the fridge had we not requested for it. I can’t understand why if the hotel was less than half full, that they wouldn’t assign us rooms that were newly renovated, so as to impress your guests with a good night stay?

The hotel has an in-house restaurant Farina. Food, décor and price were good, but service was definitely not up to standard. One of my friends ordered Caesar salad and asked for it to be served in 2 smaller plates for sharing with her husband. However, when the waitress came with the salad, she served them to the wrong couple, who thought that the salad came with the entrée and ate it by mistake. The waitress didn’t get a replacement salad for my friend who made the order, nor did she take the salad off the bill for the mistake.

The second mess-up came with my steak. I asked for rare but it came too well-done, so I called for it to be re-cooked. I waited for more than half an hour before my entrée showed up again, when all but one of my friends had finished their meal. That poor fellow’s steak had never arrived until then. Also, when I made the order, I asked for all vegetables instead of potatoes on the side, but when they came with my re-prepared order, they just provided me the regular potatoes and veggies on the side. And since after such a long wait, the restaurant was close to closing, I and my poor friend had to rush through our entrée. Naturally, we would expect an apology and a discount off our bill as a courtesy gesture, but we didn’t get anything, not even after our asking.

The second day of our stay, we tried out the swimming pool, the hot tub and the sauna. The area was clean, despite the fact that one of its changing rooms was under renovation and both male and female guests have to access the pool area via the same change room, and share the same sauna room.

On the final day of our stay, when we checked out, we were surprised that we were charged for the microwave and the fridge, despite the fact that the guy who checked us in agreed that he’ll waive those charges. It wasn’t until after much argument and my insistence to speak with the manager that the girl who checked us out finally agreed to remove those charges. Then when we thought we were done with the check-out procedures and we provided the girl with our aeroplan numbers to make sure we get credited for our stay in both rooms, the girl seemed confused and asked if we were checking out of both rooms. I thought that was more than obvious when we returned 4 room keys and we have always had both rooms booked under the same reservation. Thank goodness that we took the time to check out the aeroplan bonus. Otherwise, I don’t know what would happen if they assumed that we hadn’t checked out of the second room. Scary!!

Let me start of by saying while I wasn't thrilled with our stay it had nothing to do with staff or cleanliness. The staff were very friendly and helpful. We arrived in town earlier than we had expected and were able to check in a little before 11am. Our room was very clean and was fairly nice.

The issue I had was that we ordered a non smoking room yet we were directly beside all of the smoking rooms. The second we opened our door we were assaulted by the thick smell of smoke and at several periods during our stay the VERY strong smell of marijuana smoke on top of that. When I brought up the issue to a staff member at the front desk I was told there was nothing they could do about it (which I understand) and that they would send a housekeeper to go spray the hallway. I'm not sure why anyone thought it would be a good idea to stick non smoking rooms directly beside smoking ones. I have never been to a hotel where they were even in the same hallway. I feel a little like maybe because we booked through a 3rd party site we were stuck in the worst absolute area for non smoking rooms.

Another odd thing that happened is when I went to check out they had no record of me actually checking in and we had been listed as no shows. I'm not sure how that mistake was made.

Lastly, while this hotel does have a restaurant, they don't offer the option of a continental breakfast. We didn't have time to go sit down in a restaurant and order our food. For the price of this hotel and it's apparent 3 star rating you would assume they would offer the option. I've been to far less expensive places that offered bountiful continental breakfasts to their guests.

All in all the hotel is great for what it is and again I have no complaints about the staff or the cleanliness but I really was expecting a lot more. I travel to North Bay every 6 weeks for work and I would not be upset if I had to stay at this hotel again, I'll just go in to it expecting a lot less now.