Maybe I am just too picky. In the last month we have stayed at two different hotels and I can say that the chance of us staying at either of those hotels again are very slim. They weren’t 100% horrible. Don’t get me wrong. Just not the experience I would like. I will be nice though and leave names out since Hotel A is just a victim to me being so darn picky. Hotel B is victim to itself but in the end they at least tried to make me a happy customer.

So I guess a good place to start would be Hotel A since that was our first stay of the month. We stayed at Hotel A for our trip back home when we went to bury my Grandpa. The hotel itself was not terrible by any means. If I had not stayed in any other hotel in Ottawa then I would probably have been very happy. However we have a regular place we stay at but decided to give this new place a try. It is always nice to have other options right? I mean what if our regular place is full. We need a back up right?

So we find our way to Hotel A after getting confused between one way streets and it being rush hour in downtown Ottawa. Tobei found the front of the hotel a tight turn to get into when turning left to pull in. He pulls up and I run in to check us in. Well what do you know. There is no reception area instead there is a sign that says find reception for hotel on 3rd floor. The first 2 floors are stores and offices. Weird! So I go up and check in. Come back out and it is now time to park the car. Well again it is rush hour so the only way to get to the parking garage which is BEFORE the turn in for checking in was to go around the block. We do this and Tobei swears we are not moving our car until we go home. The parking garage was very tight and I don’t want to imagine what would happen if a car came the opposite direction as there was only room for 1 car to drive. So fine, it’s downtown Ottawa we can do buses.

We go up to our room WAY up on the 14th floor. I had asked for a lower floor but they had nothing else available. Upon entering the room I won’t lie, it was beautiful. We got a 1 bedroom suite with 2 double beds. Very nicely done. We unload our bags and I start unpacking. We are also trying to figure out how we are going to get groceries since we are not moving the car again. We notice that they have a grocery service and it’s free. Got to like that. So Tobei does up our grocery list and I run it down to the front desk on the 3rd floor. I also decided to go out for a smoke at this point since I am already close to the ground floor. Oh hey look at that, no smoking within 9 meters of the door. Fine whatever, sucks to be a smoker these days and I go stand on the sidewalk. Our groceries were delivered to our room the next day. Not too bad, they got most of our list. However they didn’t get coffee filters but did get us the coffee. Lucky for us coffee addicts the hotel got us some filters. We also noticed that the equipped kitchen comes only with pots, no pans. We managed and used the pots as pans. See we know how to rough it. LOL!

I go back upstairs and continue unpacking. Go to take a washroom break and this is when I notice a major flaw in decision making when they did up the hotel room. The hair dryer is installed directly above the toilet. They should have just put up a flashing sign saying “Hey come electrocute yourself”. So I call down to the front desk and ask for a screw driver to uninstall the hair dryer. Reception tells me “Sorry, maintenance is gone home for the day”. Of course I don’t accept that answer. I kindly tell them that I really don’t want my 3 year old to get electrocuted to they need to find a screwdriver before I rip the thing off the wall myself. 5 minutes later someone from the front desk was up in our room uninstalling the hair dryer.

The rest of the stay there was no real complaints. I didn’t like the security of the place. Again being that I smoked I would be standing downtown Ottawa late at night outside having a smoke and there was no front desk to make me feel secure. I couldn’t run inside and have staff nearby if I did not feel safe. I honestly think this was my number 1 complaint about the entire stay. Security was awful in my opinion and I did not feel safe. The double beds will never happen again. The first night I shared a bed with my son. Not a good idea. That little boy knows how to hog a bed just like his mommy. I woke up with such a sore back from his knees and elbows pushing into me all night. The next night I slept in the bed with Tobei. Not enough room at all. I love my queen and still would love to upgrade to a king at home.

On our final morning at the hotel it was my turn to sleep in. Well lucky me the stupid fire alarm started going off. We quickly throw on our shoes, grab our hotel key and go to begin the journey down 14 flights of stairs. As soon as we open our hotel room door a mother is standing their with her son and informs us it is a false alarm as her son pulled it. We decided to go down anyways. As Tobei pointed out “You never know” plus it was the first fire alarm for Little Man so we were able to teach him. Since we knew it was false at least we got to take our time going down and weren’t in such a rush. The stairs brought us out to the side of the hotel and it was pouring rain. We run to the front door and go sit in the lobby as we wait for the firemen to give it the all clear. They do so and then they leave. Oh and the elevators oh yes they are still on emergency mode. You can’t take the stairs if you wanted to as the doors are locked at the 3rd level so you can’t get higher then that.

I sit there annoyed watching the hotel staff try every single way except the right way to reset the elevators. They finally realize they need to put the key in the one labeled “Emergency Recall” and the elevators are working. I run into the closest elevator as I am not waiting my turn. I want a shower. Get up to our room and I call my mom to let her know about my lovely wake up call. Just as I get off the phone guess what happens. Oh yes the fire alarm AGAIN! Little Man starts running to his shoes saying “Quick, Fire, Shoes on”, seriously it was cute. On goes all our shoes again, open the door again and now the staff is standing there letting us know they are trying to reset the system. Fine! I shut the door and go back in my room. About 3 minutes later they announce over the PA system that it is a false alarms. I feel sorry for all those not on our floor who didn’t have the staff right there to tell them and save them a trip.

I finally get in the shower, get all clean and we pack our stuff and head home. I know the fire alarm incident is not the hotels fault. I know that a lot of this was probably because I am just so darn picky. On top of it being that we were burying my grandpa during this stay in Ottawa it was VERY easy to set me off into a rant. Honestly if you are not a smoker I would say Hotel A is worth staying at. They also have a hot breakfast buffet every morning included with your room, the breakfast is a must. Very yummy and they are on top of keeping it full through the breakfast hours.

The story on Hotel B which is where we stayed for our date night will be posted another time. This post ended up being much longer than I had anticipated.