Jasper-park-lodge-review

Hotel Review: Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, Jasper National Park, Alberta Canada

Rating: 1 star

Date of visit: July 2010

 

This is a Fairmont hotel? Seriously? This is the worst Fairmont hotel I have ever been in – by far. In general, Fairmont hotels are known for luxury: they have courteous and helpful staff, they often offer  afternoon teas (and have their own Fairmont-branded teas in the hotel rooms), the towels, robes, and linens are plush, and the rooms are well-maintained and well-equipped.  To top things off, the hotel itself is usually a building that is a work of art, in a location that is inspiring (whether that is the center of Vancouver or Banff National Park). In general, the guest can reasonably expect a first class experience.  Further, while Fairmonts are never cheap, they often offer discounts that place them in the affordable splurge category.

 

My experience with the Jasper Park Lodge has left me wondering if this was the worst hotel in the chain – and hoping that if it wasn’t, I never find out which one is.

 

First, the good things.

·         The location is wonderful, with the main lodge (registration, restaurants and shops) on a lakefront within the beautiful Jasper National Park. 

·         The main lodge is everything that you would expect of a Fairmont: breathtaking architecture appropriate for the location, plush interiors.

·         The housekeeping service was outstanding during my stay. They did absolutely everything right (replaced everything that was used, didn’t throw away anything not in the garbage). This sounds minor, but it is very rare to find these days.

·         The standard Fairmont towels, robes, teas and soaps were all present, providing the only tangible association with the luxury component of the hotel to be found in the guest rooms

·         Lots of activities from golf to horseback riding to kayaking available at the hotel.

 

Unfortunately, the bad outweighed the good by far in this case. The worst part of this facility is the complete and total lack of maintenance that has been performed on the guest rooms.  I have been in Super8s that have looked better. I won’t even mention the lack of air conditioning on an 80+ degree day and the ceiling fan that was incredibly slow, even on high. Instead, I will focus on: the entrance doors that were scratched up and down, both inside and out; the peeling paint; the peeling wallpaper; closet doors that didn’t open; the concrete steps that were falling apart to the point of being a safety hazard; the mold growing in the bathroom window (the only source of ventilation in the bathroom) and the decomposing wood on the window frame; the old carpets; and the layout of the room that caused numerous meetings between bed frame and shin, despite the room being a decent size. 

 

Other, more minor but still extremely disappointing experiences include:

·         The hotel was expensive, even for a Fairmont (the discount walk-in rate was 25% more than I was charged at the Chateaux Lake Louise – a nicer hotel - the day before).

·         The layout of the units is unduly complex. This is a lodge, not a hotel, and as such the rooms are spread among a collection of separate buildings (with stand-alone houses also available). Unfortunately, the roads are narrow and 1-way which makes loading / unloading and generally navigating the land less pleasant than it should be.  We had to unload our car in front of our unit, then drive 0.25km to get to the parking area.  To get from the parking area to the front of our unit, for loading, we had to go across the entire complex again.

·         Service was extremely poor. From the initial check-in ,where our introduction to the property was “Park here to unload your car, then drive to this parking lot when you are done.” (whatever happened to – “Do you need help with your luggage” or “Our lounge is open until 11”?), to the sprinklers in front of the unit (where we needed to load and unload our luggage ourselves, a rarity at Fairmonts) turning on and watering not only the grass, but also all of the walkways as we were trying to load our vehicle to leave before checkout, to the lack of paper delivery and not receiving a copy of the bill before checking out at the front desk in person, to the grounds staff driving over curbs to get around cars, to no-one bothering to ask how the stay was on checkout. Housekeeping excepted, the entire staff seemed completely unaware that they were working at what was supposed to be a luxury resort instead of a low-end motel.

·         Security clearly wasn’t a concern. There was no safe in the room and the use of actual keys instead of cardkeys means that room access cannot be tracked. Why are these standards not in place? 

·         The welcome note in the room was for someone else who was expected to check in the same day that we did – and it arrived, addressed to the wrong guest,  after we had already been in the room awhile.

·         Since all of the rooms are on the ground level, the curtains have to be drawn in order to prevent people from seeing into the room. Unfortunately, this also limits natural light in the room.

·         There was a loud, rowdy, and drunken group of people who passed outside of our open window (the only way to cool down the room) several times in the middle of the night and remained within earshot for several minutes each time. Not completely within the hotel’s control but not exactly the ambience expected at a Fairmont.

 

For this, people are expected to pay several hundred dollars a night? I certainly won’t ever do so again. This hotel is clearly not worth it.

 

Worse, it has made me seriously question the Fairmont brand – which until now I have always held in high esteem. The inclusion of this hotel in the chain makes me wonder which of my experiences have been the exception and which the rule...

 

 

Terence

 

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