Great Views
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 5/20/05
ROOMS - the rooms are well appointed, spacious and offer fabulous views of the falls (if you request a room on the falls' side). They first sent us to a smoking room when we had specifically requested a non-smoking room, so be sure to double check at the front desk before lugging all your bags up to the wrong floor. Also, they sent us up to the room before it had been cleaned, which is annoying and something that shouldn't happen in this day and age with computers. The bathrooms are nice and clean, marble floors, glass shower, but no soaker/whirlpool tub. Also, no bathrobes, which I would have expected in a hotel at this pricepoint. A huge surprise was that there was no fridge in the room, which I had counted on to store my infant daughter's milk and food. Definitely the view of the falls make the high price for this hotel worth it.
RESTAURANTS - the buffet is actually located INSIDE the casino, so if you have any children with you, you will not be able to eat there. This was a huge disappointment for us, either they are purposefully discouraging children in the buffet or the designers forgot to make a separate entrance. We tried Johnny Rockets for lunch in the food court which was alright except we paid $15 for a burger, fries and drink and $10 for a grilled cheese and drink. For dinner we tried Crazy Sushi... the food was as good as any of the other Crazy Sushi locations in the Greater Toronto Area and only slightly more expensive, however, the service was probably the worst I've experienced in a long time. They only opened a month ago and my guess is the owners have never run a restaurant before. We had to practically accost the waitress for more tea. When the dishes came, the waitress seemed to expect us to move our plates to help her. They did however, happily provide me with a bowl of hot water to warm my daughter's milk. When we finished dinner, we sat for about 20 minutes without tea or a waitress to be found to ask for the bill. We stopped a kitchen person and asked him for our bill. Then we waited another 15 minutes before we stopped another waitress who uttered the worse thing any server could say "well, who's your waitress? my tables are all down there". Finally, we were able to pay and leave. Despite our complaints, we got a meek little "sorry" and nothing else. Given that our party was 8 people, any smart restauranteur would try to make amends and ensure our return or at least stop us from spreading the news of our bad experience to everyone we know.
SPA - beautiful facilities, offering use of hot tub, steam room and sauna. Smoothly run, clean, calm and well appointed. The change room is massive, with private lockers, robes, slippers, towels, complimentary mouthwash, toothbrushes, etc. The waiting room is ok, kind of small, but there was a ready supply of coffee and tea. I tried the Caviar Facial, 2 hours of pure relaxation, the head and face massage are amazing. I've never heard of the product line they use, but it was alright. Extremely relaxing environment.
OVERALL - with it's fancy Las Vegas style, this is definitely one of the best Niagara Falls hotels to stay at and the casino and views from the room made the extra cost worth it.