Great Family Getaway!
We stayed at the Fallsview Hilton from Dec. 27-29/06, after booking via telephone for a special package which included a 2 queen bed room, city view, breakfast buffet for both days for all, free passes to the Bird Kingdom Aviary, Butterfly conservatory, a free magic show in the hotel, a kids craft time, a kids movie night with free popcorn and pop, and some other discount coupons.
Room was very clean, the staff extremely courteous and helpful from greeting to check out. The breakfast buffet which was free for us was quite good...we went to the mezzanine ballroom to to eat breakfast both mornings, although we tried to get a seating at the Watermark restaurant on top of the building, to enjoy the view...too long a wait for our hungry kids, we should have gotten up earlier!
We were not told about the parking fee of $20.00 until our arrival, and when we made our protest, the parking fee was quickly waived by the clerk.
We took our kids to the food court in the fallsview casino to eat dinner...really lousy choice, but Rocky's Diner was pretty good, homemade burgers, not frozen patties, and very reasonable considering the inflated prices in the area for pretty well everything.
My husband and I ate at the Casino buffet, which we had heard so much about....over-rated....maybe not as good as the Mandarin, which isn't that great either. Took one and a half minutes to lose 10 dollars in nickels in the slots for fun...we're not high rollers! We'd rather buy two lattes from Starbucks.
There was a free magic show in the hotel for families, featuring Aaron Patterson...and it was quite entertaining! There was a craft room for kids from 11:00-12:00 daily....my son enjoyed it, but the two young supervising young women did not seem to interact at all with the kids...just stood with each other and chatted, and ignored the kids....there were a couple of large nasty notes on posters addressed to parents on the walls explaining that parents should not make crafts for kids, or use the supplies themselves...they were for the children triple underlined. I felt a little tried and convicted before I even got in there to look around.
The pool, jacuzzi and sauna/steamroom and water fall were great, and the kids and husband enjoyed the waterslide. but...beware, the lifeguards were busy flirting and sitting around talking to each other, and hardly cast a glance at the swimmers or the pool....the young lady supervising the top of the waterslide was reading a magazine...there was lots of potential for drownings which did not seem to concern the lifeguarding staff.
Good thing we are conscientious parents who kept a good eye on our swimming kids.
In the morning of our departure, we woke up to a bill slipped under our door...complete with a 4.95 charge for a bottle of Evian water which was available in our room and that we did not consume...we had to get that adjusted at the front desk.
Well, overall, I would say we would be back to the Hilton Fallsview for another holiday, and that we had a pretty good time. Definitely the kids program and the pool is a terrific component of this hotel if you are going in family.