HIE Vancouver ~ Is This A Reliable Jumping Off Point For Your Cruise Ship Plans
Written: Jun 28 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Free Breakfast, Clean Rooms, Plenty Of Parking
Cons: Unreliable Shuttle Service, Lack Of Hot Water In Showers/Baths
The Bottom Line: I don't like cold showers, but that's the only kind they have here...
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| susieq112's Full Review: Holiday Inn Express VANCOUVER |
People come to Vancouver, BC for a number of reasons, but for many people that come during the summer months, you may find an abundance of people headed towards Canada Place and their cruise to Alaska. We were no different. Vancouver, presented a few challenges for us, unlike many we drove to Vancouver, where would we leave the car, how would we get to the cruise ship terminal, where would we eat breakfast, and where is the lowest price for all of this. After much research, Holiday Inn Express Vancouver, located on Hastings Street, seemed to be the perfect place for all of our needs.
Check-In
It appears this HIE is a bustling place. We ended up checking into this hotel 2 times, once pre-cruise and another time post-cruise. Both check-ins took a bit, not because the people behind the desk are slow, but there are just soo many people here.
Parking
After checking in you make your way down into the garage to park your car. To enter the garage you must swipe your card, but once in you have 3 small levels to choose from. Even though the hotel is very busy, the parking garage is not.
Since their parking lot isn’t used by most guest (many fly-in) they do offer long term parking and you can request this by paying in 2 different manners. You can pay a $10 a night charge or the hotel can change your “room type” to a higher-priced category, which will allow for free parking. During our pre-cruise stay we hashed this out at the front desk and ended up leaving our car in the garage for an additional room charge of $100.00, a pretty good deal since we left it down there for 15 days. This price was cheaper than long-term parking at the airport.
Price
Our initial booking price for this hotel was $120 a night. Compared to other hotels in the Vancouver area this is significantly lower than comparable hotels, unless you stay right next to the airport.
Shuttle Service
This HIE offers free shuttle service, but you do have to reserve your spot ahead of time. The free service includes transportation to down town and the cruise ship terminals. This worked out great for us, because we left our car at the hotel, had a free ride to our cruise ship. They also offer shuttle service to the airport, but they do charge $3.50 for that service. We took the shuttle back from the airport and I can easily say its well worth, the drive is no less than 20 minutes.
The only bad thing about the shuttle service was its reliability. We pre-scheduled both of our pick-ups ahead of time, but still waited about 30 extra minutes for our ride to the cruise ship terminal. Our flight was delayed on the way back to Vancouver, but we thought everything would work out since the hotel asked for our flight number. None the less, the shuttle wasn’t there and we ended up having to call them to come pick us up. We ended up waiting well over an hour for the shuttle service back to the hotel.
The shuttle service problems lay directly on the fact that there is only one shuttle and too many people to serve. This hotel could really beef up this part of their service, even if they thought they needed to charge a bit for each ride.
Our Room
In our 3 total nights, we spent time in 2 different rooms, both were the same. The rooms at HIE Vancouver are small but well kept, clean and desirable. Our room had a full bath off of the main entry with a closet to the opposing side.
The rooms had 2 queen beds outfitted with the HIE pillow (4 Total, 2 soft, 2 firm) and crisp white bed linens and blankets. Across from the beds was an armoire with a TV, and plenty of channels were available. Next to the armoire was a desk and chair and I the opposite corner a small table with 2 chairs. A sliding glass door led onto a small balcony overlooking E. Hastings Street. Thankfully, this door was well equipped with a functioning lock.
Both rooms had a coffee pot with supplies, iron and ironing board. The rooms here do not feature a refrigerator or a microwave unfortunately.
While the bathroom was clean the heat of the water in the shower was cold and unpredictable. I ran a bath for my son during our first night and realized it was cold. I drained and re-ran the water only to find at the maximum heat it still wasn’t warm enough. After returning to Vancouver two weeks later I had forgotten about this problem only to jump into the shower to be reminded.
Facilities
I used the guest laundry and must say, beware. I had a horrible time getting clothes dry because the dryer just don’t work well. The fitness center is together with the laundry area and it includes multiple pieces of equipment (weight lifting equipment, treadmills, steppers and more) and a sauna.
Free Breakfast
A main draw for us was the free hot breakfast provided by the hotel at no additional cost. This appeared to be pretty rare in my search for hotels in the Vancouver area. HIE Vancouver offers a great selection come morning time including oatmeal, muffins, bagels, English muffins, hot items (like egg, sausage and more), cinnamon rolls, milk, juice and coffee. The breakfast was well taken care of and kept stocked even though there were many people taking advantage of it.
The only downfall to their breakfast was a lack of tables in the breakfast area. While they had numerous tables, there was often a shortage because of the number of people coming down to eat around the same time.
Overall
The fact that water in the showers is unusable is pathetic. Having the issue in 2 different rooms only shows me that it’s a ‘hotel-wide’ problem. To make matters worse, their shuttle service wasn’t up to par either. If you find wither of these two things very important HIE Vancouver simply isn’t for you. I myself, probably wouldn’t return.
Recommended:
No
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susieq112
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Procrastination ~ At this rate, I'll never finish my mini-doumentary...
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