I love this hotel! It is a bit difficult to find if you are not familiar with Edmonton but MapQuest is a good tool to use.

The staff were friendly and helpful when there was a mix up on the name of my reservation. The rooms are spacious and the bed is absolutely divine! They have a sleep program (CD and tips on how to get a restful night). The food in the Cafe is delicious despite being a bit pricey.

The parkade could use some work but I understand the hotel does not own it. It definitely needs to be repaired in more than a few places. Some places in the parkade roof structures have the cement falling away and ready to fall apart at any time.

We we're coming into town for a football game and usually stay around Kingsway. However, our usual hotel was full so we decided to stay here. It was fantastic. The lobby, hallways and rooms we're clean and recently renovated. The room was surprisingly spacious, the wedge shape being an interesting innovation. The beds were exceedingly comfortable. We ate in the Cafe Lacombe (very tasty) and I have eaten in La Ronde before (pricey, but oh so worth it). All told, the hotel stay cost $50 less than the "cheap" hotel we usually stay at and was of far superior quality.

Travelling to Edmonton for the long weekend, I wanted to give the high end Crowne Plaza brand a try with my partner. We went for 2 nights, a Saturday and Sunday. I’m a Priortiy Club Platinum.

We drive into Edmonton noticing that the Crowne Plaza resembles the skyscrapers from The Jetsons. This building is old. We get onto Bellamy in approach to the driveway, and we notice an even more dated
canopy with extremely old livery and grimy, peeling paint. Not a good
impression for IC Hotel’s higher end brand. We enter the lobby which isn’t much better. Although it’s clean, the fixtures are worn, uncoordinated, but by no means dysfunctional or filthy. This may be a stupid complaint, but again, this high end brand resembles a Ramada.

There was no priority check in line up allocated, but this doesn’t matter, there’s no line up. I check in, serviced by the customer service assistant manager and got my plat upgrade to a club room. She was friendly and I probably got everything done in less than 120 seconds.

We go up to club floor 20 and we’re a bit let down by the décor, but it’s much nicer than the décor on other floors. Again, not dirty, but
just very dated. I was staying on a weekend, so I cannot comment on the quality of the lounge. However, the lounge was open without beverage and food, had a nice view (of Edmonton), was spacious, and when functioning, would probably be very nice. Although it’s clean, the furnishings are very dated. Reminds me of a show home from 1981.

The club room was spacious, clean, and welcoming. Again, it was dated; the red carpet didn’t really go with the green chair or the white bed or the cherry-coloured desk. Bath robes were provided—these robes were really cheap looking and feeling. In the room is a mini fridge where you could put in your own items, there was a little
bar area with coffee maker, glasses, and ice box. The bathroom was clean, but, yes, dated. Water pressure was great (not dated!), curtain was nice, counter was spacious.

We had a good sleep, sound proofing seems to be good but I think our entire floor was empty. The bed is extremely hard; something that I really like, but someone else may not. I really am not a fan of the bed; they include 3 novelty pillows that serve no purpose other than show (in my opnion). The four sleep-able pillows are all extremely soft, so I needed 3 of them to support my head when sleeping on my side. The little amenity kit is really kitchy and confusing; if the bed of Crowne Plaza is so great, why does it need a lavender spray?

We went to bed with a Do not Disturb placard. This was respected until we left our room at 1100. In the morning, we didn’t get a newspaper delivered to our door. Instead, they leave a pile on a table outside the elevator. However, there weren’t any on my floor, so I had to venture out to get one. Not a big deal, but again, for the best brand of ICH, it is a bit of a let down that they couldn’t deliver a Globe & Mail to a platinum’s hotel room door. If the Holiday Inn Express can do it, a Crowne Plaza should do it.

We returned to the room at 1600 and it was not cleaned. We called and they immediately sent someone up at to clean our room. Not having
my room cleaned while I was out has never happened before and I stay in hotel rooms 50x a year.

Our cards consistently demaganized and prevented us from getting access to our floor and our room, so we had to go to the front desk to get it replaced. The clerks were really impartial which I don’t mind, but I know that at Westin the clerks would have been more apologetic.

We got the buffet breakfast comp’ed because the lounge wasn’t open to serve breakfast. The server we had was fantastic although the food
was pretty un-inspirational. Not horrid, but like any other buffet; it was quantity over quality.

Although Edmonton is the first major urban centre in North America where I've seen signage in the central business district indicating (on every block): “POLICE WARNING: BAIT CARS IN AREA – STEAL A CAR, GO TO JAIL”, the location of the hotel is great. It’s near some nice bars (by Edmonton standards) and the central LRT station. If downtown
Edmonton had a nice street market, some parks, and a town square, this hotel would probably be near it, too. But I guess all of those ambitions went away towards a mall for our friends in West Edmonton. The best thing about cities that have dead downtowns is that there's free parking on the street. Use it on the weekend instead of paying for it at the hotel.

Overall, the stay was unremarkable. Service wasn’t great, but not really bad either. Rooms were clean and nice to sleep in, but not pleasing to the eye. The property is worn out but not a basket-case; the same applies to the staff.

However, I should look at the bright side: I got a great deal on the room (c$90/night on a long weekend—the next cheapest was Econo Lodge near West Ed for $149), I got my status recognized (I wonder how this
is on weeknights), the room was clean, I got a good sleep, and the location is superb (by Edmonton standards). Considering how much of a rip off hotel rooms are in Edmonton due to the oil boom (amongst other things), I’d consider this property again if the price is right. I know I’ll get a good sleep and not much else. All things being equal however, I’m going to the newly renovated Holiday Inn Express that’s a few blocks west.

I spent two nights here for a business conference in early May. For a hotel that touts itself as up scale, the Chateau Lacombe isn't very impressive. I found it difficult to find it (the directions from their website seemed to skip a step) and it took me a couple passes on one-way streets to finally figure out where the parking lot is (a small driveway off the side of the entrance).

I found the front desk staff to be polite, but not very informative. I had to ask about getting a parking pass for my car and was given no information about the hotel (amenities, features, etc).

The room was standard. Nothing was really wrong with it, but nothing special, either. It was on the small side with no work space or desk, just a small end table with a couple chairs that were not conducive to working. There were also no power outlets near the table to plug in a laptop or cell phone. The hotel does offer free wifi, but the signal kept going out on me and then I couldn't reconnect. They also charged me $1.25 every time I used my calling card's 800 number. Phone rates were not listed anywhere in the room.

The conference facilities were poor. The main meeting room was too small, the secondary rooms were located on the 3rd floor, although no where in the hotel do they say this.

The one nice feature about the hotel is the very comfortable bed. However the whole "sleep package" that the hotel boasts is overrated. The lavender mist, soothing CD, ear plugs, and eye mask they provide don't really add much to a good night's sleep.

Overall, there's nothing horribly wrong with this hotel, just nothing great about it for the price they charge.