Back in November someone from the DoubleTree Resort Lodge & Spa left a comment on a posting asking how to contact me. I got back to her, and I ended up going back and forth through email with Robert Orsini, one of the managing partners of the hotel. I introduced myself, and explained the site and the blog. I also mentioned that I’d be happy to check out the hotel and do a write-up. We made arrangements, and they “hosted†us (his words) in mid-December.
The hotel is gorgeous! The lobby is very large with no ceiling until the second floor. There is a fireplace in the centre of the lobby, and everything is finished with beautiful stone work. Although I’m sure most people find the hotel off of Stanley Avenue, the actual front of the hotel is on Fallsview Boulevard, facing Niagara Falls. All of the rooms are fallsview rooms, although you don’t see the Falls until you get up a few floors. The elevators are on the Stanley Avenue side, so you enter your room from the back of the hotel and the windows on the front face the waterfalls. I’ll go into details about the room tomorrow.
All of the staff were very pleasant when we checked in. The woman who was helping us gave us each warm cookies. Apparently this is one of the special things that the DoubleTree does, and when I did a web survey after my stay, one of the questions asked if I was given a warm cookie.
The hotel definitely has a business feel to it. There is a business centre with a UPS Store. There are also a couple of large meeting rooms. The second floor atrium is where Buchanans Chophouse is located, and then it appeared that the rest of the space was for meetings or events. Even with the business feel of it, there are still things that families can enjoy. My wife and I took our two sons and newborn daughter and both the boys had a great time. The pool area has two pools. The main pool has a large shallow end which the boys enjoyed playing in. There is also an “adult†pool which is for swimming laps. We also enjoyed the indoor whirlpool. There is an outdoor whirlpool/hot tub, but it was closed for the winter season. There was also a very small games room that had 3 or 4 video games and a pinball machine.
My wife was hoping to try out the services at the Aveda Five Lakes Spa, but we didn’t have a chance to (she went to the spa at the Great Wolf Lodge previously, and I think developed a taste for that sort of treatment). We also didn’t have a chance to go into the Ochre Gallery of original Canadian art.
I have also created a PDF file of the leaflet if you’d like to download it and see it in full size/colour. You can download it here:
DoubleTree Resort Lodge & Spa Niagara Falls leaflet
Be sure to read all of the postings in this series: