My brother has recently moved to Port Alberni, so my sweetie and I drove over the hump to visit…read morehim. There is a cluster of motels along Redford Street, and the Sunset is the first one on the right as you're coming into town. (Although if you do come in on the Port Alberni Highway to Redford, you'd need to turn right onto Wood Avenue and then immediately right onto McIntyre Drive to backtrack a little bit to get to it. (If I was coming from that direction, I'd turn off the highway at King Street, then left down McIntyre to the motel.)
It was dark by the time we hit town, and the weather was pretty foul coming over the hump, so I was glad just to be off the road and under a dry roof. But as I looked around our room, I got happier and happier.
Now, with any review, there has to be a "your mileage may vary" kind of disclaimer. If you're the kind of person who insists that the building, the carpets, the furniture, and everything else be brand spanking new so you can pretend to yourself that nobody has ever slept in that bed before, this is not the place for you. I'm guessing that the building was built in the 50s or 60s. The furniture and appliances aren't that old, so there has been at least one refurbishing since the place was built, but nothing in our room was brand new. This place is old, and there's no hiding that.
Also, while I would have preferred a room with a king sized bed, all that was available at the time I booked was a room with two double beds. (There may be king rooms that were occupied. I didn't ask, because the "No Vacancy" sign was lit, even though it was the off-season.) There's no breakfast option (free or paid) in the motel.
But, in order as I noticed them, the things that delighted me were:
The desk clerk, who seemed to be the only person on staff. But he's a nice guy and was very helpful to us.
The promised kitchen actually was a kitchen! I'm talking full-sized fridge, stove, microwave, and even some dishes, cutlery, and pots and pans. Unfortunately, real kitchens are getting hard to find in hotels or motels any more, but they can really help you save when travelling because you can buy groceries and make your own meals instead of having to eat out every single meal. So score one for older motels.
Actually, I like old buildings generally. I'm just not into walls of glass and trendy interior design. But when it comes to motel rooms (or apartments, for that matter), I like them because the rooms tend to be larger. Newer motel rooms are really small: barely big enough for the few pieces of furniture they have. This room had tons of space. There were three different closets: one right inside the front door, one in the hallway between the main room, the bedroom, and the bathroom, and one in the bedroom. (Yes, it's even big enough to *have* a hallway.) The kitchen is in a nook off the living room, which has a kitchen table and chairs, as well as a sofa (actually a fold-a-bed), a coffee table, and a TV. (There was another TV in the bedroom.) In fact, the place was so roomy that I'm not at all sure that the building wasn't originally built as apartments.
When I was a kid, my grandmother lived in an apartment building that was about this vintage, and so many of the architectural details in our room reminded me of her apartment that I immediately felt at home. There was even a little "closet" with an ironing board that folded down out of it. Stylish? No. Comforting? Absolutely.
There are a bunch of other hotels and motels in Port Alberni, including a couple that are even closer to my brother's place. But I'm not sure that I'm even going to bother checking any of them out. There's no place like home.
