If I could give zero stars, I would!
We booked a room for four nights at the King Edward Hotel in Banff. We were told that we would be able to unload our vehicle around the corner and then park in either the Bear St Parking deck or a lower deck using a key fob. When we arrived there was nowhere to unload around the corner, as the restaurant had outdoor tables set up. My husband had to run into the hotel to find out where we could unload and park while I circled the block. We were lucky that he went in when he did,
since the woman at the tiny hallway check-in desk told him she was about to leave and that her replacement had not yet arrived, so had he been any later we would have been stuck & unable to even check in!!
After getting us checked in and finding our way into the lower deck using the fob, we dragged our bags the two blocks to the hotel, only to find that the elevator didn't seem to work. So we dragged our bags upstairs but then couldn't enter since the door was locked. I went down again and the man at the desk told me I had to use the room key
fob to get the elevator to work. Note that there was no information to that effect in the elevator or anywhere around. That should have been noted or posted somewhere.
When we got to our room it was awful - extremely small with no drawers except two tiny ones in the nightstand and a small space to hang clothes in the closet. The overhead light did not work which we reported but were told it just doesn't work, so we only had the hall light and the two lamps by the bed. We had to use the flashlights on our phones to see into our suitcases.
There is no A/C but we didn't think we'd need it since it was cool at that time of year. The outside temps were in the 50s and even cooler at night, but our room was a ridiculous 75 degrees even though no heat was coming out of the radiator!! We had to keep the ONE tiny window that we were actually able to open, wide open all night - the other two tiny windows only had glass but no way to open them. But there was so much noise right outside our room on Banff Ave until 3am, it was near impossible to sleep.
The bed was made up with an unfitted bottom sheet that was not long or wide enough to tuck in, so it kept moving and we would end up lying on the mattress pad itself and trying to pull the ridiculous bottom sheet back down throughout the night. How hard is it to get a fitted sheet for the beds? It seems like they cut every single possible corner
they could.
We were very happy to leave this hotel, and on our last morning we brought down our suitcases to check out but the tiny lobby desk area was locked with no one in sight. We called the number that was posted: "For assistance call" - but just received a message that the mailbox was full. We waited a while and finally decided to bring our suitcases to our car and then my husband ran back hoping there would be someone there with whom to leave the keys fobs. But no one was there, so after conferring with other guests who were also attempting to check out, he went back to the room and left the
keys inside.
All in all the King Edward Hotel was the worst part of our experience in Banff and pretty much ruined that part of our trip. We would caution anyone to stay well away from this terrible hotel. read more