Overall I was very happy with Murray Premises. The room I was in was large and beautiful. The location of the hotel was fantastic. There were a couple downsides that I didn't find to be a big deal but I'll leave it up to you to decide if it is a deal breaker for you or not.
Murray Premises is located right in the middle of downtown St. John's. There are a lot of restaurants and shops well within walking distance. If you can't find something good to eat or a nice place to buy something you are probably waaaay too picky. Places like Signal Hill and Quidi Vidi Lake may be too far to walk to (depending on your energy levels) but they are not too far away. However, you are very close to George Street which is great if you love bars. The great thing is that you are not so close that you will have to worry about excess noise at 3:00 in the morning. If location is important to you then Murray Premises will not disappoint.
The room I was in was large and beautiful. The room had exposed wooden beams that gave a warm and rustic feel. The room was equipped with all the standard items. The room I was in had a hot tub but I'm not sure if that is standard in all rooms. The bed was large and comfortable, but that is entirely a personal judgement. The previous poster said that he found the bed to be hard, but I did not find this to be the case. Since the hotel is in an older building there were times when I heard other people. However, this happened very infrequently and did not bother me in the least. The room also had an electric fire place and a television that appeared to have full cable tv service.
I didn't order any room service so I can't speak to this service. The hotel has two cafe/restaurants in case you didn't want to venture too far. The hotel has a continental breakfast that had the basics but not many options. The strength of the hotel is the staff who I found to be kind and responsive.
So here are some of the downsides. The first is the wi-fi. It is good enough to do the basics like checking email and finding information but that's about it. Doing things like streaming video is unreliable at times. Maybe this was due to my partner and I trying to access the wi-fi at the same time but there were times when I could not stream anything or at times when I was booted off the network. Now since I was visiting I didn't spend a lot of time trying to watch videos but there were times when I wanted some down time and I couldn't stream some shows. Definitely not the end of the world from my perspective, but I can see how some people would be bothered by this.
The second downside was an isolated incident. The toilet in the room broke where the handle separated from the trip lever. This was not a problem that we could fix on our own but the toilet was still useable. When I reported this to the front desk I was informed that there was no maintenance staff who could fix this as it was the weekend. Again, for me it wasn't the end of the world. However, I can see how this may bother some people who don't want to be bothered by something like this or lack the knowledge to deal with this problem. It was a little disappointing to know that maintenance was not available at certain times.
I would definitely stay here again as the location cannot be beat. However, the exposed wood is not for people who would prefer a more "modern" style, but I enjoyed it. The free wi-fi was serviceable but the reliability is questionable depending on your needs (or possibly how many devices are connected). The fact that our isolated incident was not fixed due to the fact that it was the weekend was a minor problem for me, but it could be a big problem for other people or if the problem was bigger. Despite the small issues, I still enjoyed my stay at Murray Premises. read more
