Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Hotel Review: Westin Harbour Castle Toronto

Over the past 2 years my travels have been taking me to Toronto more often. Since it is primarily for business I seem to be bouncing around hotels in YYZ per the demands wishes of my clients. The latest trip which was for Aeroplan’s Media Day, (see the flight report here) had me staying for the first time at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel The stay was paid for by Starwood Canada but surprisingly enough the rate they booked and paid awarded me Starpoints and also counted for the Better by the Night promotion. So I ended up with double Starpoints for this very short stay. It should also count for the Aeroplan Starwood promo that is currently being offered since that one is stackable. I will see how that comes out after my upcoming stay at the Westin Mission Hills Resort in Palm Springs next week.

As I mentioned in the flight report my actual stay in Toronto was less than 24 hours and my actual time at the hotel clocked in at 9 of those hours. I checked in roughly around 11:45pm and was assigned an Deluxe (almost) Corner Room on the 21st floor.  I say almost corner room as the room was at the part of the hotel where there is a bend in the architecture which isn’t 90 degree corner but more so a 45 degree bend. You can see what I mean in this picture:


The room itself was quite large and it afforded a great view of the Harbourfront, Lake Ontario and the flight path for the Toronto Island Airport. Sorry ‘avgeeks’ I didn’t get any shots of the Porter or Air Canada Dash 8’s coming in to land! Here are some pics of the view at night and during the day testing out the panorama feature of my iPhone 5 for the first time.



 The bed, as is usual with Westin was super comfortable, the Heavenly bed is definitely one that like (I mean my wife and I just bought one for our bed back in August) so there are no complaints there. The room itself was clean, showed some signs of aging/use (some unknown and I don’t want to know stains on the chaise lounge) but for a stay that I would only be using the bed and the bathroom for I didn’t really care about the minor condition issues. Speaking of the bathroom, it was typically Westin appointed and clean but I did find it a little small when compared to the rest of the room. The shower produced enough pressure with the nice Westin showerhead (I do miss the double heads that some Westin’s used to have but I’m not sure if the Harbourfront ever had them but I know other hotels have pulled them in the name of water conservation)


I didn’t spend too much time checking out the general areas of the hotel in the morning as I was on the hunt for breakfast off site.  Once I got back to the hotel checkout was painless and 9 hours after checking in I was in a taxi on my way to Airship 37.

The Westin Harbour Castle Toronto
SPG Category: 4
Points required for a free night: 10,000 Starpoints
Cash+Points Requirement: 4,000 Starpoints + $60 per night

Links:
The Westin Harbour Castle Toronto

Gift Basket from Aeroplan


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