Ensight - Jeremy Wright

My second hotel stay this trip was at the Old Fort Garry hotel. The Fort Garry is Winnipeg’s oldest, glitziest and most expensive hotel. This hotel is Winnipeg’s equivalent to the Royal York or Ritz Carlton. My first impression was great. The bellboy and receptionist were fantastic, everything was very “classic”.

I wasn’t impressed that there was construction going on in my floor.

My room was reasonably sized, and the two king beds (with massive comforters and piles of pillows) were a welcome addition.

The 17″ TV was not. I’d expect better from a hotel of this quality.

I ordered room service at this hotel and I was not disappointed. Portions were restaurant-sized (as opposed to normal room service sized) and the foot was all very high quality - there is obviously a chef onsite, which was incredibly welcome.

There was no wired internet access, but there was wifi broadband… For 25$/day. And the speed is roughly 1KB/sec. Awful. Pathetic even. It could be because there’s the journalism conference in, but it doesn’t matter. At 25$/day I should be getting a steady, healthy sized pipe with no downtime (which there has been).

Rating: 2.5/5

It’s not that this hotel was actually awful. If I’d been paying 100$/night for it, I’d have given it a 4/5. But, since this is the best the city has to offer (and it’s 350$/night) I’ve come to expect more. The broadband and TV both bothered me tremendously, and the lack of decent restaurants onsite bothered me even more.

There is a great pool here, but you need to pay 15$/day for a gym membership (if purchased outside the hotel this is 5$/day).

Considering the reputation, rate and quality of most everything else, these minor things SHOULD be easy to tie up. But it’s doubtful that they will.