Several weeks ago when we visited Toronto we choose to stay at the Renaissance Toronto Downtown Hotel.
We were in Toronto to attend the TBEX conference along with more than 1,200 other travel bloggers from around the globe.
The Renaissance Toronto is a short walk to the CN Tower and the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, the location of TBEX.
This Renaissance hotel has a unique claim to fame: it’s the world’s only hotel located in a major league sports and entertainment venue. The hotel is built into the Rogers Centre, home to the Toronto Blue Jays.
When we were in town, the Blue Jays were on the road.
But we witnessed the set up for an entertainment event in the Rogers Centre. It tooks crews of hundreds of workers three days to set up for the Bud Light Sensation White colossal rave.
The hotel’s Arriba lounge and restaurant provided a terrific place to have a beer and watch the action in the Rogers Centre.
Our Executive Level room was on the top floor of the 11-story hotel.
Room 1151 is spacious, but it looks out into the city of Toronto. Some of the hotel rooms look directly into the stadium.
The hotel room was a bit dated.
Here’s a peek into the bathroom.
Our bottom line on the Renaissance Toronto Downtown Hotel:
The Pros:
- It’s a great location in downtown Toronto, perfect for attending events at the Rogers Centre or the nearby Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
- The hotel’s unique location within a sports stadium would be awesome for attending a Toronto Blue Jays game.
- It’s not a bad use of Marriott Rewards points; the hotel is currently a Category 6 Award Level and downtown Toronto hotels tend to be spendy.
- The rooms are spacious.
The Cons:
- The hotel rooms are dated.
- The hotel staff was overwhelmed by the big event going on and seemed to lack appropriate training. We should have been alerted when we checked it that there would be a big event Saturday night requiring hotel guests to wear bright pink wristbands to get to their rooms. We were only informed by the security guard as we tried to get on the elevator to go to our room. He insisted we needed to stand in a line at the front desk to get the wristbands. This occurred on the third night of our 3-night stay in the hotel.
Have you stayed in the Toronto Renaissance Downtown Hotel? What was your impression?
For a look inside more hotel rooms, check out these posts….