HOTEL REVIEW

Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth Hotel

Location: 900 Rene-Levesque Blvd. West, Montreal

Telephone: 1-514-861-3511

Website: www.fairmont.com/queenelizabeth

Reviewed By Kindah Mardam Bey

Photos by: The Fairmont Hotel & Kindah Mardam Bey

Montreal is home and host to Canada’s cultural sophistication. With a wealth of choices in fine dining, haute couture and quality hotels, one stands above the rest in its ability to have one foot firmly planted in sophistication and the other in tradition – The Queen Elizabeth Hotel.

Perhaps you remember the 1969 bed-in John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged for peace that garnered international attention? Well that was at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. (You can also book and stay in the room!) Or maybe you are someone like my Mother who stayed at the hotel when she was eight years old and taking the train from Calgary to Montreal and then a boat from Montreal back to her homeland of England. My Mother remembers the Queen Elizabeth Hotel back when it was still owned by the CP Rail, in its earliest stages, when it had first been built. A   child of eight was astounded at the magnitude and   she remembers calling it “The Queen’s Hotel” as her Father had referenced it. Now it's 50 years later and  The Queen Elizabeth is still ingratiating herself to her visitors.

  The Fairmont Hotels, all elegant and distinguished establishments, seem to be the gentle curators of history and tradition, which is often difficult to find in a country as young as Canada. The Fairmont  hotels feel like those fantastic well-established elegant hotels found in Europe. Thankfully, each hotel is taken care of like it is a separate piece to an art collection.  The Queen  Elizabeth Hotel is renovated, updated and stylized, but it still holds within it very walls an echo of its  past.

 With 1,037 rooms you are spoiled for choice. You can choose from a multitude of packages away and enjoy both the benefit of the hotel and the cultural city centre of Montreal at the same time. http://www.fairmont.com/queenelizabeth/HotelPackages /

The rooms are quiet and private with modern conveniences like flat screen TVs, safes for your valuables, bathrobes, coffee maker, on-command TV and elegant marbled bathrooms.

 The exercise facilities seemed particularly seemed high-tech and extensive. Lots of options for working out and a very welcoming and open space so that lots of customers could use the space without feeling as though they were in each others way.

 This hotel has a strong environmental initiative, which it encourages customers to participate in. I was impressed to discover that even the leftover soaps and toiletries were sent to homeless shelters to be used.

The Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel has three restaurants, Le Montrealais, Beaver Club, and Les Voyageurs. Go to the hotel website for additional information.

For me, the complete convenience of staying at The Queen Elizabeth Hotel compared to all others was when I arrived by train and walked only a few paces, indoors, to my hotel. The train station connects directly to the hotel and the hotel is centrally located at the heart of Montreal.

So if you are a fan of history - whether it be the bricks and mortar history, or the Lennon & Yoko history, or simply prefer to stay where the Queen stays (yes, she has stayed three times in the hotel of her own name), The Queen Elizabeth Hotel seems to be a particularly enchanting way to enjoy the beauty and elegance of cosmopolitan Montreal.

Written by :

Kindah