A decent option in downtown Toronto close to public transportation, though the conference center set-up is confusing and the attached shopping center appears dead.

Booking

The hotel can be booked either with cash or with Marriott Bonvoy points. For this trip, I was traveling for volunteer work related to the healthcare profession (completely unrelated to travel) and the hotel was fully reimbursed. With that in mind, the review below represents my own opinions.

Despite no longer adhering to a strict award chart when using points, as of now the hotel appears to be charging roughly 40,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per night. You’ll want to check cash rates before booking with points since the cash price tends to fluctuate between 300 and 500 CAD on most nights. It’s a good use of points when the cash price is high, but a poor use of points if the cash rate is on the lower end.

Earning Marriott Bonvoy points

If you’re looking to earn Marriott points quickly, you could look into picking up a Marriott credit card. Both Chase and American Express offer Marriott credit cards.

Full disclosure: in this section are refer-a-friend links where I may earn some points for referring. There is no requirement to use the below referral links to apply but note your offer may differ when going directly to the card issuer.

Chase offers the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless credit card that gives a sign up bonus of three 50k free night certificates for spending $3,000 in the first three months for a $95 annual fee.

Or you can turn your eyes to American Express:

• The Marriott Bonvoy Bevy (not an affiliate link) offers 85,000 Marriott points for $5,000 spend in the first six months for a $250 annual fee.
• The Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant (not an affiliate link) offers 100,000 Marriott points for $6,000 spend in the first six months. It also comes with instant Platinum status but with a higher annual fee ($650).

Since Amex credit cards are generally one-in-a-lifetime, it might be worth waiting for a better deal to come by.

Arrival and Initial Impressions

My flight arrived at YYZ airport at night. While I could have taken a taxi or Uber from the airport, I instead decided to take the UP Express out of a personal preference. The UP Express was clean and efficient, though it would have been nice to have a few more trains operating. It took about 30 minutes to reach Union Station, and the hotel was another two stops away on a separate line. Alternatively, it’s an easy 10 minute walk from Union Station to the hotel and is the option I would prefer if not carrying excessive amounts of luggage.

The front desk assistant was charming and he thanked me for my Titanium status, and informed me of the lounge available on the 43rd floor where breakfast is served. No late checkout was proactively offered and was not needed for this trip, though while I was at the front desk, I did overhear someone else getting denied a request for late checkout.

The Room

I was given room 2819, which overlooks the city to the North. The room felt modest but inviting and thankfully still contained a desk. I’m not a fan of recent trends where rooms don’t have traditional desks. However, one annoyance with the desk is it has a thick layer of clear glass, making it tough to use an optical mouse.

The bed was clean and there were plenty of outlets around the room, making it easy to charge my devices. Two bottles of water were provided complimentary for having Marriott Bonvoy elite status.

Something a bit distracting about the room was this wavy pattern in the carpet. In addition to just being a visual distraction, it also was raised. Walking on it, I frequently kept thinking I was either stepping on something left on the ground or I thought the ground was damaged. Regular carpet or laminate flooring would have been far more effective here.

The bathroom is pretty standard, with decent water pressure and temperature. One nice feature is the slow-close toilet lid. This room has mounted toiletries in the shower, which isn’t my preference given the possibility of other guests tampering with the bottles and I’ve had bad luck at other hotels with the bottles being broken. The main flaw of the bathroom is the lack of places where you can hang a towel, which can be a problem if you bring the whole family.

I thought the views from the room were great. My room overlooked the North end of the city, with the large Toronto sign just below.

The Sheraton Club Lounge

As explained when checking into the hotel, breakfast is served in the morning at the lounge at the top of the hotel. Light appetizers are also offered each evening. Marriott Platinum elites and higher will have access to the lounge for the member plus one guest. I thought it was interesting that even the elevator advertised the Sheraton Club, asking guests to consider an upgrade to gain access.

The lounge space itself is visually stunning with fantastic views of the city from all sides. There is a staff member at the entrance to confirm your room allows for access to the lounge. To the left is a small sitting area with a small selection of non-alcoholic drinks. To the right is a larger seating area and a gorgeous bar where the food is served. There is plenty of seating here and yet it tended to get fairly crowded.

The breakfast selection itself was a tad underwhelming relative to the ambience of the room. They served all the typical foods you would find at a continental breakfast, along with a small selection of cooked foods. I’d say the best items here tended to be the freshly-squeezed juices, including some that were bottled specifically for this hotel.

Despite being here for a volunteering event where my hotel-catered breakfast would be free, I still preferred to dine up here in the morning given I am a bit of an introvert and this doesn’t require me to talk to anyone.

During the evenings, a light selection of appetizers is laid out. I’d like to emphasize the word “light” here. While breakfast felt a bit underwhelming, it was actually generous compared to what was on offer in the evening. At some hotels, you might be able to get away with dining in the lounge in place of dinner, but I would not recommend doing that here. There is a full bar up here, with prices consistent with what’s offered in the lobby — so don’t come up here expecting a discount. A can of Lost Craft Divercity Lager set me back $10 CAD.

Dining

Wandering around the property, I only spied two restaurants that were open. One looked more like a quick service to-go restaurant in the lobby (Dual Citizen), while the other appeared to only be available in the evenings (43 Down). Given the timing of when I arrived at the hotel, I ended up eating room service, which came from Dual Citizen. I wish I would have had the chance to dine at 43 Down, but my schedule just didn’t work out.

The food arrived in a cute bag placed outside the door. The flavor was good, but the temperature was a bit on the colder side when it arrived, as the person delivering the food made multiple deliveries across different floors all at once. The food felt inexpensively priced, partly because of the strength of the US dollar compared to the Canadian dollar. I would eat here again (and did — that second dessert was on a separate night, I didn’t indulge myself too much each night).

Conference Rooms

My primary purpose for this trip was spent in the conference rooms. However, I just wanted to take a moment to describe how difficult it was to find where I needed to go. Other larger conferences were using the hotel facilities at the same time our group was there, so I can appreciate the fact the better rooms go to the higher-paying group. But at the same time, I’ve never been to a conference hotel where the rooms I needed to access were not easily accessed in the hotel–there was no elevator that took me to the correct floor, and there was no hotel escalator that took me there. Instead, I needed to either take a hidden staircase or I needed to take an escalator in the attached (mostly dead) shopping center. No other conference rooms offered by the hotel had this layer of complexity. And to top it off, all hotel staff I asked gave incorrect directions on how to get to my rooms. The adjoining outdoor space is nice, but I would not desire to have another conference in this hotel again. If conference rooms are not easily accessible, something is wrong.

What to do in Toronto – A Photo Essay

I didn’t bring the family on this trip and mostly stayed in the conference rooms. But I did have some opportunity to walk around the area to get some ideas on what to do next time I’m in town with the kids. Many places in Toronto were an easy walk from the hotel.

Recommendation: It’s Complicated

The hotel is clearly intended for conferences, as it has multiple stories of conference rooms. And if I rate it purely as a conference hotel, it’s merely ok. I believe it satisfies most of the basic requirements, aside from the issue of finding the correct conference rooms in the labyrinth they created. It has a fully-operating lounge that is physically beautiful but doesn’t offer quality foods.

If I rate it from a family travel perspective, I feel it fares a little better. But with two caveats: the price needs to be right, and I’m unsure if children would be allowed in the lounge (Marriott only allows lounge access for two people). I believe the next time I am in Toronto, I will likely end up in a different hotel. But to be sure, I didn’t think anything was critically wrong with the hotel.