Fairmont Copley Plaza

The Fairmont Copley in Boston is always a lovely stay. The rooms, while a bit small, are nicely done and the bathroom is spacious and well appointed. All the staff are so friendly and lovely in every encounter. The hotel itself is beautiful and you may get lucky and stay there while a wedding is on site which is a nice experience. And they have a dog! Cori the black lab is often there in the lobby waiting for a pat on the head or scratch behind the ear.

The Fairmont is a decent hotel. A little worn around the edges but has comfy beds and is a good option if you want more of a heritage experience. Why two stars? The Fairmont is one of those hotel chains that continues to persist with the hated resort fees. The price you pay online is not your final rate. Upon arrival at the hotel you will be greeted with the information that they will add an additional $35.00 per night to your room as a (ridiculously named) "Urban Experience Fee". It's like arriving at the departure gate at the airport and then being asked to pay more money to board the plane. It's a terrible way to greet new guests and equally embarrassing for the front desk staff who have to try and justify the unjustifiable. It's buried in the small print if you look hard enough but that's not the point. In an age when trust and transparency are so important, it's depressing that Fairmont still persists with price gouging their customers with this blatant money grab. I won't be using this chain again until they change this policy. I suggest you do the same.

This was a special trip for our 20th anniversary. We reserved one of their Gold Suites - we stayed in a corner suite on the fourth floor, overlooking Copley Square, It was a great place to stay - spacious, comfortable & very scenic, The hotel is a short walk to the Boston Common & the shops on Newberry street, The service was simply amazing - performed by the friendliest people anywhere. At the time of making the reservation, we had told them this was an anniversary trip ... voila - there were flowers in the suite when we arrived & a bottle of Prosecco sent up at cocktail time, Just the most excellent stay you could imagine,

We were able to check in early and that set the tone of the accommodating staff throughout our stay. Shout out to the housekeeping staff along with Arrington, the head of the valet team for his personal attention, and we didn't even have a car with us! Wonderful drinks and snacks at the Long Bar, location in the middle of Back Bay is convenient for sight seeing, the entire property is gorgeous in a historic old school way. Highly recommended.

I booked a deluxe room at the Copley Plaza with AMEX's fine hotel & resorts program. My choosing the Fairmont was based on the facts that their location is good, the pictures of the deluxe room looked nice, and the hotel website says to "experience the luxury "Grand Dame of Boston' and refers to their rooms as 'stylish guest rooms' When we arrived, the front desk first said that there were no rooms available at that moment but after another search, she found one. When we got to the room my mouth dropped. I have never seen such a horrible, non-renovated room. Besides being decorated with outdated furniture, the bathroom to say it was tiny would be an exaggeration. There was no room for a regular door to open and close; it was a vertical cut one with 2 knobs. There was no shelf space to speak of; you wouldn't even be able to put a toothbrush upright on the "shelf". In fact, the tissues were in the bedroom since there was no place at all to put them in the bathroom. The bathtub was the tiniest bathtub I've ever seen (hard to believe they even manufacture one so small). I told my husband that I could not stay in that room. When I went to the front desk, I was so lucky that the person I spoke with was Ishmael who was able to give us a renovated room. I couldn't thank him enough. Why didn't the front desk say that there were no renovated rooms available upon our check in (again I didn't even know that non-renovated ones existed since they did not show pictures of them or mention them on their website) . I truly was so upset that I would never want to stay there again or ever recommend it to someone.