Sonora Resort

A superb hotel with excellent staff. Great food, very comfortable accommodation and fantastic leisure experiences and facilities.

This resort is simply beautiful, it is situated in an area of outstanding natural beauty and is worth at least one visit. We stayed for 4 nights and were helicoptered in and out from Vancouver and that trip alone was outstanding as we were graced with excellent weather and very good pilots, you really get fantastic views of the mountains and nature of British Columbia. There were good and not so good features of this hotel, so again my review I feel is comprehensive and honest. The rooms are very good and the ameneties in the resort excellent, lots to do on site with indoor playing amenities, a wonderful spa and very friendly spa manager Michelle. Some of the staff gave really good service such as Madison in Activites all of our activities were excellent and she also made sure we had a better room, we booked late in the season and she made sure we got a room with a truly fabulous view - that made a great difference to our stay and we're truly grateful. Our Bear excursion was magnificent - big thanks to Gerard and Wilson for a great experience of seeing the Grizzlies catch salmon in the Wild, really made my partner's life experience! Our Glacier helicopter tour was excellent, great pilot great views, landing on the glacier I will never forget! Tim at the Bar was truly excellent, really friendly, very caring great sommelier service and servers Colin and Sophie again really friendly, chatty and welcoming and the big smiler from Newcastle who's name I forgot she worked all over the resort. Archery was great, had a very patient Australian guy teaching us who made it fun. Our fishing trip was marvellous, we were captained by a seasoned sailor, I think his name was Don, had the boat to ourselves and I caught my first couple of salmon - we had unforgettable experiences at the resort! The biggest let down was the food - mostly awful - and considering there was no where else to go you were stuck with it! Breakfast was particularly bad with cold, food that looked as if it had been sitting there for ages even at 7am in the morning and cut fruit, yoghurt and pastries left uncovered for flies to feast on before we could! Everything seemed to be overcooked and tasteless even the fresh salmon and crab, the latter you had to pay extra for and it unfortunately wasn't worth it! Food would come out looking pretty but often be tasteless or awful. The snack bar was poorly resourced with a few awful sandwiches and unappetising looking salads - not good enough really for what you're paying per night. The wine list was limited. Too many BC wines which is unpatriotic I know, but to be honest they don't meet the standard of the Old World wines. We were told that they had lost their sommelier, hopefully this will be rectified so that the cellar has breadth and depth. The wines should be stored correctly, they would often come out warm, again that's not 5-star standard. Again if you're going to charge in excess of $3000 per night you have to get the food & wine right - hire a top chef and over pay them! The wait staff were really friendly but most of them needed training as there was a lack of intuitive thinking and lots of back and forth with forgetting items or disappearing for long stretches. It is a fine art to balance not pestering with being attentive but for the prices charged at a top resort you HAVE to get it right because the bar for paying customers is high because the prices we're charged are very high. Again, I would recommend the Sonora for at least one visit because overall our experience was unforgettably good and it is in a truly outstanding location the hiccups can be fixed with good management and a better chef, as the resort is beautiful, but the hiccups would prevent us from being repeat customers for now.

The location is superb, our room was very nice with an incredible view, we booked a private trip on a boat with a knowledgeable guide and saw amazing wildlife, my husband had a fly fishing lesson again excellent So for the negatives, such a shame , the food needs to be sorted out ! I’m not the only one mentioning this by the reviews I’ve read , just use local ingredients cooked well , without trying to overdo things , some very strange concoctions, we have stayed and eaten in many Relais and Chateaux and this is not up to par by any means , the buffet breakfast is a disaster, from the first guest to the last it should be consistent I’m so disappointed in the cocktails don’t bother ! Really didn’t have a clue how to make them ! It’s such a shame , more training and getting a decent chef are priorities, I don’t know how this lives up to the reputation of a Relais member

We just returned from a week long vacation at Sonora. We loved our experience. It was our first trip to British Columbia and Sonora did not disappoint! We stayed in a terrace balcony room in the Gillard building. We found the accommodation lovely! The view from our balcony was amazing. We used both hot tubs in the building. Both hot tubs have gorgeous views and felt great after long excursion days. We did the grizzly bear tour, the 4 hour eco tour, desolution boat tour and the best one....the helicopter glacier/whale tour. Every excursion was spectacular! The guides were excellent on every tour! I have never seen such gorgeous and amazing wildlife so close up. Coming from Florida it was such an incredible experience to see orca/humpback whales, black/grizzly bears, sea lions, eagles and so much more! Landing on a glacier and drinking champagne was an experience I will never, ever forget. Our pictures were something out of a movie! I wish the weather had been better - it rained every day but two- however, it did not diminish the experience of the excursions. We used the gym several afternoons and were the only people in it. We used the sauna/steam rooms several times, as well as, the spa mineral pool and cold plunge. We loved it! The employees are so nice and try very hard. I have a feeling the closer to the end of season they get they lose staff members. The only downfall was the food. Breakfast is buffet style with food served in warmers. It was not the best selection. Lunch was our favorite meal as there were plenty of selections. Dinner we found the food was just odd selections. Corn and peach ice cream? I guess my husband and I are just not foodies and didn't get the dinner menus? We just wanted simpler options. The menu barely changes so if you are there for a week it gets old. All in all we had a fabulous week at Sonora! It was an adventure I will never forget! I am grateful for the employees and staff that made this trip a wonderful memory we will have forever!!!

The location and wildlife experience is hard to beat. We had great guides and saw amazing wildlife and for that reason I would very much recommend it as an experience. They have very good boats, helicopters etc available and that is great. However, some things are less of a 5* experience. First and foremost the food. Breakfast choice is disappointing and not consistent. Dinner feels like the chef is trying too hard instead of just focusing on executing good dishes with the amazing ingredients they have out there. It’s not a total disaster but not what you expect when you hear the brand Relais & Chateaux. Service staff (talking restaurant and housekeeping) could be improved. Waiters are very friendly but they seem to lack training / direction. Some are better than others but overall pretty inexperienced and possibly understaffed. A good manager could overhaul this quite quickly for the better and make a big difference on that front. Housekeeping could be improved as well (non-obvious areas like under the bed were not properly cleaned for a while is my guess). Overall the property is a bit aged - the beds are not that new, the whole style is a bit outdated. It’s been maintained OK but an overhaul could make this property amazing. Finally the staff at front desk could also improve when it comes to booking experiences, offering choices, contacting ahead of stay to book in and also responding (I tried to contact more than once and never heard back).