Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise

Seriously? Small room with a ridiculously small bathroom. I’m here now and I have to get ready for an event tommorrow and there’s no place to put my makeup kit/curling iron at the same time? And either one may fall in the toilet as there’s absolutely no room beside the sink. All this for $600+ a night?? Save your money. I’ve stayed in 2* motels with better bathrooms.

We loved everything about this hotel and our stay - beautiful, grand and unpretentious property set in stunning natural surroundings. Service is warm, gracious and professional but not too formal. The many dining and drinking venues are unique and well-designed to the environment, and food was overall very good. Room 776 had a great view, is laid out well and finishes are high quality. Only complaint is with bathroom doors/not enough privacy. We will be back.

Overall, this place is stunning. Yes, it’s expensive - but such a beautiful place and the hotel, restaurants and staff are all close to perfect. We stayed during the ski season and skied in Lake Louise. There’s a complimentary shuttle that runs every half an hour (it’s around a ten minute bus drive). There is also ski hire at the hotel as well as storage. Breakfast was really stunning with a great menu selection and buffet. We particularly liked the Bircher muesli. The ‘pub’ - called Alpine Social had a decent happy hour and really nice food. The ribs were both superb. Plenty of beers and cocktails and a beautiful setting overlooking the lake. Our room faced the lake and was so well appointed. The bathroom was quite small but very well set-out. Lovely soaps and moisturiser. Apart from a stunning location and gorgeous room, by far the best other thing about the hotel is the staff. Every single staff member was outstanding. Friendly, professional and welcoming (some premium UK hotels could learn a lot from the Fairmont). Notably, Kieran in the ski hire shop was so nice: he was incredibly friendly, professional and really went the extra mile. Similarly, Josh on reception was outstanding and even sent a personalised card the day before check-out. Both are real assets to the hotel and Fairmont brand. The AMEX platinum fine hotels’ programme gives you a $100 USD credit as well as an upgrade and free breakfast, and buy two nights, get one free. This was the only poor part: we probably could have got the hotel for the same price via a different provider (paying the same for three nights as we did for two with AMEX). The hotel didn’t credit the $100 necessitating me calling them twice, which I felt was very poor. And there were no upgrades available. That said, we did get a complimentary bottle of wine instead. The final bit that we thought was a bit over the top was the cost of the spa which was excessive to such an extent that we didn’t pay to use it. It would’ve cost $550 Canadian between us. Considering that we were guests at the hotel ?and the hotel pool/jacuzzi being quite dated) we felt that this wasn’t great. Massage prices were okay, but this was fully booked for a week ahead of our stay - not great really. I’d suggest they need more masseurs to enable more bookings to be made. To contextualise, the Madarin Oriental in London and Fairmont (Savoy) in London are both completely free to use their spas. The last part of my review above, may have sounded quite negative. It isn’t at all, but I do think there are a few things that would make the hotel truly outstanding that currently feel like profiteering rather than providing a luxury service that would be expected of the brand.

they have a roots gift shop inside with clothes labelled lake louise. such a nice hotel. didn't get to stay but having the chance to visit was great!

My daughter and I had the pleasure to stay in this chateau last month. The temperatures were well below freezing, but the atmosphere in the hotel instantly warmed us! So did the hot chocolate (pictured) by the ice sculptures. A supremely welcoming and wonderful employee named Yasamin welcomed us to the resort. She set the tone for our whole trip! It was like something out of a novel. Porters, bell boys, the whole resort was like a finely-tuned grandfather clock. Delicious food, fastidious employees keeping everything clean and running and best of all? THE VIEW. It was a once-in-a-lifetime view, to be within the heart of the mountains. I can't tell you how lucky we felt, to visit and to enjoy the lake ice directly outside the doors. There are plenty of 5-star reviews already, but we wanted to directly acknowledge Yasamin at the front desk, because she was so genuine in welcoming us for our special trip, even chatting with us a few times throughout, which made us feel great. This trip was wildly out of budget for us, but we made it work with free airfare (miles) and some other things to offset the cost. 100% recommend.