Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise

LAKE LOUISE FAIRMONT Having landed in Calgary we asked the Fairmont to organise our transfer from The Delta Hotel Calgary Airport to the Fairmont. Large SUV and driver arrived at 11.00 as planned and arrived at Lake Louise by 1.15pm. We checked into room 849 which is in the central block of the hotel with a spectacular view of Lake Louise. The room itself is quite small and feels a little cramped, the bathroom again quite small with a walk in shower. Overall it felt tight but was clean and tidy. There are variety of different restaurants in the hotel with some that you need to pre-book. Breakfast is served in the Louiza. These are some of the hikes you can do to explore the local area. Lake Louise lakeshore Trail - 4.6km, Easy Fairview lookout - 2.4km, Moderate Lake Agnes Tea House - 7.4km, Moderate Little Beehive - 9km, Moderate We did the Lake Agnes trail which seemed to be the most popular. There are some beautiful views as you climb up to the lake and a beautiful waterfall just before you get to the tea house. But just be warned during the busy periods there can be long queues for the tea house. There are two queues, one for those that want to sit in and another for takeout. As you would except the service is impeccable and all the staff we interacted with were helpful and courteous. Now with the restrictions on getting to Lake Louise staying at the Fairmont gives you unrestricted access to the beautiful surroundings easily. We had dinner and breakfast at Louiza. They do recommend reservations for dinner which we did but it was fairly empty when we went at 7.00pm. We had booked to travel on the Rocky Mountaineer the next day and you can check in at the hotel the day before. The check in desk is opposite the Chateau Mountain Sports shop on the ground floor. Make sure you include any hand luggage when you check in as you won’t be able to bring this to your seat on the train as there is no room. Once you get your baggage tags you leave the bags in your room on the departure day and the Rocky Mountaineer team collect them from your room and effortlessly transport them to your destination hotel room. I would recommend you advance book high tea at the hotel. Its only served uptown 3pm and is oversubscribed so book early. Tea is served at the Fairview restaurant with spectacular views overlooking the lake. The sandwiches and cake were nothing special but you’re really paying for the view and experience rather than the food. Check out was quick and easy and our coach picked us up at 7.30am to take us to Lake Louise station to board the Rocky Mountaineer train. This is a luxurious hotel in a unique setting and if want easy access to Lake Louise, easy boarding for the Rocky Mountaineer and great service and comfort then this is a perfect choice.

This is such an iconic hotel. It’s expensive so be prepared but if you can stretch your budget, staying here is such a memorable experience. The views are stunning. Lots of tourists visit lake Louise during the day but of course as a guest in the hotel you are able to stroll the lake when all the tourists have departed. This hotel was a must-do for me. It was fabulous and a big highlight of our Canadian Rockies trip.

I have taken a month just thinking about how to write this review. My disappointment in this business is scarcely possible to capture through words alone. I am making the attempt nonetheless so it will be absolutely clear to all readers how this report is expressed in good faith. It is meant as a wake-up call to the business and its shareholders, and a warning to anyone who would stay here, to beware an experience the marketing materials this business wouldn’t dare reveal. Tell me, imaginary reader: what do you think that the sum of CAD $ 3,182.34 - which approaches (93%) an ENTIRE MONTH’s median after-tax salary (Statistics Canada), should guarantee you for a two-night stay in an admittedly fancy hotel, exclusive location, and with exquisite furnishings? Because I was absolutely astounded that, for all the luxury this business relies on for its marketing, the promise of this titanic sum couldn’t purchase the faintest sliver of respect. Politeness in the absence of respect has this strange quality of being worse than mild aloofness; and was felt instead as thinly disguised contemptuousness. If this sounds overly dramatic, allow me to walk you through what happened to us in the Fairmont hotel at Lake Louise in Banff on June 5th and 6th of this year, so that you may judge for yourself. We, being my fiancee and I, were staying in the hotel as friends of the bride of a wedding, being held at the hotel. With my fiancee as a bridesmaid, the bride had offered to compensate our stay as we would be assisting her on this very important day in her life. My fiancee and the bride have been friends for 12 years. When we arrived at around 3:30pm to check in on Friday 5th June, we found out that the hotel had not yet managed to secure a deposit from the wedding payment coordinator. This was not an excellent first sign, but we understood that sometimes these things take time. So when the staff asked us to cover the deposit at the full amount of $ 3,182.34, after receiving assurance that it was only a hold and not a payment, and that the staff would liaise with the wedding coordinator to receive their payment, we put down the deposit. While we were hoping to have an early check-in given that the rehearsal dinner was timed for 5:00 pm, we do not fault the hotel for not having a room available for us before the agreed check-in time, 4:00 pm. However, what we do fault them for is that 4:00 pm arrived and no room was ready. 4:15pm passed, then 4:30pm, then 4:40pm. No room, no shower, no place to get ready for our friend’s rehearsal dinner. At around 4:44pm, we were eventually told which room was ready for us, then had to carry our bags and supplies there, meaning that we could only begin getting ready for our friend’s 5 pm wedding rehearsal dinner at 4:49pm. This certainly caused some stress for us, but we knew that if we were angry, annoyed, or made a fuss about anything, we would certainly affect our friend’s wedding. So we gave the hotel management grace, understood for the time that wedding planning is difficult and fraught, and took hurried showers in the tiny bathroom and got dressed, eventually arriving at the rehearsal dinner with 3/4ths of the guests already seated. (Did they get early check-in?) The rest of the evening, we had excellent service from the marvelous catering company, who were not employed by the hotel staff. In the postscript and in other reviews, you will see some comments from people who did have the misfortune of being served in the hotel’s restaurants. When we tried to sleep in the evening, we found the air conditioning to be woefully underpowered. It had only one small vent. Despite the small room, nothing we could do would bring the room to a comfortable 17 degrees Celsius, arriving as we did to a 22 degrees C room. (It did occur to us on our second evening that we could open the window into the crisp Canadian 5-degree air, so you might fault us for failing to consider this, but it doesn’t change the fact that the air conditioning was not remotely up to par and would fail to bring comfort to anyone during the hotter summer months - note that as I write this as of July 24th, the predicted air temperature in the area in Lake Louse would reach 17C at sunset and 13C at midnight, plus the area has an air quality warning today, so visitors may reasonably not wish to open the windows). The day of the wedding, Saturday 6th, was very pleasant. Due to my fiancee being a bridesmaid and requiring uninterrupted use of the room in order to do the multiple clothing and hair changes required of her, we did not request any room service during the day. When we needed an extra towel in the afternoon, I was able to pick one up from the hallway because of nearby rooms being serviced. Unfortunately, this ease created a false sense of security for me, believing that getting more towels if and when we needed them would not prove difficult. After another fantastic experience from the catering company and a lovely wedding, and having completed some enjoyable late night dancing, we found that we would like another short shower before returning to the party. At around 10:15pm, I went directly to the front desk to request a set of towels, knowing that they would likely have been stored in a close; however, I was informed that they would send someone to the room with towelst. We waited in our room, hoping soon to be able to take our shower, so that we could return to the party before the attendees departed. By 11 pm, no towels had been delivered. We tried calling the front desk using the room phone, but found that the voice on the other end of the line was so distorted that it was inaudible. We could not confirm that the front desk was even aware of our request or knew how long they were taking. So we went to the front desk again, this time thoroughly upset at the lack of care shown to date. The night staff member, to their credit, was apologetic (the only staff member to show any visible contrition for our experience thus far). We went back to the room, and eventually, by around 11:45pm, we received our two towels. The next morning was our check-out day. We had been scheduled to attend a brunch event at 10 AM in one of the hotel’s more distant restaurants. Knowing that our cards would not grant us access later and wanting to get ahead of their mismanagement thus far, we went to check out at around 9:20 AM so that we could leave directly after brunch. If you’ve been paying attention, it would probably not surprise you at this point to learn that the hotel staff had failed to secure payment confirmation from the wedding coordination team and were willing to go right ahead and charge our card $ 3,182.34, in contradiction of their assurances on Friday that the payment was just a hold and not a charge. We had enough at this point, and insisted to talk to the manager. The manager was not willing to do so much as pick up the phone and call the wedding coordination team and confirm that we wouldn’t be charged. That was the reassurance we needed after the days of failures. This is what I mean by thinly disguised contempt. There was no hint of empathy or emotional understanding for the weekend we’d experienced. He attempted to ‘make things better’ by offering a free boat trip across the lake! The only point he was (eventually) willing to concede was that the late check-in was unprofessional, and granted a $300 discount on it. Note that he was unwilling to even go this far until we were thoroughly exhausted and had to complain repeatedly. It is so upsetting to try and talk things over in a reasonable manner first, and experience gaslighting and stonewalling in response. We are not angry people, we experience no joy in making a scene, and always try to reason first. I hope you, as the reader, understand why the offer of the free boat trip was absolutely no substitute for simply making the effort to reassure us that, despite their bungling of this event that they are being supremely well compensated for, they would handle the payment process professionally. Humility, apologies, and emotional intelligence would have served better. We made it absolutely clear that the absolute most important thing they could do for us, before we checked out, was to finally get a hold of the wedding coordination team to confirm that our account would not be charged. I imagine they thought they would just reverse the charge once the coordinator finally decided to pay them - but what they failed to grasp was that they had lost our trust that they would do so in a timely manner due to their previous mismanagement, and that having to stress over a potential $2,882.34 charge would thoroughly ruin the rest of our vacation that we had planned - because we envisioned spending days on the phone having to argue with people instead of enjoying the Canadian wilderness we had already paid to travel to (and in my case, I don’t get any paid days off, so sacrificed a good deal of income for). The manager offered to wait a day before charging our account, explained that this was unprecedented and they never usually did this, but once again, waiting a day was NOT the solution we needed. Hours later, we heard from the bride that the coordination team had successfully paid the bill. We did not end up getting charged. I understand if you will read this and say that we were worried about nothing. This might be because you are extremely rich and so don’t care about amounts as ‘trivial’ as $3,000, or it might be because you are emotionally stoic, or have a high degree of trust in people. But unless you are privileged beyond measure, you will likely understand why this experience above, coupled with a general air and vibe that we just didn’t belong in the hotel (due to being working professionals with an income closer to the median, rather than extremely wealthy), and a nickel-and-diming attitude of charging $8 for water bottles, $20 for basic cooked snacks left a poor taste in our mouths. I can further advise you that unless you are the sort of person who travels with a personal butler, and especially if you are a key element of a wedding party who comes out of love for their friend rather than to boast on social media that they were seen at this exclusive, fancy hotel, then this business just isn’t for you. There are many better hotels deserving of your hard-earned dollar than this one. Do better. David Dornbrack and Emily Ferguson, of San Antonio, TX July 24th, 2026 P.S. Just in case you start to wonder if our experience was unique - here is a small sample of experiences from guests who have also had issues that relate to being respected. The tragedy of a business like this is that they know they treat you with disrespect, coldness, and suspicion, but do not change when you call them out on it. Clearly, the reviews are positive for most, but heaven forbid you actually need more from the hotel than just its (monopolized) view or expensive furniture. As a potential customer - please do not reward contemptuous businesspeople. “Overall, the hotel did not seem especially interested in doing the right thing—or even simply a nice thing—for the guest. The experience felt very transactional and bottom-line driven.” - gobrowns77, 7/10/26 “Expected much more for $1400+ USD/night. You are paying to be on the lake which is a huge benefit but this is not a luxury hotel…. We went to have a drink at the Fairview bar and waited 25 min just for water/menus. When we inquired what was going on the staff was completely unapologetic.” Seema S, 7/13/2026 “The view is fantastic - but Fairmont does not own the view - is happens that it occupies this monopoly location for a world class view of Lake Louise… The annoying issues was that when the front desk asked me whether I had any comments on my experience with the stay - I pointed out these experience for Fairmont to review but she argued with me and took position to defend - which is shocking to me. For that kind of service, I had no choice but giving the lowest ranking, admittedly, the view is fantastic. Wish the service is the same as the view.” - James Z, July 2025 “Yes, the view is spectacular but this is irrelevant when discussing the hotel. This Fairmont needs to up its game if it wants to be a regarded as a luxury property. Pretentious, overpriced and overcrowded are the words that spring to mind.” Carole S, from way back in 2012!

This is an impeccable hotel at a fabulous location. You will not regret reserving one or more nights here. The luxury is all around you. Lake Louise is a gem. We hike most of the way around the lake and enjoyed that very much. There are many restaurants in the hotel. One I would have liked to try was called Walliser Stube. It features Swiss and Austrian food such as cheese, fondue, raclette, and schnitzel of many types. The room was sumptuous and had many amenities. The bathroom as well was extremely well appointed the hotel. Staff were all very polite and friendly.

OMG for the price I would not have expected peeling wallpaper begging held up with tape. The bathroom needs serious deep cleaning. The housekeeping area was open for guests to see old mattress, dirty laundry and trash. The public space bathrooms had trash all over the floor and outside the door. Elevator were dingy looking and the walls were all scratched up. We eat at the social club service was amazing but the food came out so fast makes you wonder how much is precooked and reheated. To top it off we are ALL rewards members and we’re directed to a priority check in and when someone finally came to the desk she took people from the main check in line. If we were to come back to the area definitely would look for some places else to stay.