Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello

Chateau Montebello is or was a memorable place to stay. Now this may sound like "Oh, a couple of old folks being critical," but....we stayed here on our anniversary 43 years ago. It was memorable. It was iconic and unique and it is amazing what was built and how back in the early 1900's. We are lamenting the loss of the grand lady. Now let me say upfront, the staff have been welcoming, but it is what they have to work with that is lacking. This was our 53rd anniversary, and we golf, so we thought, based on our last visit 43 years ago, we were excited to be coming again, as they had a golf package. When we last stayed here, we checked into our room to be greeted by beautiful robes laid out on the bed with a nice welcome note from the hotel and a small tray of chocolate-covered strawberries plus a vase of flowers- nice touch. Class meant something then and excellence rang true everywhere. It was those special touches that made it special. This time a text from the hotel-ok but ..........you are a special destination with a reputation and you are not an inexpensive place to stay....! So I would expect after 43 years there would be some wear and tear but you would also expect some updating. Make no mistake-this is an iconic property and unique as it was in 1982 but our room was very tired-threadbare wrinkled carpet, tired furniture, small bathroom........heater in the room didn't work, lamp missing a bulb, but the beds were comfortable- billed as a deluxe room, it was far from deluxe . Now I am sure the current owner's financial problems in China are having a huge impact here and I wonder what the future holds for this iconic property if the owner is faced with liquidating his assets. The last time we visited there was a choice of restaurants, but not so today. We were looking forward to dinner. There was one restaurant open. .We had the "Lobster Tail for $53".I think the lobster tail might have been from a rock lobster and was bland. The dish was more of a salad than a meal. Everything on the menu was an extra, even the bread. Expensive dinner and not good value. Ok, so they have a lot of things to do here and I imagine the maintenance for all of that is costly, so your should enjoy it for the extra resort fee tacked on to each night's stay. Maybe it would be great for a family, but I would hate to try to feed them there. We did at least enjoy the golf, which was included in our package but they did charge us the tax on our free golf??? Unfortunately, the grand lady has lost its allure, its tradition of excellence, and it is a sad statement about what was once a crown jewel in the CP properties. The people were all great. Our waiter had been there for 43 years, but the property wasn't it's old grand self and there are far better values out there for golfers. Two nights free golf one dinner and just under $1200.

I recently stayed at Chateau Montebello to celebrate my 70th birthday! It could not have been more special! When we arrived in our room there was a plate of 3 butter tarts, beautifully decorated and a nice note from the management wishing me a lovely stay and a nice birthday. The next day, after coming back from an outing there was a gift bag with some products from their shop, and again a lovely Happy Birthday note! At dinner in the dining room, a dessert of macarons arrived with a sparkler on top! They went over and above to make my Milestone birthday special. In addition, I felt ill the night before my birthday and they provided on site medical assistance and followed up the next day with a phone call to make sure I was okay. Wow!! Thank you so much for all of your care, the staff and management were all exemplary! The hotel was beautiful, and sitting by the huge fireplace with a glass of wine, is something to experience! I hope to come back to the Montebello one day and would highly recommend it to anyone considering it! It is top notch!!

We stayed at Fairmont Château Montebello recently to celebrate my honeymoon, expecting the high standard of care Fairmont is known for. Unfortunately, our experience was deeply disappointing due to a serious lack of respect for my dietary restrictions as a practicing Muslim. Upon arrival, I let them know that I require halal food and emphasized how important this is to me. I also reminded staff upon arrival on email and was promised the right food and was assured that my meals, specifically the beef options, would be halal. To my shock, I was served pork/bacon in the burger — despite the clear instructions and promises. This not only violated my religious practice but also made me feel incredibly disrespected. After I raised the issue, I told the hotel I would make food arrangements outside, but they convinced me to give them another chance, even introducing me to the chef who promised a special halal meal the next evening. Sadly, the same mistake happened again. To have this happen not once, but twice, on such a special occasion as our honeymoon was incredibly upsetting. It showed a complete lack of understanding and care toward guests with religious and dietary needs. This experience left a lasting negative impression and took away from what should have been a joyful and memorable celebration. I sincerely hope Fairmont takes steps to better train their staff and ensure all guests are treated with the respect and care they deserve.

This is a Canadian icon of a hotel. It has the famous fireplace in the reception hall. I have been a guest there a few times and even hosted our daughter’s wedding shower there! We went again the other day and had lunch. It was delicious, had the clam chowder!

My family of four stayed at the Fairmont Montebello for four days. We were expecting a rustic, modern Fairmont-type stay. We arrived, and our first thoughts were charming as entering the hotel is quite magical. From the entrance upon driving into the main fireplace entrance, the setting is quite wonderful. This would be the main reason for my stars. The check-in was quite busy, and the staff were very welcoming. Our room was located in the hall leading towards the pool, which was extremely loud at most hours of the day. There were also a lot of families with small children situated there, so a lot of crying and screaming was heard throughout our stay. We were on the first floor, so we could also hear heavy, loud footsteps above us in the early morning and late night, which was quite disruptive. Our room was described as a luxury two-bedroom; however, we did not feel it should have been labeled luxury at all. The bathrooms were renovated and quite nice but extremely small. The rest of the room seemed re-painted at most. We felt the rooms were not luxury nor updated. We could hear everything outside our door as if the door was left wide open. Our beds were extremely uncomfortable. We wish the luxury aspect of the suites at least included comfortable beds. Reviews that stated stains were seen on their comforters were quite true as we had some as well on ours. The rooms were somewhat clean. We found lots of dust and small hair in our bathroom, which wasn’t ours. Our room was very warm even as we had turned the heating off. We turned the fan on the entire time, however, found at times it was difficult to breathe as the room became extremely stuffy. We were unable to use our coffee maker during our stay as it did not work. When I brought it to their attention, I was told I did not know how to use a Nespresso machine, which was far from the truth. The pool area was quite beautiful; however, there were towels left everywhere and therefore nowhere to sit. We found that the staff tried to keep up with the cleaning of public areas however, perhaps they were short-staffed. We had reserved the bubble for activities and were told by the concierge at a later date that someone reserved the entire bubble for 4 hours and therefore cancelled our reservation made days prior with no apologies. Our children were looking forward to playing tennis and soccer and were very upset. We had tried to cross-country ski and were told to come back. We had done so and on the third visit, we were finally able to obtain skis. We hope they start checking skis and waxing them. Ours definitely could have used some. We also found out the skating rink was open on the third day of our visit after being told during check-in it was closed. We happened to walk by and see that it was indeed open. Some boys from town were playing hockey on the ice, so we had to return a few times for access. Once we finally skated on the ice, we noticed it was quite bumpy, and I attempted to remove snow from the rink with the shovel left there. We do wish staff would have checked the ice for better upkeep. We found staff for activities and the concierges were not very helpful with directions and details. We found ourselves asking guests and others for direction and service questions. An example would be trail details for skiing as well as that there is a heated cabin for changing into skates with skating aids there for children. Also, when we booked the horse & carriage there were three extra people booked rather then the proper amount. We paid $91 dollars to have half a butt cheek on our seats for all four of us, all because the concierge overbooked the ride. We were disappointed to not be told that it wasn’t just our family ride as well. We had no idea that 12 other people would be on the same horse & carriage. Effective communication needs to be encouraged by management at this establishment, verbally or by pamphlets upon check-in. Maps should always be given upon check-in. We are also bilingual and found most staff preferred to speak English even though it appeared they were quite uncomfortable doing so. Further, once we wanted to enjoy a snack or even some rest time in the lobby around the fire, we found zero seating. On our second-to-last evening, we had to stand on the outsides of the area in hopes someone would leave. At 11 p.m., after 45 mins of looking and waiting, we finally saw someone was leaving a seating. As I approached them to ask if they were leaving for the night, a woman started yelling at me from afar. She was quite rude, and I found her behaviour disgusting. My husband saw that she had literally just entered the hotel. We found during our stay that many families were travelling with grandparents. The grandparents or one parent would literally stay all day at a seating area around the fire, leaving absolutely none available for others. None of them were ordering food or drinks from the hotel. They brought outside food, dishes, and drinks in and stayed for hours even with children under 5 yo. We saw many children under 8 yo walking around on their own with no supervision. Also note that you are not served food unless you are seated. Once we found a seat, they stopped serving food. It was quite disappointing. Finally, we found this hotel to be more like a « Holiday Inn » rather than a Fairmont Type hotel. For those expecting luxury this is not what we experienced at all during our stay. Please do better with service, as we found our stay quite frustrating. We would not return nor recommend.