Fairmont Hotel Macdonald

We stay here quite often and are ALWAYS thrilled with our decision! From check-in to the service, the accommodation, the location, the food, the history! We LOVE spending time being spoilt here! PERFECT for romantic getaway!

My partner and I spent the evening at the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald as a Valentines Day Getaway this year. This was our first stay with the Fairmont Chain and we had been looking forward to an upscale experience that comes with the name. We were , however, very disappointed right off the bat when we decided to opt for self-service parking in the hotel parkade instead of the $50 valet parking and were still charged $40 for the self park option in the end. From the parkade to the hotel was a chilly walk back outside (obviously the weather cannot be helped, but a route inside would be nice). Check-in was quick, efficient and we were even "up-graded" when the concierge notified us that our room was not ready yet (even though we showed up an hour past the designated check- in time). We originally booked a King room with River view and were up-graded to a Deluxe king room with river view. Very grateful for the upgrade as even the upgrade did not meet our expectations. At first glance the room is beautiful of course, but once actually doing a walk through the room was very dated. Being a very windy day, the wind whistled through the windows causing a very irritating noise. This was fixed by trying to seal the extremely old windows myself. Not a great first impression for a luxury hotel. Bathroom was disappointing, for $360 a night I was not expecting a common bathtub/shower combination insert with old bathroom fixtures. Wallpaper was peeling, overall very dated. Furniture in the room was old (which is fine this is the style) but it was scuffed and dented cheapening the overall style. Bedding was very comfortable with the exception of the giant pillows. 1 was not enough, 2 would stand you straight up. Very dated heating and cooling system made for a very uncomfortable sleep over all. No air conditioning, and annoying venting directly above the bed made for little sleep. Modern rooms for half the price and less than this room have much better air systems for clients to better control their air temp in room. Overall very disappointed in our stay especially since we had been looking forward to staying with a Fairmont. The novelty of staying at the Fairmont quickly wore off when the modern luxuries of newer "lower star" hotels exceed that of this hotel. If I am paying $360 a night I would like to be able to at least control my room temperature and not have to rinse out my bathtub before using it. Perhaps we should have tried the Banff or Jasper locations (Edmonton location is extremely poor and nothing too look at outside the hotel), but I doubt we will stay at this establishment again. The price does not come close the actual product.

We stayed one night at the Mac over Valentines. The valentines promotion included a 6 course meal in the room. The meal was superb. Natalie organized our order as I deviated from the set menu and she help accommodate my special requests. We also had drinks and breakfast in the confederation lounge. It was nice seeing the great staff that work there,Jacob and Douglas . It was a nice treat celebrating valentines at the Mac with such a wonderful dinner. Each course was timed every 30 minutes delivered to your room. The rooms were a bit drafty but we had a nice partial view of the river valley. The bathroom was spacious and usual comfortable king bed Our package also included valet parking. All staff were exceptional!

Very nice and fabulous property, Front desk and lobby staff are very friendly, attentive, helpful and professional. Guest room assigned is nicely decorated, has a large bathroom with a large counter. This Hotel practices social distancing. Lobby, common area and guest room area are spotless. You can tell the General Manger leads a very solid team even during tough COVID time. I will absolutely stay again. Thanks to the STAFF and MANAGEMENT for a wonderful stay !

I have to give my girls weekend stay (teatime and overnight stay with my sister and nieces) a one star solely based on the parking experience which totally overshadowed and soured the whole thing! It has been NINE WEEKS of lack of resolution on the whole matter. I LITERALLY ALMOST PAID AS MUCH FOR THE HOTEL ROOM AS I DID IN PARKING AND FINES!!!! It all started Thanksgiving weekend. My sister parked her car in a parkade as directed by the Fairmont staff. We informed front desk of our desire to park there, and gave our license plate info to them. On checkout we were charged $42 for parking. We left and didn’t notice a piece of paper flapping on our windshield till we were 15min away. It turned out to be a ticket from Diamond parking. We immediately called the Fairmont. They asked if we could return. We could not. They said no problem at all, asking me to send a photo of the ticket via email. I did that immediately, and asked them to respond that they received it and would deal with it. They too immediately responded in the affirmative. Because it was my sister’s vehicle that was ticketed, she made NO LESS than a dozen calls between the parking company and Fairmont for FIVE WEEKS. She always requested to talk to a supervisor or manager. Each and every time Fairmont told her it will be taken care of, and not to worry. Because she was in great agony and distress about how this would affect her credit rating, I finally paid the $105 fine. I then emailed the hotel with a copy of the receipt for the paid fine, asking them to refund me. They refused to take any responsibility, plainly stating that it was the fault of the third party parking company. If I was a business owner, I would have refunded the customer, then had a side chat with the parking company about refunding the hotel that had to refund the guest... So I was put in touch with the CEO of Diamond parking and promised a refund. This was Nov 19th. I gave them my CC info and was told to wait 5-7 business days. It’s been SIXTEEN!! Nothing! And when I called my credit card company today, they said nothing is pending. I’m very disappointed in the matter. I have silver status, and will be gold before year end. I’ve always placed Fairmont as a top tier hotel based on standards, and excellent customer service. I can’t say this is the case for my Edmonton stay!