Holiday Inn Express Toronto Downtown

On a recent visit to Toronto I booked a week at the Holiday Inn Express. The location was a short two minute walk to our companies Toronto headquarters. Friendly staff, Great Free Breakfast set-​up. There are several great eating spots within a block or so walk. I walked to a hockey game one evening at the Air Canada Centre, so the location is great for wandering around that part of town. It’s my new place to stay when in Toronto the several times I travel there each year.

The wifi is so bad on the 11^th floor, I had to go to Starbucks to write this review. Even the premium paid internet doesn’t work well. It good thing is was a family vacation and not work. This place is a no go for business travelers that need conductivity for work.
The front desk was very nice and quickly offered to switch the room, but the wife already had baby down sleeping. The lady to door down had the same internet issues. The Internet was fine in the lobby, but who wants to seat in the lobby all night.
The room was starting to show its age. Everything looked old and most of the items seemed to show their age. The door frames look like they were hit by the cleaning cart one too many times. The halls are narrow is some areas. They made a number of odd design choices.
Also, one of three elevators was broken. It made it hard to move in and out of the hotel rooms especially during the high morning traffic hours. The elevator not working knocked it down a star.

My significant other and I really enjoyed our stay at the Holiday Inn Express. We weren’t expecting a lot, but the room was large, clean, and had a pretty decent view of Toronto. It was one of the more reasonably priced rooms in the city, and within easy walking distance to the ROM, CN Tower, Union Station, Hockey Hall of Fame, etc. There’s a cute little movie theater just down the street, the best rated coffee house in Toronto is right next door, and about a million places to eat.
The staff was friendly and helped us with everything. I’m glad we booked two months in advance because it was a crazy weekend downtown and the entire city was packed. Like I said, it was extremely clean and they replaced all our sheets and gave us new everything on a daily basis; even waited for us to leave for the day, and came back to clean. They slipped the bill under the door in the morning of our last day, it was already on the card, and check-​out took just a few seconds.
They also let us keep our bags there after check-​out, so we didn’t have to walk around town with everything for hours, waiting for our Union Station trains in the late afternoon.
One major complain — the WiFi was terrible. It worked only a few times during our four day stay, and it was really frustrating. We ended up watching Food Network instead of Netflix for most of the time. I probably used about 5GB of phone data (out of the country charges too) just because I never had any internet access.

We only stayed for one night at this hotel. We were able to check in earlier than check in time, which was great. The room and bathroom are really big and the queen bed was very comfortable.
The breakfast was good, lots of choices but the plates were all made of plastic which was a little bid weird. The hotel is close to the Union Station and Dundas square. At departure we could store our baggage for the whole day at the hotel which was great.

The best thing about this hotel is the free breakfast starting at 630am. In the morning, they have a coffee and tea station right outside the breakfast room right across from the elevators. Breakfast includes milk, juice, yogurt (regular and Greek), cereal (fruit loops, corn flakes with strawberry or blueberry), instant packaged oatmeal, eggs, sausage, biscuit, bread, bagel, muffins, pancakes, bananas and apples. The breakfast area is well stocked and clean.
This hotel offers free hot & cold breakfast, high-​speed Internet access in every room, a daily newspaper and local calls. Check in is at 3p and check out is at 11a. Parking price is similar to other nearby hotels at $ ²⁰⁄₂₄ hour period. There is no gym, pool or room service. I got the room for 1 night for $ 172 during the weekday. There is no fridge or microwave in the room. The rooms facing Jarvis are a little louder with traffic noise, but I didn’t really notice. I slept pretty well. It might have helped that I had the heater going on low to drown out some of the street noise. The rooms are big and clean, but older and a bit lackluster. There is a closet for clothes and 3 big drawers under the TV for storage. There aren’t too many outlets and I have to unplug the lamp on the nightstand to plug in my phone.
I tried checking in around 9a, but there were no rooms available yet as they were sold out the night before. The nice front desk person informed me that they sold out often. I just thought there was something going on this week since all the hotels downtown were sold out. I was counting my lucky stars that a room opened up at this hotel when I checked the day before (they were sold out when I checked a week prior to coming). I left my luggage with them that was kept locked in the baggage room. When I came back by 2pm, there were rooms available for check in. The elevators here are pretty slow and I hate waiting for them, so I requested something on the lower floors so I can just take the stairs. It’s so much easier that way.
LOCATION:
The hotel is about a 7 minute walk to the Eaton Center and has many restaurants nearby. Fahrenheit and Mystic Muffin right around the corner are a couple of great places to try. The hotel is about 30min — 60 min from YYZ/​Pearson airport (depending on traffic), taxi from/​to the airport is about $ 55-​$ 65.

If i ever go back to Toronto this place was super. Just a 7 min walk from the main downtown and $ 100+ cheaper to stay at.
I took the street car (light rail) a lot while there and service was good. If you miss one be prepared to wait another 15 mins for the next one though.
As for the hotel:
Pluses:
* Free hot/​cold breakfast in the morning was great way to start the day. Cereal, hard boiled eggs, scrambled eggs or omelette on alternating days, sausage links or bacon strips on alternating days, pancake machine to make fresh pancakes, toaster to toast bread, english muffins or bagels. Yogurt (danon and greek style). Milk, orange juice, apple juice, grapefruit juice and coffee. Cant beat that for free.
* The room was nice and clean. Smelt fresh walking into it. Beds were comfy. Have a 40″ flat TV in the room. Desk for your laptop. Closet with iron/​ironing board. And a dresser under TV with 3 drawers and cubby hole to hold a suitcase.
* Bathroom was big enough. Had shampoo/​conditioner from Bath and Body works and restocked them everyday. Also had a sign in the bathroom if your forget your personal items ie: toothbrush, toothpaste ect. they would give you those things at no cost at the front desk.
* The staff was wonderful and very helpful. They even made change for us.
* Rule of Thumb: If you are like me and like ice with your drink. Make sure you get a room on the 4, 8 or 12^th floor as that is where the ice machines are located. More so if you on 8 there is a soda machine right there as well.
I wouldnt say these are minuses but it could be better.
* You get free Wi-​FI but the connection is very spotty. The best times to use it would be when you are out sightseeing of course since no one else was in the hotel lol. So if you were on at night 11pm to early morning, connection was great.
But any other time it was slow or you were connected at all. so if they could improve the WI-​FI service it would make this a 5 star rating as people want to upload their pictures from their trip for people back home and without it makes it hard. You got better WI-​FI on your phone than if you are using a laptop so there is that.
More of a nuisance.
* if you have multiple things to power up make sure you bring something for it. Power strip or something. I didnt really look to much around but the lamp on the desk in the room has to 3 prong outlets and that is all i really saw.
Not a prob for me as i used USB cords to power up my Garmin (life saver there in canada) and Phone.
You are minutes from walking to the CN Tower, Hockey Hall of Fame among many awesome restaurants/​bars/​breweries.

One of the best inexpensive hotels I’ve ever been to. Felix at the front desk was super personable. It’s so refreshing to deal with a customer service worker who isn’t miserable ²⁴⁄₇. Rooms were clean and large and no smoking is a big bonus. The free breakfast was better than any I’ve had at a hotel. It’s walking distance to the Rogers centre, big slice and smokes. How can you beat that?

I know you get what you pay for, and this was the cheapest hotel option we could find, with breakfast and WiFi included, and within walking distance of Air Canada Centre which was why we were there, BUT, there were still things that could have been better.
1. there were some bugs in the corner window area of our room
2. checkout was MISERABLE. for some reason they have you pay for parking separately at checkout and sign a bunch of receipts, which means at 11am everyone is downstairs in a line waiting to be checked out.
3. REALLY slow elevator. sometimes so packed that you have to let one go by and keep waiting.

Our room was a good size and clean, and the free breakfast – though pretty meh, itself – was a bonus. Other than that, I wasn’t wowed.
The location was okay. It’s right next to Lawrence Market, but far from places like Kensington Market or the Distillery District. Still, it’s walkable to all of these places, and I felt safe. I just didn’t feel like I was in the heart of downtown, despite the hotel’s name and promotional material suggesting so.
We requested an 8:30 am wake up call, but never received one. And so we overslept! I hate to think what would have happened if we’d needed that wake up call to catch a plane.
The staff at the front desk is helpful and accommodated requests (like a late check out). Free wifi was great, though the connection was shoddy at times.
We paid $ 134 (before taxes) per night. Parking was an additional $ ²⁰⁄₂₄ hours.

This place ticks most of the boxes for me.
— spacious rooms
— close to eaton centre (and the PATH underground)
— Housekeeping is very consistent at keeping the rooms clean and organized.
— Newspaper service every morning (not that I really read it, as my news is on the web. But for some it is a requirement)
— Free breakfast (hot and cold) every morning
— Free wifi (unlimited devices)
— power (if you got more than one device bring a power board)
— very affordable (For the rate I got, its *almost* comparable to paying rent for a place downtown — well its about the same price as renting a NYC studio anyway. But it might be because its off season)
Would definetly stay here again

Great location. A lot of restaurants and bars within walking distance. The staff was very friendly, and the front desk employee printed out directions for us when we said that their computer wasn’t working. The rooms were nice, nothing to complain about there. There wasn’t a fridge, though. Nowhere to put drinks and keep them cold. Breakfast lady in the morning kept the breakfast out for me and my girlfriend after we were late waking up. I’d be happy to stay here again!

Location is really convenient for getting around. A few blocks from train and streetcar. If you don’t mind walking, skip public transportation and just explore the city.
Front desk and staff extremely accomodating. Clean facilities (bathroom, hotel room, etc). Breakfast is quite a treat for it to be a continental. Typically you can look forward to danishes, cereal and muffins. You are offered eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, toast, bagels, cereal, fruits, juices and coffee. Everything was quite tasty.
Tip-​Check out is 11. However, I wasn’t leaving until 7pm for my bus. The hotel was very nice to offer usage of their «luggage room». They were able to hold and lock up my luggage while I continued to explore the city without any extra baggage to lug around.
Would def stay here again!

Overall I’m pleased with my recent stay at this hotel. This was similar to other Holiday Inn Express hotels — comfortable beds, good breakfast selection, free wifi. I needed to check out late due to the marathon (my reason for being in town), and since I was a Priority Club member they were pretty accommodating. Checking out 2 hrs later made my trip a lot less stressful.
Another huge plus was that this was pretty close to the St. Lawrence Market — that was great for lunch /​snacking. However, food options in the immediate area were limited (or pricey). We did lots of walking.
Pros: Free Wifi, clean room, comfortable beds, pretty helpful front desk staff, close to St. Lawrence Market.
Cons: Not tons of food options in the immediate area, kinda pricey
Overall I’d probably stay here again.

Pros: Cost, breakfast, front desk staff, internet, dog friendly, fast internet
Cons: Housekeep, garage passage to the hotel, not so many good options to eat near around
Is the private parking lot enough to accommodate all the guests? No
On April 2012, I reserved a room for 2 nights because I had some appointments to attend on Toronto. The room that I got was small but not bad. Even not having some good options to eat near around, the localization of it stills good. Because I the only time that I needed to use my car again, was only to leave the hotel. It was very accessible to get the public transportation from there to anywhere that I wanted to go.
The front desk service was friendly and nice and the breakfast offered much more options to eat that I am used to have from other hotels that I stayed on Toronto. Unfortunately, when we said to the housekeeper that we don’t want our room cleaned she started to question us when we were planning to leave and that we need to notify the front desk for that. (Note: we were on the middle of our 2 nights stay) This point upset me a little.
Overall, with the exclusion of the housekeeper moment, I liked so much the hotel and I am planning to stay there again next time I visit Toronto. And if you are planning to go there too, my recommendation to you is: leave all the luggage on the hotel lobby. Because if you try to use the corridor that connects the garage to the hotel it is not an easy thing to do because the doors are heavy and maybe you need to go back to the garage sometimes to get everything.

It’s a simple and yet decent hotel in a great location. For the price you pay, you get a very nice breakfast, a clean room (not spacious though), free wi-​fi and you find a helpful staff (at the front desk and in the breakfast room). I read the other not-​so-​good reviews, but my experience there was very good and I would definitely go back and recommend the place to anyone looking for an affordable and central hotel in Toronto.

We stayed here so we could stay in the same place as our friends who were getting married. The room was so expensive for being this chain. Our room was very cramped feeling and the window only opened about ¾ of an inch; there were some decent sized stains on the carpet but the bed/​linens seemed clean. The elevator took FOREVER. The hallway from the elevator to the parking garage seems very unsafe and I was not comfortable walking through there on my own. The front desk person was very clear to tell us that they were not responsible for anything happening to our car in the parking garage and said not to leave anything valuable out (we never do but it made me nervous). The staff was nice, one of the front desk folks had to jump our car in the parking ramp and was super cool about it. Overall the reason for the 2 stars is price vs quality.

Stayed here for 3 days and 2 nights. I don’t think I would ever want to stay at this hotel again. The beds and breakfast were great but some of the staff in this hotel were pretty rude.
The staff at the front desk were dismissive and unhelpful. We had staff coming to our door saying we were noisy and were threatened by the staff to keep it down or he’ll have to teach us a lesson if he had to come up again.
When asked for an extra blanket we were told that they don’t carry extra blankets. What kind of hotel are they running here? Rude, threatening staff and no extra blankets? Don’t they wash their sheets and pillows?

Desk staff was very kind. Room was old and drab, as Holiday Inns so often are. Oh well. This is a relatively inexpensive alternative in a central location. Free internet. Free quick breakfast. Decent bed.