Isabella Hotel

Wish I could give it a ZERO! At check in, we were told that the room was lacking clean linen, which was to arrive after 4 pm. Upon entering the room, we learned that a lot was lacking in addition to the linen. The AC was broken, the shower door fell when opened, coffee pot was full with moldy water inside, and nobody cleaned the room for 4 days. As I write this, two customers just had a verbal argument with the front desk regarding shady price hike and a dirty room. Stay away if possible.

30 years ago the Hotel Isabella was a dive bar that had live bands, so when the opportunity came through Groupon to stay there for a night, I thought I’d give it a try for nostagia’s sake. Despite the renovations, it’s still a dive, but without the live bands.
The check-​in experience was very poor with the man on reception borderline rude to us. The room was barely better than a hostel with no features. The bathroom was meagre and not somewhere you’d want to shower. The breakfast was some boxes of cereal laid out on the bar, which we decided to decline and went out looking for a restaurant.
The location may be just off the Subway, but there’s very little in the immediate area as far as shops or restaurants. While they can be found on the other side of Yonge Street, just a 10 minute walk away, this is not a great area to walk in late at night.
Toronto has a lot of wonderful neighbourhoods and great hotels to meet your budget. Please try somewhere else.

Pretty $#!++¥…
I’m definitely used to ‘other’ hotels. I’ll just bullet point the issues that occurred:
* No air in my room yet somehow there was air conditioning in the hallway…
* Restrooms on first floor were out of service the entire time I was there
* No parking when I requested it a day ahead of time
* Saw a squirrel eat off of an empty plate on the patio. Can we say rabies plates?
* Hair continuously in bathroom after housekeeper cleaned
* Hair & stains on towels
* Bedding with ink stain
* Bugs on wall near non-​working air conditioning control
* Nasty stains on chair in room
* Bed sheets were low-​grade & itchy
* Bedding wasn’t changed for 2 days
* Room didn’t have a safe. That’s standard in hotel rooms. First one I’ve encountered without one.
I do believe I’ve entered 2 star territory & that is not my scene. Definitely got lied to by
…
Only thing that was okay? The breakfast, but that was suspect too when I saw one of the staff putting bread & muffins away without gloves. They were just at the front desk handling office supplies. I didn’t see hand washing occur inbetween.
I was appalled & grossed out. Thank god it was only a place to rest my head & I was out all the time. Ugh…

I do NOT recommend this hotel at all! Discovering the cheap rates listed on
and never having been to Toronto, I didn’t know what to really expect. We stayed 2 nights right after Labor Day weekend (9÷3−9÷5).
There is NO parking — not even paid! There is a lot we found down the street and around the corner. You can pay $ 14 a day and it expires every morning at 6am! Also, be sure not to leave anything visible in your car because it’s not very well lit and could very well be prone to break ins.
There is nobody available to help you up the stairs with bags so I do not advise anybody elderly or with special physical needs to stay here.
Also, the elevator is mind-​bogglingly small and very slow! BEWARE!
Upon inspecting our TINY room, we discovered a condom wrapper on the floor between the refrigerator and the TV stand. Upon notifying the front desk, he informed me that he was the only staff member working and that he’d «leave a note for the manager in the morning». Needless to say, nothing was ever resolved regarding the issue! I also find it interesting that housekeeping came by on the second day and didn’t clean up that time around either!!! In addition, the towels are the size of hand towels and the hand towels are the size of wash cloths!
They do offer free breakfast– but keep in mind it’s nothing hot!
On the positive side, Gabby’s the connected restaurant had friendly, efficient service. The hotel is also in a good location regarding public transportation or a starting off point for tourists.

The Isabella Hotel was quite an experience! Like so many before me, I was sucked in by Groupon and it was an amazing deal — $ 78 for 2 nights. When we checked out, the hotel did charge us an additional $ 11 in taxes plus my currency conversion fees brought the two nights to about $ 93. Had I paid more than $ 46 a night, I think I would have felt ripped off and like I didn’t get a good deal… but based on my experience, everything was A-​OK although I wouldn’t book the hotel again. The brochure & pictures of the hotel make it look quite a bit better than it actually is.
Positives+
+Price. $ 46 a night is amazing, but if you’re paying their normal rate of $ 90-​$ 100, I would skip Isabella.
+Free continental breakfast. Chocolate chip muffins, other pastries, cereal, fruit and juices made for a nice free breakfast.
+The staff was all friendly and helpful. From the gentleman who originally took my call & made the reservation to the person who checked us in & the person who checked us out.
+The TV had tons of channels! Having just come from a $ 300/​night hotel in Niagara Falls with just 13 TV channels, I was happy to have a cheap hotel with about 50 options, woohoo.
+After reading reviews of bed bugs, I’m happy to report I did a lot of inspection and our bed was bug free!
+The hotel looks old fashioned and cool from the outside.
+Free wifi in the lobby so you can find people scattered throughout their nice lobby on their laptops & cells.
Negatives–
–Scariest elevator of my life. It was the smallest elevator I’ve ever been in and made me feel very claustrophobic. The numbers were slanted too, see picture.
–Cigarette burn in the curtain.
–Housekeeping only made the bed 75%. It made me laugh coming back to our room and seeing the bed not made on the top fully.
–Overall not a fancy room and VERY tiny. We made do but be aware the standard room is definitely not for more than 2 people… and a very tight 2 people. No closet, just hangers on a bar. There was a coffee machine in room although we didn’t try it.
–Our door didn’t seem to lock. It was locking, we tested it, but the door seemed a bit ajar… it was strange. I made sure to always lock the top part of the door for extra security.
–The neighborhood. It was nothing I couldn’t handle (shoooot I’m from Chicago), but the park across the street was FULL of strange characters. That meant a bird lady feeding pigeons, a homeless person sleeping on each bench at night, groups of young guys coming up & asking us for a lighter, little old grandmas sitting & staring… creeped me out a bit.
–No free parking! The parking garage across the street was the most shady I’ve ever been to. It’s a huge parking lot is super dirty, cars stacked with dust in one section, they don’t tell you where to park but you want to park in a visible spot to the car attendant (not sure if it would make any difference in bad circumstances though). They require a $ 20 deposit which is super weird… and they will accept that in the form of any currency it seems (Canadian, American, Australian, whatever you have on you) or if you don’t have cash on you, then we saw they take people’s driver’s licenses. We never had an issue with them overcharging us and returning our deposit, but it was just a shady lot.

Ah, Groupon. The things you’ll make us do.
So, yes. The hotel Isabella is an interesting place. It gets the two stars awarded for convenience and comfort. By convenience, I mean it is located just off of the subway route. By comfort, I mean that the bed I was in was firm an afforded a good night’s sleep.
It fails to get any more stars because of the rest of the room.
The closet, for example. It doesn’t have one. It has a crossbar with a set of clothes hangers on it (the theft proof kind). I never realized that a good closet was important to me. It is.
The bathroom is the cakeiest part to take a cake. It has a standard door. When you open this door, you can wash your hands and step into the shower.
Hey, what other task do people usually want to do in the bathroom? Did you say «use the toilet?» I hope so, because otherwise we have opposing biological imperatives.
If you want to use the toilet, you have to step into the shower, close the door, and then walk towards the toilet. Now, I’m no architect. I’ve never designed a building. But I think that the option of, say, using a sliding door in the wall instead would have been a much better idea.
The continental breakfast is very continental. There was fruit, coffee, cereal and juice.
I can’t see myself returning to the Isabella, especially at their base room rates. Another well-​timed Groupon (I needed to crash after watching Wrestlemania at a friend’s place) might do it, but I’m pretty ambivalent about that.