Little details make the difference

Liked: Great location and a lovely traditional hotel. Great pool and gym area.
Disliked: We have stayed in other Fairmont hotels and have always been impressed. Fairmont Empress was good but felt like it missed some of the smaller details that make a hotel great. No free bottled water in the rooms. My daughters brought up towels from the pool and both times they were left in our room by cleaning, meaning when we checked out we still had a large pile of pool towels in the room. The door on the cabinet in our room was broken. We were advised of this when we checked in but the repair made the door worse. Not major things but elements we would have expected to be better.

Passable

Liked: Restaurant food and service are excellent. Front desk staff are very good. Location is great.
Disliked: Hotel rooms are outdated. Simply decorated with minimum details. Not worth the price we paid.

Best ever

Excellent location and friendly staff...

Liked: Location. Friendly staff. Impressive facade. Pool and hot tub.
Disliked: Narrow window, restricting harbour view (room 728). Very noisy despite being on 7th floor - single glazing allowed street, construction and window cleaning cherry picker reversing beeper noise into room from 7.30 each morning. This is our 8th hotel on this road trip vacation, and so far the only hotel to charge extra for WiFi, despite significant room cost. Bathroom very small, shelf and sink at a very low level.

The highlight of our trip!

Liked: The hotel is absolutely beautiful. Exceptional customer service. Gorgeous view of the harbor. Wonderful amenities in the room. Very comfortable bed. Delicious coffee for room service this morning. We don?t want to leave!

Pleasant

Liked: Location
Disliked: The cost

The staff and facilities were...

Liked: I loved that they had bikes we could use. We were able to explore so much more of Victoria. The property itself was breathtaking.
Disliked: We couldn?t stay longer

Exceptional

It was a wonderful experience.

Liked: They had the friendliest staff I have ever experienced. They were so helpful with every need we had they took care of us.
Disliked: They could use more people at the concierge desk. There was only one person there that could do everything. Maybe one or two more people would have been nice so you didn't have to wait so long. I thought