We stayed at the Crowne Plaza in Niagara Falls for 2 nights beginning on March 15, 2010.
We had a package which included one buffet breakfast, one-and-a-half day access to the water park and some coupons for dinner at the Sheraton or the Crowne Plaza (the Crowne).
We were checked into a tiny room with two double beds. There was hardly any room to put our luggage down, not to speak of the fact that we were travelling with two active kids. The air in the room was hot and stuffy. I played with the thermostat and found that there was no air vent in the room, and there was no air conditioning unit on the windows. The bathroom also had no vent. After going down to the front desk, I was offered a fan to help circulate the air in the room. The offer of the fan was done very matter of factly...like this was an everyday occurrence. What I really wanted was to get some fresh air into the room and then cool the air off....you know, like an air conditioner would? I was told I could open the window...unfortunately the window, which I had already tried to open, only opened about 4 - 5 inches!
We were then shown another room, which the front desk told me was an upgrade -- it turned out to be exactly the same size as the last room. Back down I went with the bell-man in tow. This time I was given the keys to a suite...a double room. So with some grumbling from my wife and kids, who were already getting settled into the first room, we moved.
The first night in the suite was cold. I had the thermostat turned all the way up. Unfortunately, the heaters were not working. The next day, after spending a great day at the water park, we returned to take showers in our room. As I tried to adjust the shower head, the pipe going into the wall simply bent right off the inside-the-wall pipe. Nice! I turned all the water off and called the front desk. I mentioned that I had (big strong guy that I am) had simply broken (not bent, but broken) off the pipe attached to the shower head. Without missing a beat, the lady on the line said, "Okay, I'll send up an engineer right away!" Which made me think that this type of occurrence wasn't entirely novel to this hotel.
After having lived and settled-in to this room...the maintenance guy informed us that we would have to move to yet another room as the repairs would take a long time.
Fine. So we moved, conveniently, across the hall to the same type of suite as we had just vacated. As soon as I entered the room, I could smell the distinct odour of fumigation chemicals. I said as much to my wife...but I also knew that the kids were in no mood to move yet again and neither was the wife. After showering and just as we were getting ready to head out, my keen-eyed daughter spots an ant, then another, then another, then another. I crush them all and assure her that there are no more ants in the room. Before leaving I opened the "one" window in the two rooms 5 inches wide (as far as it would go)to air the room out. We spent 3 hours out and returned to find our room freezing cold. No big deal, I thought, I will just shut the window and turn on the heat.
The heaters did not work, the single pane window, which was on rusted hinges, would not shut. I tried to slam the window shut with no luck. I looked for a knife in the room to "jimmy" the window with no luck. Finally, I took the belt off my pants, looped it around the small window handle, pulled hard and pushed the frame of the window upwards to finally close the window shut for good. Unfortunately, the room was still very cold owing to the the single pane, circa 1929, windows. By this time, I was well onto the hotel. I called down and, without explanation, asked for a portable heater to be brought up to our room. The operator's response, again, was non-chalant and a portable heater was promptly brought up, no questions asked.
The kicker was that another, as we found out later, very nice family had moved into our suite. Their story was similar....they were shown the cramped room, they complained, were upgraded to our previous room of the broken pipe. We exchanged some intelligence with them, they asked to take over our portable heater as "their" room was also freezing the night before.
The only thing good about this hotel were the staff, who seemed to have a, 'Yeah, we know...we're sorry, but what can you do, it's an old hotel' attitude about them. Nevertheless, they were all very pleasant and understanding and accommodating. Without the graciousness of the staff this whole experience would have been a total loss.
Bottom line: The Crowne Plaza in Niagara Falls is a very old hotel which has had cosmetic renovations but no structural renovations leaving many things to be desired. Save your money and go to the Sheraton Fallsview which is next door to the Crowne.
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