Holiday Inn Kingston Waterfront by IHG

I stayed at this hotel with a friend when we went to a mutual friend's wedding last year. While the room we stayed in was comfortable, clean, pleasant enough, and we enjoyed walking around the waterfront area, things did not go smoothly or completely well, from the very beginning, and I was overall pretty dissatisfied with the experience. Right from the start when I was booking the room, I was unhappy. I called the hotel to ask about what the price for a room would be. I wanted to confirm with my friend if the price was OK with her or if we wanted to compare with somewhere else. I called and was informed of the price for a regular room with two queen beds. Then I got off the phone and talked to my friend. When I called the hotel back about an hour later, the agent I spoke with gave me a different price, higher than what I was initially quoted. I was given no warning that they had a fluid pricing scheme that would change in such a short period of time, and the agent didn't care that I had been told a different price and had not been informed and that I was unhappy, so I ended up having to pay a bit more for the second night which made me mad. The room we were assigned was close to the elevator, which was nice for convenience but we could hear the elevator every time someone got on or got off. It was a little annoying, but mostly tolerable, but things got worse from there. The night of the wedding we got in kind of late because we were up dancing with our good friend, so we slept in the next morning. Fairly early in the morning, I could hear two people talking loudly outside our room. I could tell from what they were saying to each other than they were hotel staff, I think maintenance staff most likely. They hung around in the hall near our room for quite some time. I just tried my best to ignore it until finally they went away. When I raised this with the receptionist later on, she asked if we had called the front desk. It had not crossed my mind. While perhaps I should have done so, and I will keep that in mind in the future, I did not appreciate that this had been a problem to begin with and I thought it was very inconsiderate. The morning after the wedding my friend and I had planned to take a city bus to the train station because the fare is pretty reasonable. I had looked into the bus routes a little bit ahead of time, but I figured the front desk would have information about the bus schedule and which route would be the best one to take to the train station. I figured that was a pretty common thing that guests would ask about. Ha! When I went to the front desk, they had absolutely no information about the bus schedules whatsoever, and simply said "We recommend you take a cab." Well, we didn't want to take a cab, we wanted to take a bus. We ended up figuring out where the bus stop was on my friend's phone on Google Maps on our own. I was pretty disappointed that the front desk was no help in that regard. One positive thing I can say is that they had a room behind the front desk where we could keep our bags until we left, since we were going to get something to eat in town after check-out time. But I think all hotels have that, so it's not exactly a perk.

I had an outstanding stay at your hotel, and I wish to extend my appreciation, particularly to Jasmeet from the reception staff. She provided exceptional assistance, ensuring a seamless check-in process. The room's stunning water view added to the pleasure of my stay, and the hotel's central location proved extremely convenient. Thank you for providing a wonderful experience!