Ottawa......

We spent a few days in Ottawa last week.  We normally go to the States this time of year, but with what has been coming out of Donald's mouth recently, even I couldn't justify visiting the States, sorry 😟

We have been to Ottawa before but it was probably 25+ years ago.  We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites in downtown Ottawa.  I chose that hotel as it was reasonably priced; I booked through Expedia.  We stayed in room 530 and it was an accessible room, which although we hadn't booked turned out to be a good room to have.

The room was very clean, as was the rest of the hotel. In fact the cleanest hotel we have ever stayed at.

There were numerous grab bars in the bathroom.

The tub was lower down, which made it super easy to step into, when having a shower.

The breakfast, was included and it had a variety of items on offer, both hot and cold.  I will say this was also the best breakfast's I have had in a hotel.  There were three woman (staff) on duty replenishing and keeping everything tidy in the breakfast area.

There was underground parking, which did cost an additional $25 per night, but it was very secure, no one could get into the parking garage without a guest card.  I managed to lose our guest cards one day, so called the hotel right away and they canceled them and reissued others, with no issue and no charge.

If you can walk 20 thousand steps per day, this is the perfect hotel for you, as within a 10 to 20 minute walk you can get to Byward Market, Parliament Buildings, National Gallery of Canada,  Rideau Mall, and Notre Dame Basilica  

The History Museum was probably a 30 + minute walk and The Museum of Nature a 40+ minute walk.  We did not move our car the whole time we were there, and walked everywhere.  I will say my poor feet suffered and by night I was super tired, but the weather was superb while we were there.

Now the negative parts....LOL  The mattress needed replacing, as it was super soft.  Pillows also needed replacing, no support at all.......our own fault we should have brought our own with us.  The a/c was super loud, so we had to turn it off at night, so we could sleep.  Luckily the weather wasn't stinking hot.  All those are minor things which probably wouldn't bother some people.

The biggie though, and probably one of the things most people complained about was the actual location and/or what was located across the road from the hotel.  We followed the GPS and it took us the fastest way which happened to be on Murray Street.  Going down Murray Street you go past many homeless people, which is very off putting to say the least.  It turns out diagonally across the street from the hotel is the Homeless Shelter and numerous agencies that cater to them.  

So, the staff advise you at the hotel to avoid that street, which was easy to do and just don't interact with the homeless.  We never had an issue at all with them.  The majority were so out of it, they probably had no idea we were even close by.  I remember commenting about the homeless when we were in Savannah, and this was just the same.  

There were a lot around the mall; again you just ignored them.  In the market there were a few begging.  We only had one approach us directly and his hand was in a bad way.  I would have paid for a cab to the hospital but I knew I was wasting my money.

If you are very sensitive to be in such an environment then this hotel is not for you.  We don't go out after dark, so we didn't find it a problem for us, and I have seen it before in other big cities.

The roads surrounding the area are also pretty busy, so you do hear a little bit of traffic noise, but not enough to keep you awake; but if it has to be super quiet for you to sleep, again this hotel is not for you.

Would I stay at this hotel again; yes.  It's just unfortunate about the homeless situation, and the staff hear this all the time.  I will say again though, I have never been in such a clean and well presented hotel like this before, really nice.  There was a pool and gym also, but I didn't go to either.

I have many more photos and stories to share about Ottawa in the coming days..........