- Everything you need to know
if you're considering staying
at the Fairmont Chateau in Whistler.
I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions,
and in this video I'm gonna show you around the hotel,
the neighborhood around the hotel,
the inside of one of the rooms,
a king room on the Fairmont Gold floor.
And I'll share my pros and cons with you,
to let you know whether you should consider
staying at this hotel or not.
The Fairmont Chateau Whistler
is located in Whistler's Upper Village.
This is the village that connects to Blackcomb Mountain,
and actually there's a gondola here,
like right next to the hotel, that goes up to the mountain.
And so this is definitely a ski in, ski out hotel.
The con of this village is that, well,
the hustle and bustle is the main village,
which is not this one, and so you're about a 15 minute walk
from the hustle and bustle of Downtown Whistler.
There's only a few eating and drinking options
near the Fairmont, though pro,
there is a Upper Village Market, with groceries to go,
just across the main traffic circle from the Fairmont.
Self parking is available for $37 a day
underneath the hotel.
Valet parking is also available for a little bit more.
Now as you come into the hotel,
in the main lobby, it's impressive.
It's this grand lodgey looking lobby,
big concierge bell desk, big check-in area.
Continuing further down,
there's a few restaurants down here,
and then going down a lower level,
there's a whole shopping arcade down here,
with a number of different shops.
And the Portobello restaurant,
which is a must eat if you're here for lunch,
'cause they've got amazing porchetta sandwiches.
I highly recommend this restaurant.
I actually can't recommend it any higher.
Go eat here if you're staying at the Fairmont,
or you're anywhere near the Fairmont.
In the back is the pool and spa.
Now this pool is really pretty neat,
because they've got some indoor hot tubs,
and indoor pool areas, and then the pool actually connects
from indoors to outdoors, so when it's cold,
you can get in the pool while you are inside,
and then swim outside.
There's also a really big fitness area,
and coffee and tea available here in the spa gym area.
So if you're thirsty,
you don't have to schlep out someplace else.
You can get your drinks right here.
And then just outside the hotel, next to the pool,
there's an outdoor seating area for the Mallard bar.
And then right over here, there are three snow globes
that I guess you could dine inside these globes
when it's snowing.
That sounds cool.
Now there we've seen everything around the hotel,
let's check out the inside of one of the rooms.
This is room 771, come on inside, and I'll show you around.
This is a two-queen room on the Fairmont Gold floor,
the seventh floor of the hotel.
So as we come into the hotel,
you'll notice there are two queen beds.
I'm gonna show you some of the things on the beds
in just a minute, but this room
just kind of has a nice brownish green,
really moody vibe to it.
Over here, there is a kinda nice table,
and you'll note that there's a little thing
that has my name on it, with a little letter
from the manager of the Fairmont.
"We are thrilled to have you here," is what it says.
And some free chocolate that came in the room too.
Out this window, the view at night,
well, you can't see anything,
and so out in the daytime,
you can see out here looking over the town of Whistler.
Oh and by the way, this window,
it's actually a door that goes down
to a little one-foot balcony.
It's not really a balcony,
but you can open up the whole thing.
All right, let's take a look at the rest of the room.
So just in from the window, or door and that table,
is the fireplace in the room.
You just turned this on by flipping a switch,
and, poof, there is fire.
Over here, we got the flat panel television.
Down here is a minibar, not a refrigerator.
I'm kind of disappointed there's not a refrigerator.
And this thing says you'll automatically
be charged for this stuff, which is kind of annoying
we don't have a place to put our drinks.
Over here in these drawers, more minibar snacks,
Pringles, margarita mix.
Down here, there's an empty drawer.
And then down here is a like a big old teapot,
ice bucket, and tea kettle.
Up on the top is a Nespresso machine,
and there's a whole bunch of like Nespresso pods,
and as a luxury hotel, wine glasses,
'cause you're probably gonna be
ordering those from room service, I know.
Oh, and there's another Fairmont Gold chocolate right there.
They brought our luggage up to our room,
so you see it already up on these luggage stands.
And then here, this is interesting,
come take a look at this, in this little box,
I was trying to find the remote control for the room.
And there's this tray, and then within the tray is a box.
And then within that box
is the remote control for the room, pretty fancy.
All right, let's go take a look this way.
This is a connecting room,
there's a door over there that it connects to.
I'm gonna show you inside the closets,
and then we'll take a look at the bathroom.
This is a super wide closet.
It has not one, not two, but three doors that open up.
There's big robes in it, extra bedding.
And then over on this side, if you come in here,
they've even got some bamboo yoga mats.
And we're in British Columbia, where it rains all the time,
and so not one, but two umbrella.
Now behind these double doors is the bathroom.
The bathroom has a corner walk-in shower,
that has some interesting things in there.
Go take a look, those are essential oils
that look like they're in Nespresso pods.
I've never seen anything like that in a hotel room before.
Just next to the shower is a nice, elongated toilet seat.
On the other side is a big soaking bathtub,
with some nice artwork on top.
And then right over here,
we've got two sinks, Toto, Japanese brand.
And I wanna point out the soaps in the room
are Le Labo soaps, and not the puny size ones,
but really big ones.
Oh, and in the shower, they're the individual ones too.
So if you got extra, you can take it home.
Well fellow explorers,
if you watch my hotel reviews regularly,
now you'll know it's time for the Topher review,
where we rate hotels on a scale of one to five Topfers.
And then I'll give you my pros and cons,
and let you know whether you should stay here or not.
And so on a scale of one to five,
how many Topfers does the Fairmont Chateau Whistler get?
It's gonna get five Tophers, da da da da!
That's right, we rarely give five Topfers,
and let me tell you, we really enjoyed our stay
at this hotel.
So there's gonna be a lot of pros, and not that many cons.
but let's go ahead and roll into it.
On the pros, just super, all fantastic hotel,
excellent service, excellent food,
excellent property, excellent location right here
at the bottom of the Blackcomb gondola.
And so I really love hotels
that can bring like a high level of service
to a remote area.
And so the Fairmont Whistler does that really well.
The staff was super awesome.
They were really great at cleaning things,
daily housekeeping, which a lot of hotels
aren't even doing that again yet.
We slept really well.
The air conditioning was good, the room was quiet.
They treated us super well.
Traveling with a two year old, I mentioned earlier
the room didn't have a fridge,
but when I went and said, "Hey, we really could use
a fridge for our daughter,
'cause she needs to keep her milk cold,"
they were like, "Oh, in that case,
we'll send one up right away, no charge."
So they really treat kids well.
Spunky Princess, would you like to say anything
about the hotel?
How'd you sleep last night?
- Good. - Good.
Was the bed comfortable? - Yeah.
- Yeah, is it kid friendly? - Yeah.
- Yeah.
By the way, I probably didn't mention,
kids eat free at Fairmont Hotels if they're under five
at the major restaurants, and so that's pretty nice too.
I also appreciated that they have a self parking option,
and the parking garage was decently sized.
A lot of these older hotels
have like super, tiny parking garages,
where you're like, you can't even park a SUV or a minivan.
Okay, so now about the cons,
What were the cons?
Well, not that many, but one,
I thought the pillows on the bed
could have been a little firmer.
They felt a little too soft for me personally.
And I felt the hotel staff,
in trying to keep the hotel clean,
was a little bit aggressive on clearing coffee cups.
I had one in the lounge, sitting on a table,
and I like looked away, (laughing) and it was gone.
And then the same thing at breakfast,
like they came to clear my table,
and they're like, "Hey, can we clear your stuff?
Are you done?"
And I'm like, "I guess so, except my two to-go cups."
You know, I wanna take my to-go cups down,
but I wanted to get a little bit more milk in my tea,
and when I came back to my table,
my other to-go cup was gone.
Anyway, but you know that's like the those,
that's such an insignificant complaint,
that I would definitely recommend the Fairmont Chateau
in Whistler to you.
We booked it on the Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts rate.
We spent like $220 a night on this room.
It was a basic room.
We were upgraded as part of the rate,
to the Fairmont Gold room.
And now I know when people said to me,
"Chris, if you've never stayed in a Fairmont Gold room,
you've never had the full Fairmont experience."
And now that I have, I'll probably be looking
at the Gold rooms more in the future.
So I would consider you to do that as well,
'cause the Gold Room includes the lounge,
includes like basically food all day in the lounge.
Now if you're not gonna be here to eat that lounge food,
or you're not gonna be here to eat the breakfast,
well, you might still want the Fairmont Gold rooms,
'cause you actually get better rooms,
but the value proposition might not be there for you.
But if you have an Amex Platinum card,
and you're coming here, definitely look at booking it
through the Amex travel website.
So you book it on the Fine Hotels Resorts rate.
Just one note about those
is that there's like no changes on them.
You can only cancel and rebook.
So just be aware of that if you do book those rates.
Well fellow explorers, as usual, I won't say goodbye,
'cause I'm gonna see you in some of these other videos.
I've got a whole bunch more videos on Whistler.
Or if this hotel isn't your style,
you can check out my review of the Summit Lodge,
which is in the city center of Whistler.
So check those out.
You'll find links on the screen,
or in the description below.
As usual, I won't say goodbye,
'cause I'm gonna see you in one of those video.