My husband and I, along with our daughter, had the opportunity to stay at The Royal York last spring and had a wonderful time. The rooms are spacious, (we had a king suite) the bathrooms were immaculately clean with just about every necessity possible, hair dryer, robes, iron and ironing board, coffee maker, mini bar, cable TV with movies, A.C., etc. They also have many extras available when requested. Some cost extra, others don not. For example our daughter was only 1yr old at the time and still needed to sleep in a crib. I phoned down to front desk to see if I could have one brought up, and if it was going to be extra. They said it is free and was on its way. Don't we hear that all the time? It's on its way? Well, they actually told the truth because it only took at the most 10 minutes to get the crib. It came with baby blankets and a pillow. I was surprised with how fast it arrived, of course we gave the delivery guy a small tip.

Another memorable experience we had was during the night our daughter was screaming for milk, which we ran out of. My husband went down to the only spot open in the hotel which was the Library Bar (rated #1 martinis in the city), the room service probably would have been more expensive. The bartender said they didn't sell milk and that it came as a mix to cocktails but he gerously filled our daughters bottle anyway for free! Thank goodness, it would have been a long night without the milk!

The next day before check out time we enjoyed the morning in the hotel's Spa and Health Club. Where registered guests can swim, exercise, and relax in the sauna or whirlpool. There is a children's pool which is where we were most of the time. It was great, we had so much fun.


After check out we had a buffet breakfast like no other in the York Kitchen. The food selection was incredible and of course I sampled almost everything! They even had about 20 selections of cereal, white - 12 grain bread and everything in between. There was eggs fried before your eyes, eggs benedict, scrambled, and poached. Sausage, side and back bacon, pastries, waffles, seasonal fruit, cheeses, you name it they had it! Everything was fresh and delicious!


This hotel has been the best hotel I have ever stayed in but I will warn you, it isn't cheap. If you even think about opening the snacks or grooming supplies sitting in the nice basket on the night stand, be prepared to empty your wallets! It was a good thing my husband told me they weren't gifts to us, lol I looked at the price sheet in the basket with the goods and nearly fell over.


Overall it was definitely a wonderful time and I recommend this Grand Hotel for romance, business, and recreation!

Royal .. hmmm ... yeah ok. Very majestic, robust, with a slight touch of history (hard for me to say coming from europe where buildings are 100s of years old).

Long hallways are covered with old wallpaper strangely matched with all sort of patterned carpets. Dark color palletes and lots of gold & bras is used to frame mirrors and paintings or photography. Spacious corridors, humongous & lofty lobby with reception with chandoliers hanging everywehre giving it a very nice and warm glow.

Very royal indeed. You can almost smell the special something in the air. The strong british accent concierge guy adds on the heavyness of this place. Entering the elevator makes you feel like you are part of a movie from different era.

Rooms carry on the same character. Not much has been really updated i don't think except the internet access in the room? which is $16/day i must add which was quite surprising to me considering our room was about $400/night. Please ... throw in the internet along with cable for those who come for business. Its like asking extra $20 per 20 min use of shower.

Staff was extremely friendly and hospitable. Any request we had was executed almost instantly. 911 doesn't have such a response standards as the service in this place. We even got a room upgrade because of a broken modem. Which for a business person is a "real hastle" so there we go with little bit of whinning .. getting a great new room double the size. No problem.

Health club facilities are quite nice and modern looking, open late till 11pm, BUT you are not allowed to take your glass of wine there. That's what I came there for!! .. so we had to sneak it in cuz i need my relax time in hot water sipping on my heavy red. Swimming pool has a decent size, could have been a bit bigger considering the size of this hotel and it's capacity. And another hottub would help in case the one fills up with 8 people and it constatly was full.

And no outdoor pool or even sundeck. No outdoor area at all. Quite surprising. But they do have rooftop herb garden. For all those fineschmakers. I never tried the food in the restaurant or bar downstairs but i heard its quite good.

Overall .. i am not sure where did this hotel obtained its reputation. I must say it was nice enough but did not exceed any of my expectations from the hype about it.

It could be that i didn't use its full scale of services probably .. cuz mostly i went down there to join my boyfriend for a few nights to have some relaxing down time for myself and my girlfriends in the health club .. and mission accoplished, we had really good time doing just that.