Myself and my wife stayed at the Metropolitan both before and after our tour of The Rockies and found both times perfectly pleasurable especially on the second occasion when we were upgraded to an executive suite which went way beyond our expectations.
I booked via the hotel,s own website taking up The Early Bird Option which saved 15% on the normal rate.A deal which could not be bettered by other travel sites.
Check in each time only took minutes.Our room was spacious, with a lovely bathroom and exceedingly comfortable bed.There is a safe, coffee making facilities ( you have to ask if you want tea ) and sufficient storage space for clothes etc.
The concierges were very helpful especially Nathalie who gave us some helpful advice on tours and restaurant recommendations such as Don Francescos ( Italian ) and Azia (Superb Asian Food ).We did not dine in the hotel,s own Diva restaurant although we did use room service once and the food was delicious although a tad pricey.
During our stay there was only one lift working.This was no problem for us as we were on holiday and in no rush.However, not everyone seemed to take the same view and saw this as some sort of catastrophe.
As previously mentioned by other reviewers there is construction going on immediately beside The Metropolitan of a new 48 floor tower block development which will not be finished until 2010.The work and the ensuing noise begins around 7 but we were on a higher floor both times and did not find it particularly intrusive.Altough other parts of the hotel may be more badly affected.The construction workers also close off the sidewalk during the working day but have traffic control on to allow you to cross the road safely.
The hotel is within easy reach of most downtown attractions with the Pacific Mall right across the road.
All in all i would use this hotel again but maybe for some it would be advisable to choose another option if they thought that noise would spoil their stay.

My husband, mother and myself booked one of the suites at the Met Sunday the 13th and Monday the 14th of July. It turns out I had actually booked the wrong dates on their website but upon calling them on our drive up from Seattle they informed us they had another room available. Whilst check in was painless I have to say the room certainly didn't warrant the price (we paid $329 a night not including tax). The first morning of our stay we were awoken by ground shaking noise that was from the construction next door-we weren't even on the side of the building that faces the new hotel! I'm a sound sleeper and was recovering from jet lag but found it impossible to sleep beyond 7.30 a.m. Not what I call a vacation!

Having only one elevator in a 15-storey hotel is unacceptable (the other was out of order during our stay)-at times we waited almost 10 minutes for it to take us to our room. Due to a power surge in the city during our stay the cable was out for a day/night and we had to argue with the front desk to allow us to view a movie for free. On the whole you pay for location with this hotel and I think based on past experience there are far better hotels for the price near Robson Street.

Apart from the location I cannot find any reason why I would recommend this hotel to anybody, my observations are as follows:

The lifts – One of the lifts was out of order and (as there are only two lifts to all floors) this caused some real delays and frustration for ourselves and other guests. After a few days we asked reception when the lift was going to be back in order and were told it was due to be fixed the very next day. This never happened and the lift was still out of order when we checked out 8 days later - I suspect it’s still broken now!

The Room – I had read earlier reviews which stated that the rooms had been recently refurbished (last year as I recall), but in my book a new LCD TV, phone and alarm clock doesn’t equate to a refurbished room. The bathroom was very dated with a loo that looked like it had come from a 70’s sci-fi movie, the bath tiles especially looked aged and worn with plenty of mildew in the grout – not something you really want to see after a long 9 hour flight. To round things off there was a good layer of dust on most of the passé furniture.

The Food – ‘Diva at the Met’ or, as it says on the pitch board outside ‘Diva–licious’ - they have to be kidding!! We ate there once and have to say that that food was mediocre for the price with service to match - it just seemed like the staff would rather be somewhere else. This cannot have been just my perception as every time I looked in at the restaurant (through the glassed partition from the lobby whist waiting for their only working lift) it was mostly empty, which was the case whether it was morning or evening. We did venture across to the Four Seasons, which has a far nicer restaurant, pleasant ambience and good food that is far superior to the Met’s offerings.

Building site – There’s major construction work going on next door to the Metropolitan which is mentioned on a slip on paper placed in the room, and states (I paraphrase) that you may experience some construction noise from 7:30 am onwards. However, the truth is that the building work starts at closer to 6:00 am, so don’t expect any snoozing.

Phone stolen! – Beware when checking-out and asking reception to store your cases, your property may be exposed to thieves. It was our last day in Vancouver and we had a late evening flight back to the UK, so we did the usual thing of checking-out and storing our cases with reception whilst we had a final look around the city. It must have been at this time that my mobile phone was stolen from my flight bag as it was the only thing of any value not locked in my main suitcase. I only noticed it was gone when I landed in the UK, which is good thinking on the thief’s – you can’t do a lot about a stolen phone when you’re 4500 miles away! You could say that I should have known better etc, etc, but I would expect that a hotel that markets itself in such a prestigious way would not have problems of this sort. I have tried to contact the hotel via their email address but I get a returned error message – perhaps their IT services are also manage by the same people who service their lifts!!

Conclusion – I loved Vancouver and the parts of BC I saw, however, the Met was a big disappointment and I really cannot understand why this place gets such good reviews, simply because I found the hotel and service really below par. You can surely do better in this wonderful city!

We spent our wedding night at the Met. As it was a Saturday night, we did not experience the construction that so many other have commented on. In fact, we found the room to be quite quiet. The room was very nice. Big comfy bed and large marble bathroom. The hotel sent up chocolate covered strawberries and champagne in honour of our wedding (held at another venue).

We went to the in-house restaurant, Diva, for brunch the next morning and it was excellent. Since we are locals and work in the area, we often go to Diva for business lunches. It is consistently good. I would highly recommend it! During the week, they usually have a 3-course lunch special (changes daily) for approx $30.

We booked the week prior on-line. I think it was around $200.