Name: Residence de l'UOttawa - UOttawa Residences - Rideau
Address: 290 Rideau St. Ottawa,Rideau St., Ottawa, Ottawa, Ottawa, K1N 5Y3, Canada
Rating: 4

Air conditioning

Elevator/lift

Smoke-free property

Radio

Reception desk

General

Room service

Fridge

Cable TV

Hairdryer

Shower

Toiletries

Rooms

Laundry

Telephone

Services and amenities

Coffee/tea for guests

Restaurant

Snack bar

Microwave oven

Meals

Free Wi-Fi

Internet access

Internet

Parking

Business center

Conference Hall

Business

Pets allowed

Pets

Location

At the hotel

Room amenities

Gatineau Airport

Ottawa/Macdonald-Cartier International Airport

Residence de l'UOttawa - UOttawa Residences - Rideau

Ottawa

Positive Points: Affordable price/Geographical location/Parking available under the hotel Negative Points: - Customer service: No motivation to answer questions. I've had a lot of trouble getting accurate parking information. Employees (even students) should be better guided and offer better customer service with a better attitude. - Cleanliness: Carpet with incredible dirt, rotting on the bathroom ceiling, dry urine on the toilet... everything is ruined in this establishment. - Parking: You have to wake up at 5am to pay for the station. Weekend rates from 5am to 5am.

What to Avoid

You really have to have no other choice to go over this residence. I really don't recommend this residence, despite its location. The only positive thing: the kindness of the hostesses at the reception. Otherwise for the rest, the residence is poorly maintained, not very clean. The carpet in the bedroom was stained. The sink in the bathroom was full of rust. The curtain torn. With that, the price was simply excessive.

When you really don't have a choice.

Good place for overnite stay. The downsides are there is no coffee in the rooms or the lobby, and the coffee shops open only at 6:00 am. Also the parking can only be paid 1 day at a time, so you need to rush at 5:00 am to pay for the day... without coffee.
It’s well located to the area we needed to get around, so we left the car at the hotel parking. Also the hotel extended our stay for free for the event taking place during the weekend.


Good for overnite stay

A colleague once joked on entering a hotel room that it's a perfect place to commit suicide and this place reminded me of that description. 
It's dark, seedy and hasn't been updated for years.  The wall paper is peeling off the walls. A strange smell permeates the room and the carpet has seen better days. 
Hotel booking sites descriptions state that the rooms contain coffee machine and hairdryer which they don't. 
Web based descriptions show rooms clustered around kitchen  and dining room which are similarly not available to summer guests. WHY????
Bed mattresses are thin, poor quality sheets. 
The location is convenient for the Byward market Parliament and shopping. 
Checkin is at an unusually late hour of 4pm but the staff did allow us to leave our luggage as our room was not ready before then. 
The young lady on the reception desk politely listened to my request for a hairdryer and coffee machine but was unable to help me or to escalate the request. 


Your  last resort, not your first choice 

The young people at the reception are very kind and the location is excellent for walking, but there is no comfort, stained carpet and rusty sink.

The last choice requires

Location is great, but bad service and will not return.  Website said laundry on site but turned out machines unplugged for the summer.  Noise problems.  Sub-par bed linens.  When needed help, no front desk phone number in room  Front desk people tried but limited in what they could do.  Telephoned agent and she was completely unhelpful and rude.  Air conditioner very loud and worked only on high.

Disappointing experience; never again.

I did not have high expectations for this place. It is, after all, a university residence (although it was once an 80s-era hotel). But in several ways it was worse than I had anticipated.

But to be fair, I'll start with the pluses: The young people working at the front desk were polite and personable. My room contained both a microwave and a small fridge (though I had no reason or time to use either one). The wifi was easily accessible and reliable. The AC worked fine. The location is reasonably convenient for the Byward Market, the Rideau Centre, and the University of Ottawa. And although the hotel was crawling with young teenagers on school trips, my floor was wonderfully quiet and peaceful.

The minuses are numerous. The room had only one light, near the door, and  no reading lamp. My first night, I attempted to read via the dim light from the bathroom. After that, I asked for a reading lamp, and received an old thing that got dangerously hot when turned it on. Then, on top of that, there were no bedside tables, so I had to balance the reading lamp on the bed. (It fell off several times.)

The beds are thin sheets of foam on top of a rickety frame. Rather uncomfortable. Each bed is covered with a sheet and one very thin blanket. I was very cold and had to rip the blanket off the adjoining bed to try to warm up.

There was no telephone. The reception on the tv was terrible.

The bathroom was rundown, with old fixtures. I think the cleaners had done their best, but I noticed plenty of mold around the sink and the tub. There are no surfaces in the bathroom on which to place toiletries.

Although my room was on the fifth floor, there was a parking lot right outside my window, with cars jammed side by side. No view, needless to say.

The hotel has no pool, no fitness facility, no restaurant, no coffee shop. You cannot exercise there or eat there. (There's a Tim Horton's around the corner, and a grocery store across the street.)

The elevators are slow and clearly cannot handle busloads of visitors.

I was booked into the Rideau Residence for a business trip, with the costs paid by my hosts, so I don't know how much my room cost. But if you want even a modicum of comfort (let alone luxury), do not choose to stay here. I will not be back; I've lived too long to have to pay to be uncomfortable.

Many discomforts

This was my first visit to the Nations Capital with my family.  The rooms at the residence were very clean and spacious.  Both our rooms had 2 double beds which were very comfortable, clean linens, air conditioning and we had a great view. The girls at the front desk were fantastic and just so very helpful.
I would definitely recommend this residence/hotel to anyone visiting Ottawa.

Residence de l'UOttawa - UOttawa Residences - Rideau

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