Best Things Nearby:
Downtown Vancouver, Yaletown, many restaurants and shops
Best Things About the Resort:
The location and great views
Resort Experience:
The Rosedale on Robson is a full-service 21-story all-suites hotel in downtown Vancouver. Aviawest bought two floors of suites and manages them independently from the hotel. The Aviawest office around the corner handles all requests as opposed to the hotel staff. I found the office staff helpful and prompt in meeting our requests, although don't expect a full-service hotel. However, the in-house concierge is very helpful. There is a mid-week cleaning, but we only stayed for 4 nights.
The rooms may be smaller than other timeshare units, but they are big considering this is an urban hotel. You'll be either on the 15th or 19th floor and have a commanding view of downtown. The living room is fairly spacious with a sleeper sofa and has a DVD player (you can borrow DVD's from their office for free - 1 at a time). The bedroom features a queen-sized bed and a smaller TV with VCR. The kitchen is really just a narrow counter in the hallway adjoining the bedroom and living areas, but is adequate. It contains a stove, oven, microwave, and a mini-fridge. Make that a very wide mini-fridge, about 50% larger than the ones I'm accustomed to. There is also a laundry room on each floor (one washer, one dryer for $1.25 each).
There is an indoor pool and Jacuzzi. The pool is rather narrow and more for swimming laps, but children could play there as well. There are also exercise equipment and facilities. There are no activities at the hotel, but the Aviawest staff could arrange any number of tours. They never asked us to attend a timeshare presentation, although there were some occurring (perhaps these people did not do a timeshare exchange like us).
Yaletown is a two-block walk and features many fine restaurants, pubs, and shops. You can also catch an Aquabus to Granville Island if you walk to the waterfront at Davie St. Most of downtown is walkable, as is Chinatown (check out the Float Seafood restaurant for dim-sum). We stocked up at T&T supermarket in Chinatown for groceries. Immediately around the hotel are a number of coffee shops and cafes. Most of the finer dining and boutique shops are further down on Robson.
There is public transit that stops outside the hotel, but these go to the "non-downtown" areas. The main avenue where most public transit stops is on Granville St, which is a 4 block walk. You can also go to the Skytrain station at Granville and Georgia. You can buy a transit pass or a ticket-pack at the 7-11 across the street. Note that on the Skytrain and Seabus they don't routinely check your tickets, so don't go overboard on buying tickets. Taxis are reasonable and should cost about $5 for most places downtown, and about $25 to/from the airport.
Overall, this is a great place to stay if you want to be in the heart of Vancouver.
- Unit Type: 1 Bedroom
- Activities: Not Available
- Amenities: Very Good
- Unit Satisfaction: Excellent
- Family Friendliness: Good
- Service: Good