Description: At the end of our conference, we had a closing party, which was held here at the Strathcona Hotel. It was walking distance from the Victoria Conference Centre being only 1 block away. If you were staying here as a hotel it's pretty centrally located and you shouldn't really need a car to get around Victoria itself. However, beware because underneath the hotel is a bar & club that stretches over two floors and I can imagine this would be noisy for guests trying to get some sleep.
For us however, well we just wanted to have some fun and relaxtion following a pretty gruelling conference schedule. We were a bit unimpressed with the basement entrance, but that soon vanished when we headed into the bar area and saw that they had loads of tv screens around the room, set up on the walls behind and above the seating booths. Being a marine conference they were playing some pretty amazing underwater footage (and one or two had NHL on). The scene being set, it really did feel like we were in some sort of deep sea submersible.
The bar was pretty well stocked, plenty to choose from in terms of local alcohol and plenty of non-alcoholic drinks too. We were served a buffet style dinner, that included hotplates and finger food. The food was a bit slow coming out, but overall was a very high standard and there was loads of choice. The absolute best though were the towers of cupcakes that came out as pudding...I tried several and they were yummy! If the food is like this usually within the bar then I can't recommend it enough.
We had a live band playing in the downstairs club and it was a great venue. Brilliant acoustics and plenty of room for dancing...the band weren't bad either. I can imagine this club gets quite full on a Friday and Saturday night, which would be great fun, but not so enjoyable if you're trying to sleep above.
In the bar upstairs there was hideous kareoke (but that was our fault not the hotel's) and there were a few biard tables set out, which I think must be permanent fixtures. The bar had a really nice feel to it, not too upmarket and nice and relaxed. The bar staff were helpful and we really had a great night, I just hope we didn't wake anyone up in the hotel.
Upon leaving the hotel we felt very safe, even though it was around midnight and were comfortable enough to walk home together. All in all a great night and a brilliant venue!
Close