GRAND TIMES HOTEL

We have family that live 15 minutes east of Sherbrooke and we have been staying at the Grand Times Hotel in Sherbrooke for the past three years when we visit.

From the very first time we stayed there, we felt appreciated. The staff are well trained and very professional. A special shout out to Juno, who went above and beyond to make sure that all our needs were met.

The rooms we've had over the years have been quite spacious and well appointed. We've been lucky to have rooms that overlook the park most of the time. We had one room that overlooked Rue Belvedere and it was not noisy at all.

One visit, we opted for a Loft room on the top floor of the hotel. The room was amazing. It even had a real fireplace surrounded by leather couch and chairs.

We've stayed at other properties in the Sherbrooke area over the years but we keep coming back to Grand Times because of the staff, the quality of the hotel and the location (right beside the parc and the Marche de la Gare, walking distance to two supermarkets, a few blocks from Les Vraies Richesses bakery and a few blocks further to a great section of Sherbrooke with funky stores, restaurants and sights to see).

If you've never been to a Grand Times Hotel, you owe it to yourself to give it a try.

Came here and tested all the 1-star reviews... Unfortunately most of them hold up.

Biggest issue: THE KEY CARDS
you need your key card to access the ELEVATOR!!! The building is only a couple floors and we were on the 3rd, so we thought why not take the stairs? Thank god I had my phone as all the stairwell doors are LOCKED. There is a slot for a key card but even after trying with every single card orientation they wouldn't open. We had to call for help as none of the doors opened!! Extremely dangerous for fire safety, also extremely authoritarian. Who are you to dictate my movement through the hotel? If i lost my key card at any point, genuinely, what would someone do? Also the key cards themselves are incredibly non-user friendly. There's no indication which was the card should work. I would try my card 6 different ways and my partner would do the same and his card would work, but not mine, even though I had just used the key card in the elevator. Also you need the key card to UNLOCK THE DOOR TO LEAVE THE BUILDING but there's no key card needed to enter?

Stiff pillows/sheets: you get 1 pillow and a giant decorative one. The single pillow feels like its filled with sand. It's both extremely stiff and hard to squeeze, but at the same time when you lay down you think it'll be firm but in actuality the pillow parts like the red sea. Literally feels like it's full of sand or tiny beads. Also, I think we slept on the bare mattress/mattress cover as it had a very peculiar "mattress quilt" to it.

The lighting (or lack there of). Extremely dimly lit with soft red lights. I don't know if it's supposed to come off as fancy?? But it just comes off like some sort of weird sex dungeon. Definitely not a good environment for those who have difficulty with their sight, or even the elderly. Very ironic considering the insane number of hand rails in the bathroom (literally along the bathtub, the entire sink countertop, and the whole wall running behind the toilet to the sink) Door also are extremely wide as if they are meant to be wheelchair accessible, yet the main elevator is in this hidden away and very cramped hallway. It's like they didn't know if they wanted the hotel to be a "everyone is welcome" hotel, or not.

Weird ugly rooms: Kinda felt like it was a seniors home in the past. Ceiling is just exposed cement. Windows don't open. No balcony. I came in November so I didn't notice any humidity issues. Air system makes weird clicking sounds that are similar to the sounds of the door being opened...

No free breakfast. No water in rooms, there's a nice bottle of Eska for 3.99$ though!!! (Disgusting) Partner bought a beer in the lobby bar and it was no joke 18$ for a singular beer.
Doors don't have good soundproofing. I love being woken up by children running down the hall for whatever reason (not!) Staff are pretty nice. No room service/food. No room cleaning during your stay, which they say is for environmental reasons but I think that's a lie and they just don't want to have to pay all those employees for room cleaning.

IN CONCLUSION: my biggest issue by far was the keycard elevators. It seemed to be a method to deter randoms from walking in, but maybe you should invest in some security guards instead. Would never recommend this place solely for the keycard elevators. I refuse to pay these prices to sleep in a nanny-state. Would not recommend, unless you plan on spending 7 hours at the hotel only to sleep.

Hotel has rules and policies that really create a bad customer experience. These policies are clearly to make the experience of the employees easier at the expense of the customer experience. Here are some examples:
If you try to check in early you at 2pm let’s say, many get told their rooms are not ready and wait till 4pm, then you notice people arrive at 2:30, 3, 3:30pm getting their rooms of the same category. We asked why; their explanation is rooms even if the exact same category are pre assigned, so you have many clients in the lobby waiting 2 hrs while they could of just reassigned the room of clients that showed up around later.
- The room key only allows you to your floor, so if you have a co worker on business or a friend on a different floor you have to access to go see them. They actually asked me to go to the front desk and request an employee to unlock the access of the elevator each time.
- There is a huge loins area by the lobby, completely unused , if you dare to sit with a beverage or food item that is not from the hotel, you actually have an employee warning you on the premise that you did not purchase it from them, but their bar has zero and I mean zero employees working there or offering anyone service.

All that to say that what they want from their client is to pay, and then not been seen and stay in their rooms. Never staying here again

Ont devait réserver pour le 16 décembre,mais à la lecture des commentaires ont ira à OTL Sherbrooke finalement,