The Fairmont Waterfront sits directly opposite Canada Place and the cruise terminal, and on a clear morning the view from a harbour-side room is the whole point: floatplanes taxiing across Burrard Inlet, the North Shore mountains stacked behind, Stanley Park a green smudge to the west. It is a big, glassy business-district hotel of 489 rooms, and it would be easy to dismiss as a corporate default were the operation not so quietly good at the things that matter.
The sustainability programme is the real differentiator, and unusually it is substance rather than garnish. A 2,100 square foot rooftop garden and a row of working beehives supply ARC Restaurant and Bar with herbs, vegetables and honey, and the Pacific Northwest menu that results is popular with locals as well as guests; the weekend brunch books out. Rooms are bright and neutral with floor-to-ceiling glass, and the harbour side is worth the difference. Fairmont Gold, the hotel’s private-lounge floor, adds its own check-in, evening canapes and a terrace, and is the version of the hotel we would book.
Location does the rest. The Seawall is two minutes away, Gastown’s cafes five, Stanley Park a ten-minute walk or an easy cycle. Expect cruise-embarkation bustle in the lobby on summer mornings; it passes by mid-afternoon, and the heated outdoor pool and terrace on the third floor give you somewhere to wait it out.
