For decades this was the Radisson Admiral, a nautically themed fixture of Toronto’s Harbourfront, and the 2021 rebrand to Radisson Blu smartened the interiors without touching the thing that matters: the address. At 249 Queens Quay West you are on the water, opposite the Toronto Music Garden, with the CN Tower, Ripley’s Aquarium and Rogers Centre a fifteen-minute walk inland and the ferry docks for the Toronto Islands a little further along the quay. The Gardiner rumbles somewhere behind, but down here the soundtrack is gulls and rigging.
The 157 rooms are modest in size but sensible, refreshed with cleaner lines and better bathrooms, and the choice that matters is which way you face. Lake rooms watch island ferries and the float planes dropping into Billy Bishop airport; city rooms stare at condominium glass. Pay the supplement. The seasonal rooftop pool deck is the hotel’s ace, a genuine summer scene with the lake spread out below.
Be clear-eyed about the trade. Queens Quay is lovely by day and sedate by night, so evenings mean a streetcar ride or a walk up into King West. For families doing the tower, aquarium and islands circuit, though, and for anyone visiting between May and September, this is one of the better-value waterfront beds in the city.
