Pan Pacific Vancouver

Proximity to the HAL cruise terminal was unbeatable. The lunchtime service in the bar downstairs was excellent, including jazz music selected by our waitress. The bed was comfortable. The desk attendant got us a room quickly even though we arrived quite early.

The water and shower were strange. Hot water ran out of the cold faucet in the sink for a full minute before it got cold, every time. Temperature of the shower and strength of the stream were from the same dial, so to get good pressure you had to sacrifice comfort. Truly bizarre. You need better signage downstairs to find the front desk. Usually they're on the ground floor. One of the down elevators was out, so we had a long wait because the first one working was full. $4.50 for bottles of water in the room? No way! There should be 2 complimentary water bottles, which you get in other fine hotels. And there is no convenience store nearby which stocks good water at a reasonable price. The (excellent) TV in the room was set at an odd angle, you have to twist your neck to view. Channel selections did not include Fox Business, which has higher ratings than CNBC; and MLB Network, which has baseball coverage other than the Toronto Blue Jays. And if you must burn half a dozen channels on French language programming, it's time to expand channel capacity. The three dinner restaurants had problems, in addition to high prices. The bar which had such good recorded music at lunch had a terrible, whiny live folksinger performing. We had to leave. The top premium restaurant was closed for a special event, and the third was expensive and you could still hear the awful folksinger because there was no wall. We wound up dining at the hotel across the street. You don't want people walking in there, do you? Finally, and most annoyingly, there was a fifteen minute waiting queue for a taxicab when we were leaving for the airport. The cab driver explained that the problem was all the cabs were handling cruise ship traffic. Well, this must happen most days, and you need to do something about it besides having an older doorman losing a battle with the hotel across the street (and customers down the street) for the attention of the taxis. You should probably warn your guests in advance of the problem, and provide a list of private local cars/limos and the URL of the Vancouver version of Uber as alternatives. And hire a sexy young woman to replace the older gent because if cabbies in Canada are anything like those in the U.S., they won't make sharp U-turns to avoid a beautiful woman making sharp whistling sounds.