The Royal Kelowna is a beautiful property with many things to recommend it. The pool is fantastic, the views from the pool deck are spectacular, and our room was immaculate, exceptionally spacious, and luxurious. The nightly rate also represented good value.
Unfortunately, our experience with parking overshadowed an otherwise enjoyable stay. The parking garage has very limited clearance, and our vehicle would not fit with our rooftop cargo carrier attached. When we asked what our options were, we were told we would need to remove the carrier ourselves and store it separately. This meant taking the cargo box off our vehicle, carrying it down a flight of stairs without assistance, storing it in the bike lock-up overnight, and then reinstalling it before checkout the next morning. It was a significant amount of unnecessary work.
What made this especially disappointing was that, at checkout, I overheard the manager telling another guest that overflow parking is available at the neighboring Delta Hotel. Had we been informed of that option when we first asked for assistance, we would have parked there immediately and avoided all of the inconvenience. The solution existed—it simply wasn’t offered to us.
To make matters worse, our request for a late checkout was denied, even though we had to spend additional time reinstalling the cargo carrier because of the parking situation. I also had to argue to have the parking charges waived despite the inconvenience the hotel had created.