Hotel: The Listel Hotel
Type: Hotel
City: Vancouver
Address: 1300 Robson Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6E 1C5
Website: http://www.thelistelhotel.com/
Date Visited: Winter, 2016
General Hotel Rating:
Tripadvisor: 85% Great, 4.5/5 rating.
Expedia: 4.3/5
Enuresis Friendly Rating (1 to 5): 4.5
Details of Stay and Recommendation:
This hotel, while not initially equipped to accommodate guests with nocturnal enuresis, was eager to come up with a solution. I have awarded them a 4.5 only because for a hotel that has otherwise thought of everything (from having umbrellas on loan, to compost bins in the rooms, to three different types of water on offer), it seemed a little out of character for them to have to jury rig a solution, though again they did so admirably. I stayed in the hotel for a couple of nights on a work-related trip.
It is somewhat funny that almost every time I travel to Vancouver, I end up staying somewhere else. I stayed at this hotel sort of last minute, but found it generally a really ‘cool’ hotel. The place is filled with modern art, the staff were very friendly and eager to help, and the rooms were very well decorated (with more wacky modern art). As a nice surprise, instead of the usual bible in the bedside table, this hotel includes a book of short stories written by locals, which certainly makes for better reading and promotes local authors/literature. The hotel also has a zero waste policy which was pretty cool, and equips every room with the usual recycling bin, but also a compost bin, and empty bottles for tap water and which can also be refilled at their water stations (still and bubbly).
With respect to the main purpose of this blog, I contacted the hotel in advance of my stay to ask if they had ‘any waterproof mattress covers in case a guest happens to wet the bed.’ The person with whom I was corresponding said not a problem that it would be taken care of.
When I arrived at the hotel, and after checking in with the friendly and helpful front desk staff, I inspected my bed to see what kind of solution they came up with. The hotel did not have waterproof mattress cover per say, instead the solution they came up with was to put three additional non-waterproof mattress covers on the bed, and to sandwich a waterproof sheet between these. When I say waterproof sheet, it was more of a shower curtain (and in fact probably was before it was repurposed) than a waterproof sheet exactly.
This was a creative solution and I appreciated the effort that they went to. In the end, this jury-rigged solution worked out well, and a rather major leak on my second night did not even get through to the shower curtain.
This hotel was very accommodating and did so in a discreet and friendly manner. I should actually point out the matter of discretion. When I do send e-mail inquiries to hotels, I do so from my personal e-mail account, to avoid replies going into my work inbox, which is potentially visible by my employer. There is a second reason for this, if you are say asking other questions in the e-mail (say for example asking about costs and other services available), and you needed to forward this reply e-mail to co-workers or accounting departments (for whatever reason), then you would also potentially have to forward along a rather private conversation. The options you would have would be to edit the message, or not send it at all, and I can imagine situations where both of these options may not be possible. Therefore, when making inquiries, I always make them using my personal e-mail account. Sometimes the hotel will reply to my personal e-mail, and other times they will reply to my work e-mail. In this case, the person I was corresponding with did a great job replying to the correct e-mail with the correct responses to the questions asked.
Chain and Loyalty Program?:
None.
The Bedwetting Traveller 