Vancouver Four and Five Star Hotels
Vancouver has more than its share of luxury hotels; in fact, it has as many four and five star hotels as any other city of its size in the world. And in many cases, Vancouver offers the best room rates for luxury hotels.
Vancouver boasts four Fairmont hotels with the Fairmont Pacific Rim, the newest. There is also the Shangri-la, L’Hermitage and the Loden.
The Fairmont Pacific Rim is located downtown across the street from Vancouver’s new and very green Convention Centre. From some of the rooms at the Pacific Rim, you look directly down on the six acres of greenery that covers the Convention Centre roof.
The five diamont Fairmont Pacific Rim, one of four Vancouver Fairmonts, is the newest, the swankest and most elegant with an 11,000 sq ft Willow Steam spa, a 4000 sq ft Fitness Centre, a rooftop pool with private cabanas, three restaurants, and rooms with ocean, mountain and/or city views.
The 119 room Vancouver Shangri-la Hotel occupies the first 15 floors of Vancouver’s tallest buidling. The hotel is in the perfect downtown location straddling Georgia and Alberni Streets. The hotel is next door to Urban Fare market and close to Vancouver’s best shopping. The hotel boast one of Vancouver’s best new restaurants, Market by Jean-Georges.
Like the Fairmont Pacific Rim, the Shangri-la includes a spa, pool and many high tech room features such as remote controlled drapery and a television embedded in the bathroom mirror. The design is contemporary Asian and the Vancouver Shangri-la treats you to the same delicious fragrance shared by all the Shangri-la Hotels in the world.
Besides the Fairmont Pacific Rim, the Fairmont Waterfront is also an excellent hotel with great city and water views, good restaurants and an excellent location. The Fairmont Waterfront is also across the street from the Canada Place Cruise Ship Terminal so it’s a very convenient place to stay before or after your Alaska Cruise.
Just across the street from the Fairmont Waterfront is the Pan Pacific, located in the same building as the Canada Place Cruise Ship Terminal. Like the Waterfront, the Pan Pacific makes a great hotel choice if you’re taking an Alaska cruise. 
The Pan Pacific is built on the harbour, next to Vancouver’s spectacular new Convention Centre and within walking distance of the float plane terminal. If you want to visit Victoria during your Vancouver stay, you can walk from either the Pan Pacific or the Fairmont Waterfront to the float plane terminal, hop on a float plane and be in downtown Victoria in just 35 minutes.
It’s not possible to write about luxury hotels without mentioning the Four Seasons. Vancouver’s Four Seasons is in the heart of downtown Vancouver with all the amenities of Four Season hotels around the world. I wouldn’t say, however, that the Vancouver Four Seasons is one of the better examples of the chain. It is an older hotel and unless you just love the Four Seasons hotel, you may want to choose a newer option.
Across the street from the Four Seasons is the Metropolitan Hotel. Build in 1986, it’s not one of Vancouver’s newer hotels; however, it has many of the characteristics of a luxury hotel without the luxury hotel price. The hotel is very well maintained, updated frequently and proud of its origins as hotel built by the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group.