During a trip to Canada I drove from Calgary to Vancouver (7-25 Oct. 2026), stopping in several different Fairmont Hotels on the way, namely Calgary, Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper, Whistler, and Vancouver.
The Fairmont name itself originated in the United States, with the Fairmont San Francisco, which opened in 1907. In 1999, Canadian Pacific Hotels acquired a controlling interest in Fairmont Hotels, and in 2001 the combined hotel business adopted the Fairmont Hotels & Resorts name. It subsequently became independent of Canadian Pacific.
Ownership changed again in 2006, when the business was acquired by investors led by Colony Capital and Kingdom Hotels International, associated with Saudi Arabian investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Fairmont was combined with Raffles and Swissôtel under Fairmont Raffles Hotels International. In July 2016, the French hotel group Accor acquired the business, bringing all three brands into its international portfolio. Fairmont remains part of Accor today, although individual hotel buildings can have separate property owners.
Fairmont Waterfront, Vancouver
The Fairmont Waterfront is a modern luxury hotel situated at 900 Canada Place Way, on the southern shore of Burrard Inlet in downtown Vancouver, directly opposite Canada Place and its cruise ship terminal. Opened in July 1991, it was developed to serve Vancouver’s expanding international tourism, convention and business markets. Unlike the historic Canadian railway hotels at Banff, Lake Louise and Calgary, the Waterfront is a late 20th-century development, conceived specifically for a modern city in which international air travel, cruise tourism and business conventions had become increasingly important.
The hotel occupies a 23-storey building containing 489 rooms and suites, many with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Vancouver Harbour, the North Shore Mountains, Stanley Park or the downtown skyline. Its facilities include restaurants, conference and meeting rooms, a heated outdoor rooftop swimming pool, fitness facilities and a landscaped rooftop garden.
The hotel’s development was closely associated with the transformation of Vancouver’s central waterfront during the 1980s and early 1990s. Historically, the area around Burrard Inlet had been occupied by railway yards, freight facilities, warehouses and port installations. Vancouver had grown into Canada’s principal Pacific port following the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1887, and the waterfront remained closely associated with maritime commerce and railway transportation throughout much of the twentieth century.
An important turning point was Expo 86, the international exposition held in Vancouver between May and October 1986. Although the main exhibition site was on False Creek, Expo 86 encouraged substantial investment in transport, tourism and urban redevelopment throughout the city.
The hotel building was designed by the Vancouver architectural firm Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership, which had also worked on the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, opened in 1989. The two hotels were therefore designed by architects associated with the same practice, but their architectural approaches were very different. Chateau Whistler adopted the picturesque appearance of Canada’s traditional Château-style railway hotels, whereas the Waterfront was designed in a contemporary West Coast style, with a regular geometric form, extensive glazing and an emphasis on natural light and views.
The Fairmont Waterfront is different from the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, situated approximately 800 metres away on West Georgia Street. The latter opened in 1939 and is a genuine historic railway hotel, originally developed by Canadian National Railways and subsequently operated jointly with Canadian Pacific.
This was my last stay on Canadian soil (on this trip), and so I decided to return the rental car, and get to the hotel with a local taxi.
Bedroom
A simple, but very comfortable looking bedroom, that doesn’t compete with the view from floor 18. The size is good, and I like the decor, very reposing, in that it doesn’t (it can’t anyway) compete with the view.
Just to find a little improvement, it would have been nice that the chair had armrests. But loved the bigger TV, and the sitting chair with footrest.
Bathroom
I really don’t understand the “fetish” that Fairmont has with baths and shower curtains. I hate shower curtains, and I love walk-in showers. But the curtain works, and I like the low rim to the bath, and the “sitting” area at the back (not sure if it is for sitting?).
The View
The image resolution is not perfect, but what can we see:-
The cranes and container terminal belonging to Centerm, operated by DP World Canada. The terminal was substantially expanded in a project completed in 2023, costing approximately C$350 million. So the annual container capacity is now 1.5 million TEU.
A TEU is a twenty-foot equivalent unit, so a 40-foot container generally counts as two TEU.
On the left we have Canada Place and an empty cruise ship passenger terminal (we can see the terminal’s white roof sails). The terminal has three named berth areas (East, North and West) and can accommodate up to four cruise vessels, depending on their sizes and configurations. Its principal business is the Alaska cruise market, with many voyages departing Vancouver during spring, summer and early autumn.
We can just see a SeaBus, which is part of Vancouver’s public transport network. It connects Waterfront Station on the south shore with Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver. Its crossing takes approximately 12 minutes. The south terminal is on the right-hand side of the photograph.
The rectangular platform on the right is the Vancouver Harbour Heliport.
We can’t see it, but there is also Hullo, which operates smaller fast passenger-only catamarans between downtown Vancouver and Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.
Also we can’t see three floating docks which provide 22 seaplane slips (over on far left). Its operators serve destinations including Victoria and other coastal communities.
Food
This Fairmont doesn’t have a multitude of options, but the area around the hotel provides plenty of variety.
I took a simple hamburger in the main restaurant near the lobby, and it was one of the best I had eaten. Service was also impeccable.
Pool
This is a 23-storey building, and the rooftop pool is on the 3rd floor. The pool looks fine, the jacuzzi is in-door and looks ordinary, and there is no sauna or steam-room.
