Sonder Saint Paul

The hotel exterior was not at all what was pictured. The photo on the website is a photo from Place D’Youville….not the actual location. The Sonder is located above a restaurant. We could not access our room upon arrival, luckily customer service was able to reset the code and u lock our door in roughly 20 minutes. The room is very spartan, and when they say “no service” they mean it. Zero employees or housekeeping. Instant coffee and and empty mini fridge. The restaurant below “Buvette Pastek” was sub par, and I hope not affiliated with Marriott. Rude waitstaff, and announced closing hours well before their posted hours. In hindsight, this was a poor experiment. Back to the William Gray, or even the Aloft. The basics are important, and the Sonder was a miss. The photo below is of the actual hotel. Not the one they advertise with.

My main problem with the room stems from the poor wall construction. They are very thin so you can hear everything from your neighbors. Couple next to us were watching a movie on full volume all night which made it really hard to sleep. They give you earplugs to manage, but when we asked if they could contact the people next to us, the help team didn't really do anything. Overall room is fine, but just keep in mind the noise if you need a good night's sleep.

In my opinion, I would avoid, avoid, avoid this hotel at all costs. While it boasts reasonably-priced brand new rooms with attractive bathrooms and high ceilings in a great Old Montreal location, that’s about it. A sewage flood from the upstairs unit flooded our room and the hallway. Without any staff on site, Concierge services were completely unable and unwilling to help in the slightest, leaving us standing with our luggage outside in the wee hours of the morning. We had called the Concierge service multiple times after leaving the unit, and they assured us that that an emergency team, management, and on-site staff were en route, but when we tried a follow-up call more than 5 hours later (9:45) the Concierge was comically unhelpful. She told us “We are acting on this emergency as quickly as possible” and when I asked to speak with the manager/on-site staff that was supposedly "responding to this emergency", the Concierge told us that “they (were) on break at the moment”. This was literally becoming a Kafka novel, and when I asked the Concierge when we could expect to hear back from a manager, she replied “24 to 48 hours”. We had gone from Kafka to Police Squad-levels of unbelievability. I don’t know what a client (or worse, a family) staying at this hotel would do in this situation. Imagine being sewaged out of your hotel room at 4AM and that’s it. Nothing. No offer of another room, no assistance, you’re just sitting in the hallway, wondering what to do while “customer service” tells you outright lies and couldn’t help you even if they had wanted to. 12 hours after the flooding, we were offered credit for the room stay as compensation. Not a refund, but credit on a future Sonder hotel stay. Caveat emptor, I would not recommend booking a room at this hotel until they have someone available 24x7 to manage the site and deal with situations like ours, and the other ones complained about in other reviews. There’s a regular Sonder hotel literally a block away, it would have taken minimal effort to send someone, and to offer a room in the other hotel immediately. Just the worst customer service imaginable.