Four hundred and ninety-five rooms above the Rideau Canal, hard-connected to the Shaw Centre and the Rideau Centre, the most useful business address in downtown Ottawa.
"If your meeting is in the Shaw Centre, this is the only sensible booking. The bridge from the lobby drops you into the convention floor with no coat on and no map needed, which on a January morning in Ottawa is worth quite a lot."
The Westin Ottawa opened in 1983 on the strip of land between the Rideau Canal and the Mackenzie King Bridge, designed from the start as the headquarters hotel for what is now the Shaw Centre, the city's principal convention complex. The 495 rooms occupy a 24-storey tower clad in honest 1980s glass and dark stone, plain from the outside and unapologetically functional inside, with the city's longest single hotel corridor running the length of each floor and a glass elevator bank that gives a view of Parliament Hill, the National Gallery, and the Gatineau Hills across the river while you wait for breakfast.
Rooms run from 28 square metres in the Traditional category to 37 square metres in the Deluxe Canal View, with a small number of larger Junior Suites and a single Presidential Suite on the top floor. The Heavenly Bed, the Westin's industry-standard signature mattress and pillow programme, is the reason much of the corporate clientele books this property over the smaller alternatives in the city, and the corner rooms above the eighteenth floor on the canal side give a view of the Rideau Canal locks, Parliament Hill, and the river crossing into Quebec that few rooms in the capital can match. The Heavenly Spa shower and the work desk are both built for two-night business stays. WiFi is fast and free for Marriott Bonvoy members.
The food and beverage offer is honest convention-hotel work done well. Daly's Restaurant, on the lobby level, runs a modern Canadian breakfast and dinner menu with a panoramic window onto the canal that becomes the city's most reliable hotel breakfast room during conference week. Twenty Two, the bar on the lobby, runs a clean cocktail and small-plates evening that catches the Shaw Centre crowd after sessions. Starbucks runs the morning coffee bar at the elevator bank, in-room dining is 24-hour, and the hotel's connection to the Rideau Centre food court means you can get from your bed to a cooked breakfast in any direction without putting on a coat.
The convention infrastructure is the building's reason for being. The hotel has 5,000 square metres of meeting space inside its own walls and a covered bridge directly into the Shaw Centre next door, which adds another 18,000 square metres including the Canada Hall, the Trillium Ballroom, and the long upper galleries with views onto Parliament Hill. The 25-metre indoor saltwater pool on the top floor is the underrated amenity, the cardio floor runs 24 hours, and the spa keeps a sensible therapist roster on conference weeks. The Rideau Centre mall (and OC Transpo's Rideau LRT station underneath it) is a direct interior walk from the lobby, which makes the property the only Ottawa hotel where a January convention guest never has to step outside.
The Westin is the convention hotel of the Canadian capital. The covered bridge into the Shaw Centre is the closing argument; if your meeting is in the convention complex, the Bilateral Building, or the federal department offices on Wellington, this is the booking that gets you there in slippers. Take a Deluxe Canal View on a high floor for a two-meeting trip, use the Westin Club lounge on Twenty for the breakfast and evening hors d'oeuvres, and let the LRT under the Rideau Centre handle the airport in 25 minutes.
A family Ottawa weekend at the Westin is the city's most useful arrangement, particularly in winter. The 25-metre top-floor pool with the view onto Parliament Hill, the direct interior connection to the Rideau Centre, the family rooms with two queen beds, and the four-minute walk to the Rideau Canal skateway in February make the hotel the most practical option for parents of skating-age children. Connecting rooms are bookable on request; the in-room dining menu has a serious children's section; and the National Gallery is a five-minute walk across the canal.
11 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, ON K1N 9H4
Canada
Covered bridge to the Shaw Centre; interior connection to the Rideau Centre; OC Transpo Rideau LRT station two minutes from the lobby
495 rooms and suites
Traditional from CAD 215/night
Deluxe Canal View from CAD 309/night
Junior Suite from CAD 495/night
Presidential Suite to CAD 1,100/night
Check-in: 4:00 PM
Check-out: 11:00 AM
Opened 1983; Marriott Bonvoy property; Westin Club executive lounge on Twenty; Heavenly Bed and Heavenly Spa shower
25-metre indoor saltwater pool (top floor)
24-hour cardio and weights floor
WestinWORKOUT gear lending
Daly's restaurant and Twenty Two bar
5,000 sq m meeting space plus covered bridge to Shaw Centre
Complimentary high-speed WiFi for Bonvoy members
From CAD 215/night. Canal View rooms and Junior Suites book three to four months ahead during the Shaw Centre's principal conference weeks in April, June, and October, and a year ahead for the early-July Canada Day weekend when the hotel is the official broadcast hotel of the festivities on Parliament Hill.
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