The Red Coach Inn

Heart-shaped garbage basket

The location was great, across the street from the upper rapids and the state park. The suite was nice, with two separate bedrooms and bathrooms (one of them en suite), a full kitchen, and a large living and dining room. Under disappointing circumstances I was wryly amused by the heart-shaped garbage basket.

I booked a suite as a special splurge for my family’s Niagara stay, after reading about the food and wine waiting in the room, looking at the photos, and reading the hotel’s description. When we arrived, tired after a long day of driving, I found a small bottle of Spumante, no food whatsoever, and not even the bottled water promised in the room description. I walked into the master bedroom and flipped the light switch—nothing happened. I walked to the nightstands, and found that only one of the two lights worked. The living room light switch similarly did nothing. The next morning I went to the front desk to report these issues. The staff apologized, but were unwilling to adjust our bill or otherwise compensate us for their failure to provide the supposed benefits of our expensive room. They asked if I wanted them to give us the food and water to go, which I politely declined, as we were about to walk around the falls for a long, hot day. When we checked out, however, they pressed a package of cheese and crackers into our hands, despite my having said no. We had no choice but to leave this in the car for the day, where it inevitably spent too much time hot for us to risk eating it, and went to waste, forcing us to dump it at our next night’s lodging. Both times I went to the front desk it was unstaffed and I had to wait for someone to notice me.