What I Loved and Hated About the Hôtel William Gray in Old Montreal [Review]

Vieux-Montreal, or Old Montreal, is one of the most fascinating neighborhoods in North America … a heady mishmash of French and Anglo cultures that comes together in a way that you don’t really see anywhere else except maybe New Orleans (and in a totally different way).

When the opportunity to visit the City of Steeples with my family arose for me again before the end of 2025, staying in Old Montreal for part of it was a no-brainer.

Here’s what stood out — for better and for worse — during our December 2025 stay at Hôtel William Gray.

Booking Hôtel William Gray

As a fan of unique hotels and historical buildings, I settled on the Hôtel William Gray, housed in a modern glass structure combined with 2 18th-century landmark buildings that once served as the law offices of George-Étienne Cartier, the man considered responsible for Quebec’s entry into what would become Canada.

I paid $733.53 for 2 nights plus $139.36 in taxes and fees for a King Bed in the Maison William Gray wing, for a total of $872.89. I booked via AmexTravel.com to get additional benefits from The Hotel Collection, which kicked in because I was staying for at least 2 nights. These benefits include:

• $100 credit to spend on qualifying dining, spa, and resort activities
• Room upgrade at check-in, if available

Because the hotel is part of The Hotel Collection, I was also able to use the old $200 annual prepaid hotel credit from my Platinum Card^® from American Express (which is now an up to $600 annual prepaid hotel credit) and also earned 5x Membership Rewards points.

Hot Tip:

Deciding between a hotel in The Hotel Collection and a hotel in Fine Hotels + Resorts? Read all about them in our comparison of the Amex hotel programs.

Wonderful Location for Tourist Sites

I couldn’t have picked a more perfect place for a stay to soak in Vieux-Montreal. The Hôtel William Gray was around the corner from Rue Saint-Paul, the main, touristy commercial street of the neighborhood, packed with restaurants, bars, souvenir shops, a rubber ducky store, and coffee shops.

It was also only a couple of blocks from the riverside, so we could easily walk to La Grande Roue de Montréal (the 200-foot-tall Ferris wheel), the Montreal Science Centre, and the little greenways along the water, where we spent hours happily building snowmen even when it dipped to minus 2 Fahrenheit.

From Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL), it would’ve been about a 30-minute drive to the hotel. We drove from New York to Montreal and utilized the hotel’s valet and garage.

Stylish Yet Inviting Common Spaces

The hotel’s common areas were always fairly busy with hotel guests and visitors from off the street, though the lounge was cordoned off for hotel guests only.

It had a long, 10-seat table that no one ever used, a little bar in the back that was never tended to or patronized, and 4 pods of chairs and coffee tables that guests liked to hang out in before or after trips outside into the wintry Montreal streets.

My son and I spent a lot of time just hanging out in the chair pods, which were welcoming and comfortable, and I hunkered down in one early one morning with a coffee when I got up well before everyone else did.

Because the hotel’s main floor was also home to a coffee shop (quite a narrow one), a small shop, and a restaurant that led directly onto Place Jacques-Cartier on the opposite end of the main hotel entrance, it always seemed to be bustling with a good amount of foot traffic.

The much more sedate second floor had another restaurant, several seating areas, and a small courtyard, but we never saw anyone sitting upstairs, and the courtyard was full of snow and locked.

Warm Service

From the get-go, the staff was welcoming and warm, starting with the friendly doorman, who made an effort to remember our faces and greet us every time we came in from the cold. The clerk at the reception desk was informative and let us know immediately that an early check-in wasn’t possible. Instead, we left our luggage with them and spent the early afternoon getting lunch and poking around Old Montreal’s narrow but packed high street, Rue Saint-Paul.

When we came back, and the room still wasn’t ready, we just hung out for a little while on the couch in the reception area until it was. As we checked in, the clerk (a different one) welcomed us, clearly explained all the benefits we got, and checked us in.

Inside our room, we found a written welcome note from the concierge.

Reception said they would send a bellhop to take up our luggage, but it was very busy in the hotel that weekend, and we didn’t get our stuff until later than we’d expected. There was also a small step between the new wing of the hotel and the historic part of the hotel. The bellhop trolley couldn’t wheel over the gap, meaning you had to unload the trolley, take the trolley down, then reload it all over again to get to our room. (We did the same thing ourselves on the way back out.)

Hotel Credit in Canadian, Not U.S., Dollars

As Hôtel William Gray is part of The Hotel Collection, we didn’t get free breakfast, but we did get a $100 hotel credit.

We used it for breakfast in the hotel’s main restaurant, Maggie Oakes, on the ground floor. We entered through the hotel entrance, but when I looked out the window and the main restaurant entrance, I realized I’d already been in this restaurant before on previous trips.

It occupies a prominent spot on Place Jacques-Cartier, the boulevard that ascends from the water (including Cirque du Soleil’s permanent big top on Jacques-Cartier Pier) to the municipal buildings (city hall, the Service des Finances de la Ville de Montréal, and the Champ de Mars). If you’re looking from Place Jacques-Cartier, it’s on the south side, about halfway down from the stand where people make stick candy from maple syrup poured onto snow.

It turned out that Hôtel William Gray issued the $100 in Canadian dollars, not U.S. dollars, meaning I was losing about 25% of the credit’s value ($1 was worth about CA$1.35 during our visit). When I asked at reception if it really was a CA$100 credit and not a $100 credit, meaning I’d have to bear the brunt of the, in this case, unhelpful exchange rate, the staff member at reception confirmed that the hotel would, indeed, issue the credit in Canadian and not American dollars.

Still, the Canadian-currency credit was enough to cover breakfast, so we still counted it as a win.

Small Room With No Entry Vestibule

I picked a room in the historic, 18th-century wing of the hotel, and I got a historic, 18th-century room in the old wing.

It was charming, with a nonworking fireplace set into an original stone wall and dark wood beams spanning the ceiling. But it was also the size you would expect for an 18th-century bedroom in colonial Canada.

For my family — 2 adults and a child in grade school — it would have been cramped if we hadn’t already planned on spending most of our time that weekend out and about. The king-size bed was just spacious enough for all of us for a short weekend, though it would’ve been too much for anything longer than that. On our final night, I woke up earlier than the rest, thanks to a well-placed sleeping child’s foot to my ear, and spent the early part of the morning reading in the sitting room over a hot beverage from the hotel’s coffee shop, Cafe Olimpico.

Another weird and unexpected consequence of booking a room in a historic edifice? The room wasn’t just smaller in area; it was also smaller in volume. The average height of a Canadian or American man in the 18th century was about 5 feet, 6 inches, or 5 feet, 7 inches. In the 21st century, the average Canadian male is about 5 feet, 10 inches. The room’s height was definitely geared toward 18th-century people, not 21st-century people.

The ceiling was low, and wherever those big, strong-looking beams jutted downward, I noticed. I didn’t measure the height of the beams, but as I walked into the room in my winter boots, I could feel the bottoms of the beams brushing the top of my hair. Granted, my hair was probably sticking up a lot because I had also just taken off my winter hat whenever I walked into the hotel.

It brought up memories a little — and in only this way — of visiting North Korea, where the average male height is 5 feet, 5 inches, and the door frames were built proportionately to that standard. By the time my friend and I left the country, we both had bruises on the tops of our heads from repeatedly forgetting to stoop through doorways.

Wear and Tear (Possibly From Room Size)

The room’s size and the older layout, from a completely different kind of building from the 18th century, led to other issues. For one, whenever we stepped in from the snowy, icy outside, we had no distinct, separate area to take off and store our boots. The wet, muddy puddle that inevitably formed wherever our winter boots trod expanded to cover the whole area inside the room door, which, given the room’s overall size, meant we effectively had to avoid a fairly large portion of the room when walking around.

Plus, the small room (which, again, I voluntarily selected) meant everything was closer in, there were more bumped elbows and knees, and so on. That translated to a few noticeable nicks and smudges throughout the room. It was hard to say whether it was caused by the room’s permeability to the elements outside, like our wet snow boots, but the wood below the minifridge had noticeably swelled and chipped from water damage, also making it harder to open or close the minifridge door.

Small Bathroom, Good Shower

Too many hotel rooms put all the flash in the bedroom but neglect the bathroom, even though a terrible bathroom can drag even the best hotel room into the annals of hotel-room ignominy.

The bathroom in our room at the Hôtel William Gray was small, like the room, but served us well for a weekend stay. It didn’t wow us, but do you really want a bathroom to wow you?

The shower was wonderful, offering a handheld wand, rainfall showerheads, and a series of wall-mounted showerheads that shot out for horizontal washage. I ended up switching off some of the wall-mounted shower heads because, when I had them all on at once, the water pressure dropped. But having the cornucopia of showerheads at different angles was a luxury we appreciated.

Valet Only

Vieux-Montreal is an old part of town, with narrow, cobblestone streets, tight spaces, and a layout made for horses and buggies. It wasn’t made for cars.

The hotel offered valet parking for CA$55 ($40) daily, with in-and-out privileges.

We were glad to take advantage of it, as street parking anywhere in snow-covered Old Montreal would’ve been an absolute nightmare.

Tourist Crowds (Weekends)

We visited this Vieux-Montreal hotel right after Christmas, a popular time for visitors, especially since it’s in the city’s tourist district. Thus, we were in a swarm of tourists just like us. Everyone was friendly and seemed happy to be there, but it meant there were lines at attractions like Notre-Dame or La Grande Roue de Montréal.

Even then, I’d wager that the hotel’s central location in the city’s iconic (and thus most touristy) neighborhood means it’s full of tourists year-round.

Final Thoughts

Hôtel William Gray is ideally located for a visit to Vieux-Montreal, and the staff is attentive and friendly. I’d definitely stay here again — but I’d probably book a bigger room in the modern wing.