RL
Ryan Lecuyer
Aug 21, 2026
Our second stop for our Ontario vacation was the Staybridge Suites Guelph, Ontario. We planned to stay for five nights (July 10–15, 2026), but that five-night stay quickly turned into just two nights (July 10–11).
I had booked an accessible room with a roll-in shower, and we were assigned Room 133. Let me preface this by saying: if you get assigned that room and actually require accessibility, run—or roll—as fast as you can away. Don't hesitate, and don't look back!
To start with the positive: the staff was excellent. They were very friendly, polite, and seemed genuinely happy to help. Unfortunately, that’s where the good part of this stay ended.
Getting to Room 133 means going down a hallway, turning through a doorway (elevators are straight ahead once you pass through), and then taking a left down another hall. It’s not great for a wheelchair, but it's doable.
Once inside, the kitchen is on your left and the living room is straight ahead. It’s a pretty small suite, but they threw an extra hurdle in the way by putting a peninsula island sticking out between the kitchen and bedroom door, making it hard to navigate around. That island really should have been placed against the wall to open up the space. There was also a table in the living room blocking access—not completely, but enough to make getting around difficult. We actually had to move that table into the bedroom to hold our suitcases because there was no other place to put luggage.
Once you squeeze past the island and turn left into the bedroom, the bed is on your right, the bathroom is straight ahead, and there's another door to your left. The bed had been shoved over to the left by about a foot or a foot and a half (you could tell from where the headboard was mounted to the wall), which made it a tight fit to get into the bathroom and almost impossible to turn around in my power wheelchair.
The bathroom itself was in bad shape:
- The toilet seat was loose and practically coming off.
- The sink was unattached to the wall, held up only by the plumbing.
- The grab bar behind the toilet was loose, and pulling on the grab bar to the right of the toilet actually moved the wall.
I went to the front desk to report these safety concerns, and to their credit, they sent a handyman to fix them right away, which was good to see.
However, getting out of the room was a hazard in itself. There’s a marble tile sill under the door that rises an inch or more. It’s angled nicely for coming into the room, but flat and blunt when trying to exit. My power wheelchair bumped right up against it, so I had to give it some juice to clear the bump. Evel Knievel would have been proud—I popped a wheelie right out of the doorway and almost slammed straight into the wall across the hall.
As for the shower, it had a gross seat with rust and mineral buildup that didn't look safe at all. The shower floor was slick as ice, and the water was warm at best. Needless to say, I didn't shower there.
On our first day, I asked the front desk if we could switch rooms, but they said the only other accessible room was occupied. They promised they’d move us as soon as those guests checked out. On Sunday (our third day), I asked again, assuming the other room would be free. The front desk repeatedly told me they would move us and suggested we leave our luggage up front while we went out for the day, or said they'd help us move it when we got back. After about ten minutes of back-and-forth, I said I wanted to confirm the new room was locked in before I packed up all our gear. That’s when they finally admitted the other room had been given to someone else who specifically requested it.
That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I was furious. I went straight back to the room and booked a reservation across the street at the Marriott (which brings us to part three of this review series 😁).
Pros:
- Friendly, polite staff.
Cons:
- Front desk lied or strung us along about switching rooms.
- Extremely small suite with very limited floor space.
- Multiple safety concerns in the room and bathroom.