If it’s your first time in Ottawa it’s certainly near everything you’d want to see, but beware, the area gets a bit rowdy at night, and there’s a homeless problem mostly surrounding the CF Rideau Centre. The property itself is underwhelming. The rooms aren’t maintained well. The bathroom smelled like mildew. The pillows smelled like they've never been washed. The images of the parliament view room are actually quite misleading, the window is very small, I’d estimate about 3’x5’, yup that small, it’s hard to see beyond what’s directly in front the window. The pool had an extremely high smell of chlorine, and when splashed in the face, the water tasted extremely salty; had to get my little ones out right away. I can only imagine how much chemical was in there and zero filtration actually happening. The only reason service has 3 stars is because the check in was fast, and valet is efficient. However the checkout was excruciatingly painful. With one person in line, I waited 30 minutes to have my invoice printed and hand in my room cards. I wouldn’t stay here again. Disappointed with this Fairmont. Does not compare to the Royal York in Toronto at all (where we got married, and chose the Ottawa location to celebrate our anniversary this year)