I recently spent a weekend in Salt Spring Island with my boyfriend and we stayed at the newly renovated Harbour House Hotel. The hotel is conveniently located right next to the only car rental company on the island and is about a 10 minute walk away from Ganges Village (downtown/harbour). Most of the accommodations on the island are private bed & breakfasts located in more remote areas of the island. If you’re looking for convenient location and a spacious renovated room, you have to check out Harbour House Hotel!
The Room
The room type we stayed in was the Patio King and it was very spacious and comfortable! The room contains a king size bed, sofa, and opens up to a patio with a patio sofa. I love the use of wood in the room as it feels very appropriate for the Pacific North West.
You can clearly see the upgrades with the huge wall mounted TV and floating shelfs. I like that there is ample space to store my belongings. Since the shelves are open, there’s less of a chance of forgetting personal belongings when you check out.
Next to the bed, you’ll also find the amenities for coffee and tea. Those wine glasses also came in handy as there are a lot of great drinks available on Salt Spring Island. The mini fridge is also essential as we bought some souvenirs from Salt Spring Island Cheese. The tea and coffee selection is pretty basic but it gets the job done!
Lastly, I had a great night sleep on the king size bed! The mattress was on the slightly softer side but in a new way not a sunken in way. The slightly colorful striped linens work well in an otherwise neutral room. The room was clean, comfortable, functional and spacious!
The Bathroom
A good room needs a good bathroom and the renovations can definitely be seen. I have a step in shower at home and I can’t go back to showers in the bathtub. I’m so glad Habour House Hotel has an oversized walk in shower with all new tiles. Your showers do have to be pretty quick though as I found hot water to run out after 12-15 minutes.
The rest of the bathroom is a bit tight but the extra shelf below the mirror really helps with storing toiletries.
Free Breakfast
When I travel, I actually don’t specifically look for restaurants with free breakfast because I like to explore coffee shops and bakeries. Most of the accommodation options on Salt Spring Island are bed & breakfasts though so I can see why Harbour House Hotel would want to offer a free breakfast.
We ended up eating the free breakfast instead of going out to town which actually probably saved us $20 each day! The breakfast is served in the Woodley restaurant which is inside the hotel on the weekend. It was a buffet of sausage, bacon, eggs, and potatoes. I mostly had the eggs and potatoes and I’m pleasantly surprised by the taste! Everything was actually really delicious!
There was coffee as well but no juices. On the week days, there are tables out near the lobby where you can enjoy the free breakfast. I think during the summer, the patio at Woodleys might open up as there was lots of additional space out doors. My boyfriend enjoyed the food a lot and it was especially nice on the day we decided to do a hike in the morning.
The Patio
All of the patio kings are located on the ground floor. There is a large sectional sofa that can easily fit four people. The view is actually quite good with you sit down. The plants surrounding the unit blocks out the parking lot and allows you to look straight into the harbour. When you’re standing up though, the view is definitely not as good because the parking lot is quite large and distracting from the harbour view.
Harbour House Hotel on Salt Spring Island
We didn’t have too much interaction with staff but the 3 different people we met at the front desk were all friendly and helpful! We had no issues with early check in and request a slightly later check out. However this may be different if you go during the busy season. The prices vary quite dramatically depending on the dates and the room type. Try out their online reservation system to see what the pricing is like. For the weekend we went, the garden view rooms were $129 but in June, these rooms would go for $199.
If you’re taking Harbour Air over (which I highly recommend), this is a really great location because it’s only 10 minutes walk away from the harbour. Most of the dining options on the island are in Ganges Village making Harbour House a very convenient location. If you don’t want to walk very far, Woodley’s is the hotel’s restaurant and can be accessed through the lobby. Right across the street, you can also find Moby’s Pub which is a local’s favorite. I personally loved the location because we also need to rent a car and it was right across the street!
I’ll be writing some more guides about Salt Spring Island in the coming months so let me know if you have any specific questions! For more BC getaways, don’t miss my weekend in Okanagan travel guide and a weekend in Sunshine Coast travel guide.
Big thanks to Harbour Hotel for hosting our stay!