Sonder Apartment Hotels Review

Sonder Review
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Jenn: [00:00:00] Hey everyone, and welcome back to Travel Tip Tuesday with the Travel Mug Podcast. I am Jenn joined as always by my partner in podcasting, Meggan. So Meggan, last month, my husband and I traveled to Ottawa and Montreal, and when we were researching accommodations, we'd come across a brand name we had not heard before.

And that is. Sonder, so, Hmm. I will say Sonder has been around since 2014. I'm not sure why I haven't heard of it, but I hadn't.

Meggan: Okay.

Jenn: in 2024, Sonder integrated with Marriott Bonvoy so you can earn and redeem points when you stay at the Sonder. So when we were searching for hotels, we noticed that the Sonder locations were cheaper than hotels.

So. You know, naturally we were interested to see what the deal was. So essentially they are a short [00:01:00] term rental that's kind of a combination between an apartment and a hotel. stayed personally at Sonder Arlo in Ottawa and Sonder Lambert in Montreal. Both were great locations. Both of them had fully stocked kitchens including tea, coffee, pots and pans, et cetera.

And our Montreal apartment might have been one of the , nicest places we've ever stayed.

Meggan: Oh wow.

Jenn: opened the door and my husband and I were like. Whoa. Like this is very nice. It also had laundry in the unit. both locations that we went to had luggage storage. We weren't able to check in until 4:00 PM You could pay to check in a little bit sooner, but we opted not to do that. But, uh, they had luggage storage, which was essentially like a locker where you set the code yourself. , And the Ottawa location had a huge like games room and coworking space. They had a 24 7 front desk staff At the, [00:02:00] at the Ottawa one in, or Yeah, Ottawa one. We did not see a single staff member when we were at the Montreal location.

So.

Meggan: Nice.

Jenn: It varies. Yeah. Yeah. The Ottawa one was really nice because the, the basement where it had the games room, like we hung out down there before our room was ready. Um, but the Montreal one didn't really have that kind of space. , So they have an app and they sent me the door code for the front door and our room via the app a couple days before check-in. We actually had an instance in Montreal where our code wouldn't work on the front door. And I was able to connect with them through the app and they were able to tell us that the front door had actually just gone offline.

Meggan: Oh.

Jenn: uh, yeah, so that's not ideal, but like technology, like those things happen and then we were able to get back. , So we booked these and then I saw some like not so great reviews about Sonder, and so I was like a little bit worried honestly. But all in all, we [00:03:00] had a really great experience and I would book with a sonder again. I think it's important to note that each Sonder property is really different in terms of what they might offer, and so it's really important to read the reviews for each specific property before you book. Meggan, had you heard of Sonder before? I've brought this up.

Meggan: I have not, and it sounds like a very interesting concept and somewhere to sort of keep in my back pocket for future travel. I can't. It's hard to believe, especially if they've been around since 2014. I know they've now, um, connected with Marriott and whatnot, but still, like if they've been around that long, I can't believe we've never come across them in all of our searching for like accommodations to travel.

So how did you actually come across them?

Jenn: Um, we were searching just on like booking.com or hotels.com and just like clicking on places and noticed that there was a bunch of places called Sonder we just kind of started looking into them and yeah, I'm not sure they're, they're kind of like a [00:04:00] blend of like an Airbnb and a hotel because Sonder owns the entire building. Um, so like all of the rentals in that building are. You know, people, short term stay people. Uh, so it's a little bit, it's interesting, I really enjoyed it. It's in, I can't remember how many cities now. It started actually in Montreal, so there's quite a few in Montreal. Um, but there are some in Europe and uh, Canada and the US for sure.

So just an interesting concept, but don't be like terrified of them. We personally had really great experiences, so

Meggan: Good to know.

Jenn: Yeah, so that is all we have for this week. You can find us on our website travel mug podcast.com, and on social media at Travel Mug Podcast. We would love it if you left us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or you could support the show through Buy Me a Coffee and until next time.

Bye everyone.