Casino Hotels

• Expo 67 pavilion architecture
• Île Notre-Dame
• Riverside park setting
• Restaurants and cabaret theatre

The Montreal property occupies the former French and Quebec pavilions of Expo 67 on Île Notre-Dame, in the middle of the St Lawrence. It is one of the more architecturally interesting buildings in this section by some distance: a stacked, angular structure with long glazed faces and a viewing height that looks back at the downtown skyline across the water.

The island setting does most of the work. The surrounding park, the rowing basin and the circuit road are all within a short walk, and in summer the grounds are busier than the interior. Guest accommodation, restaurants ranging from casual to formal, and a cabaret theatre sit alongside the licensed gaming floor, which is operated by the provincial corporation.

The metro reaches the island directly, which makes it an unusual proposition — a large resort-scale property with no parking ordeal and a fifteen-minute ride back into the old city.

• Direct Horseshoe Falls outlook
• Escarpment-top position
• Spa and theatre
• Multiple dining rooms

Fallsview is built into the escarpment above the Canadian falls, and its name is literal: a substantial share of the guest rooms and several of the restaurants look directly at the Horseshoe. That single fact shapes the whole property, from the orientation of the public corridors to the pricing structure of the rooms.

Beyond the view it is a conventional large resort hotel — a spa, an indoor pool, a theatre that books touring acts and comedians, a spread of dining rooms from buffet to steakhouse, and a licensed gaming floor on the lower levels. Meeting and event space occupies its own wing.

The falls themselves, the parkway and the gorge trail are all walkable from the doors, and the tourist strip climbing the hill behind is either a convenience or something to walk quickly past. Winter is quieter, colder and considerably better for photographs.

• Fraser River marina frontage
• Canada Line to Vancouver
• Theatre and event centre
• Minutes from Vancouver Airport

River Rock sits on the Fraser River in Richmond, with its own marina and a low, wide footprint that suits the flat delta landscape around it. It is a short drive from Vancouver International Airport and directly on the Canada Line, which puts downtown Vancouver about twenty minutes away without a car — the most useful practical fact about the place.

The hotel side runs to a main tower and a quieter riverside wing, and the property keeps a theatre and a larger event centre that handle touring music and conferences respectively. Dining ranges from a buffet through to Cantonese and Japanese rooms that draw a local Richmond crowd as much as a hotel one. A provincially licensed gaming floor occupies the centre of the complex.

The riverfront walkway outside is worth the ten minutes: fishing boats, float planes overhead and, on clear days, the North Shore mountains sitting behind the whole delta.

• First Nations owned and operated
• Lake Couchiching, cottage country
• 5,000-seat entertainment centre
• Spa and golf nearby

Casino Rama stands on the Chippewas of Rama First Nation land near Orillia, in the lake country roughly ninety minutes north of Toronto. It is owned by the First Nation, and that ownership is reflected in the building — commissioned Indigenous artwork through the public spaces, and naming that references the community rather than a generic resort vocabulary.

The entertainment centre is the largest single draw after the hotel itself: a five-thousand-seat room that has hosted touring arena acts for decades, which is unusual for a property this far from a major city. There is a hotel tower with a spa, a spread of restaurants, and a licensed gaming floor operated on site.

The surroundings are cottage country. Lake Couchiching is minutes away, golf courses and provincial parks are scattered through the area, and the summer and winter versions of a stay here are almost different propositions.