How we rate a casino getaway
Revised — hotel facts re-read
Every getaway we profile ends up with one number out of 5. It is built from five parts of a weekend, each marked out of 10 by us, weighted, then brought onto a five-point scale and shown to two decimals, so that no two hotels share a rating.
| Part of the getaway | Share |
|---|---|
| Room & suite | 30% |
| Things to do | 25% |
| Dining | 20% |
| Getting there | 15% |
| The casino | 10% |
The five parts of a getaway
- Room & suite (30%) — a weekend starts and ends in the room: how many rooms and suites, which kinds, published sizes, the view, recent refurbishment.
- Things to do (25%) — our marks for the showroom and for the pool, spa and gym, averaged: seats and calendar on one side, what is actually open today on the other.
- Dining (20%) — how wide the choice is, a signature room worth dressing up for, food after midnight, buffet and brunch.
- Getting there (15%) — airport and downtown times, public transport, what parking costs.
- The casino (10%) — how big the floor is, how many slots and tables, the hours, and whether you'll find a poker room or high-limit salon. It weighs least because a getaway is more than the gaming floor.
The arithmetic: multiply each part's mark by its share, add the five results and divide by 200. A hotel marked 9 for its rooms and 8 for everything else rates (9 × 30 + 8 × 70) ÷ 200 = 4.15 out of 5. If two hotels still tie at two decimals, the one with the better room mark goes first.
What we read, and in what order
A profile starts on the hotel's own pages and those of the casino operator. Hotel-brand sites and provincial tourism boards come second; press coverage and Wikipedia come last and are always named in the profile. Where sources disagree, as they do over the number of rooms at the Lac-Leamy Hilton, both figures appear. A figure nobody publishes is reported as unpublished, never estimated. Hotel facts in this edition were re-read on October 23, 2026, and the openings page on October 28, 2026.
Plainly put: none of us stayed at these hotels for this edition. The profiles are built from published information.
Commissions and ratings stay apart
A rating cannot be bought, and neither can a place in any list. How the site earns — affiliate commissions on the two online casino pages and, where one exists, a hotel booking partner — is set out on how we get paid. None of it is part of the arithmetic above.
Out-of-date details
Resorts change between visits: a buffet closes, a pool reopens, parking goes up. Send what you've spotted, with a link if you have one, to [email protected]; once we have checked the source, the profile is corrected and re-dated.