Parq is what happens when a casino is built as a design hotel first: a glass complex wedged beside BC Place downtown, wrapping a modern gaming floor in two towers, a clutch of good restaurants and a green rooftop park six storeys up.
The floor is modern and handsome rather than vast — well-spaced tables, a proper high-limit area and a slot hall that feels more lounge than arcade. It's a floor built for a night out, not a marathon.
Being downtown, it draws a mixed crowd of locals and visitors, and it hums on weekends without ever feeling frantic. The high-limit salon is the pick if you want a quieter, sharper game.
You choose your mood: the JW Marriott is the polished big-brand option, the DOUGLAS the boutique one with warmer, wood-and-plant Pacific-Northwest rooms. Both are among the best hotel rooms in the city, casino or not.
Ask for a higher floor toward the water or the mountains — the Vancouver skyline does a lot of the work, and the double-glazing keeps the stadium nights quiet.
The restaurant line-up is a real draw, from a big brasserie to smaller rooms, and the sixth-floor rooftop park — lawns, trees, a bridge between the towers — is the signature the photos can't quite sell. There's a spa and a serious fitness floor too.
You are a short walk from the seawall, Yaletown and the stadium, so the hotel works as a base for the city as much as a casino stop.
For a downtown property of this quality the value is fair, especially midweek, and you're paying partly for a location you can't beat — right in the middle of Vancouver, minutes from the water.
It's a city-break hotel that happens to have a casino, and it's better for it. Come for a weekend and barely touch the car.
The best city casino-hotel in the country: polished, central and genuinely stylish, with a rooftop garden most resorts would envy.