Toronto Hotels With a Pool, and Which Ones You Can Use in Winter
Best all-round: Hotel X TorontoIn a city that freezes, the only pool question that matters is whether it is open in January and whether you can just walk in. Listing photos answer neither.
Which Toronto hotel has the best pool?
Hotel X has the most impressive one, a 55-foot rooftop pool that is partly indoors and partly outdoors and open year-round, but you have to reserve a two-hour slot. The Sheraton Centre is the better everyday choice: its pool crosses from indoors to outdoors through a glass wall, so you can swim outside in the snow.
Which one fits how you travel
Find the row that sounds like your trip. Every pick below names the traveller it is wrong for, so you can book on fit rather than on rank.
| If you are | Book | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Booking the trip around the pool | Hotel X Toronto | Rooftop, year-round, indoor and outdoor. Reserve the slot on arrival. |
| Here in winter and want to swim outside | Sheraton Centre Toronto | Swim from the indoor half to the outdoor half through a glass wall. |
| Travelling with children who want a slide | Chelsea Hotel Toronto | The waterslide is the reason families book it. Go early to beat the crowd. |
| A lengths swimmer wanting quiet | Shangri-La Toronto | A lap pool under a glass roof, and genuinely calm. |
| Combining a swim with the Toronto Islands | The Westin Harbour Castle | Indoor atrium pool, minutes from the island ferry. |
| Wanting a pool without the upper-tier rate | Novotel Toronto Centre | A plain indoor pool in a well-placed mid-range hotel. |
- Free cancellation on most rooms
- No booking fee
- Prices on Trip.com
What the bands mean
Rates are shown as bands, not numbers. Toronto hotels all run live booking engines and none publishes a fixed nightly rate, so a figure printed here would be stale within days. The live rate for your dates opens through the button on each card.
- €
- the cheapest tier in downtown Toronto
- €€
- mid-range
- €€€
- upper tier
- €€€€
- the city's most expensive addresses
The 8 hotels, and who each one is wrong for
Walking times are to the CN Tower. Walking times are real pedestrian routes to the CN Tower, measured through OpenStreetMap foot routing at 4.5 km/h. Downtown Toronto is close to flat, so the distance is the whole story. Pool details come from each hotel's own published information where it was reachable; where it was not, the entry says what is known and stops there rather than inventing a specification.
Exhibition Place, west of downtown
Hotel X Toronto
€€€€Best all-roundA 55-foot rooftop pool, partly indoors and partly outdoors, open all year to hotel guests.
- Walk to the CN Tower
- 36 minutes, 2.7 km, or the 509 streetcar to the CN Tower
- Right for
- Anyone booking the hotel because of the pool. This is the one that justifies that.
- Wrong for
- Wrong for: Anyone who wants to swim on impulse. Access is by reservation, so a spontaneous late swim is not on offer.
- The catch
- The catch: The hotel's own site sets the rules plainly: pool hours 07:00 to 23:00 daily, each booking a two-hour time slot, 21:00 to 23:00 adults-only swim, and registered hotel guests only. Reserve on arrival, not on the day.
Financial District, opposite City Hall
Sheraton Centre Toronto
€€An indoor and outdoor pool joined through a glass wall, so you can swim between the two halves without getting out.
- Walk to the CN Tower
- 18 minutes, 1.3 km on a flat route to the CN Tower
- Right for
- Winter trips. Swimming from an indoor pool into the open air in the snow is a genuinely good thing to do with an afternoon, and almost nowhere else downtown offers it.
- Wrong for
- Wrong for: Anyone wanting a calm swim. This is a convention hotel and the pool is busy whenever the hotel is.
- The catch
- The catch: The outdoor half is small, and on a cold day the walk from the changing rooms is the part nobody mentions.
Downtown Yonge, near the ROM
Chelsea Hotel Toronto
€€Best valueThe family pool option downtown, known for its indoor waterslide rather than its design.
- Walk to the CN Tower
- 31 minutes, 2.3 km, or a short subway ride to the CN Tower
- Right for
- Families with children who want a slide and a splash rather than a view.
- Wrong for
- Wrong for: Couples and anyone after a quiet swim. At school holidays this is the loudest pool in the city.
- The catch
- The catch: It is one of the largest hotels in Canada, and the pool area feels that at peak times. Early morning is the only reliably quiet window.
University Avenue, Financial District
Shangri-La Toronto
€€€€A lap pool in a calm, glass-roofed room high in the building.
- Walk to the CN Tower
- 13 minutes, 980 m on a flat route to the CN Tower
- Right for
- Anyone who swims lengths and wants to do it somewhere quiet and beautiful.
- Wrong for
- Wrong for: Families. It is a lap pool in a hushed room, and children are not what it is for.
- The catch
- The catch: The most expensive pool on this list by some distance, and it is a room for swimming rather than lounging.
Harbourfront, on the lake
The Westin Harbour Castle
€€€An indoor pool in a large atrium, on the waterfront by the island ferry.
- Walk to the CN Tower
- 17 minutes, 1.3 km along the waterfront to the CN Tower
- Right for
- Families combining a swim with a day on the Toronto Islands, since the ferry terminal is minutes away.
- Wrong for
- Wrong for: Winter visitors who want to be outdoors. The lake wind on this stretch is the harshest downtown.
- The catch
- The catch: The Gardiner Expressway sits between the hotel and the rest of downtown, so every walk north crosses it.
Financial District, opposite Union Station
Fairmont Royal York
€€€An indoor pool inside the 1929 railway hotel across from Union Station.
- Walk to the CN Tower
- 10 minutes, 740 m on a flat route to the CN Tower
- Right for
- Anyone arriving by train who wants a swim without leaving the building they checked into.
- Wrong for
- Wrong for: Anyone booking for the pool alone. It is a hotel pool in a historic building, not a destination.
- The catch
- The catch: A constant flow of conferences means the leisure areas are busy at unpredictable times of day.
South Core, by the CN Tower
Delta Hotels Toronto
€€€An indoor pool in the closest hotel to the CN Tower and Ripley's Aquarium.
- Walk to the CN Tower
- 4 minutes, 330 m on a flat route to the CN Tower
- Right for
- Families who want the aquarium four minutes away and a pool to come back to.
- Wrong for
- Wrong for: Anyone whose main reason for booking is the swim. The location is the draw here, not the water.
- The catch
- The catch: South Core empties after office hours, so an evening swim is followed by a walk to find dinner.
The Esplanade, St Lawrence
Novotel Toronto Centre
€€An indoor pool in a straightforward mid-range hotel near St Lawrence Market.
- Walk to the CN Tower
- 18 minutes, 1.3 km on a flat route to the CN Tower
- Right for
- Anyone who wants a pool in the building without paying an upper-tier rate for it.
- Wrong for
- Wrong for: Anyone expecting a leisure club. It is a functional pool and makes no larger claim.
- The catch
- The catch: The Esplanade backs onto the rail corridor, so ask for a room facing away from it.
Where not to book in Toronto
The thing to check is not whether a Toronto hotel has a pool, it is whether the pool is usable on the days you are there. Outdoor-only pools are closed water from roughly November to April, and a listing photograph taken in July will not tell you that. Rooftop pools are the ones to read carefully: some are seasonal, some are year-round, and at least one requires a reservation. Treat any listing that says only pool, with no indoor or outdoor label and no months, as unanswered until you have checked the hotel's own site. That is the single most common way people book a Toronto pool they cannot swim in.
When to book
Pool-led bookings behave differently from the rest of the city. Demand peaks in the school holidays and over the coldest weeks of winter, when a hotel pool becomes the point of a weekend rather than a bonus, so December through February fills earlier than the shoulder months. Toronto's convention calendar drives the rest, and downtown rates can double between consecutive weeks in the same month. Six to eight weeks is usually enough outside those windows.
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The questions travellers ask most when picking a hotel here.
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Photo credits (7)
Photos via Wikimedia Commons, used under their respective licences.
- The CN Tower in Toronto's South Core, the landmark the walking times on this page are measured to: Scott Webb scottwebb - CC0 · source
- The Great Hall at Toronto Union Station, in the Financial District: Dillan Payne - CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
- Yonge-Dundas Square in downtown Toronto, the busy crossroads near the Chelsea: Unknown author - CC BY-SA 2.5 · source
- Toronto's skyline seen from the island ferry, the view from the Harbourfront hotels: timescan from Toronto, Canada - CC BY 2.0 · source
- Toronto City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square in the Financial District: Maksim Sokolov (maxergon.com) - CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
- St Lawrence Market in Toronto's Old Town, the heart of the St Lawrence area: Jacob Rens - CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
- The Princes' Gates at Exhibition Place, west of downtown Toronto: Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine - CC0 · source