ES
Was visiting Vancouver and decided to go to Parq on a Saturday night. I used Poker Atlas to join the waitlist and was #56 on the list. It took about two hours to be called for a table. Unlike my home casino that only gives you an hour to check in at the casino when using Poker Atlas to join the wait list, Parq allows 1.5 hours so would encourage everyone to join the waitlist as early as possible.
The poker room is right next to a bar area that had a live band. It was a loud and lively area, which I personally enjoyed, but different than the usual, more quiet poker room environment and it's possible others might not enjoy the sound level as much.
I've seen other comments talking about the dealers not being very friendly, and I actually (and unfortunately) found this to be quite accurate. At least half of the dealers I had during my 5+ hours session seemed like they did not even want to be there. I've also seen comments about bad management, which again could be true as I witnessed a very hostile interaction between the manager and a patron at a nearby table, although in fairness to the manager, I didn't know the full story of what was going on. However, even when I checked in, the management acted like they really didn't care I was there. Plain and simple, the overall level of customer service seems to really be lacking from the top down.
Something also felt off with regard to the makeup of my table. Despite there appearing to be a very large number of drunk and recreational players waiting to play (there was clearly some local sporting event that happened that night), my table appeared to be pretty much full of regulars except for me and one other person, which didn't seem like a very random distribution. Furthermore, one regular picked up his chips and said he was going home. 20 minutes later I saw him come back and then put his chips down on a nearby table at an empty seat, even though there was clearly a very large waiting list. Just felt like there was something off with the preference being given to the regulars.
The real value of the poker room/casino for me was its location. It was essentially a 5 minute drive from where I was staying and is so conveniently located. So despite the negatives described above, I would probably still go simply because of its location, but would make sure to join the wait list a little earlier next time.
