You see it before you reach it: a grey stone château rising out of the pines like something conjured from a fairy tale, with the Rockies stacked behind it and the Bow River threading below. The Fairmont Banff Springs has been trading on that first impression since 1888, and I arrived braced for the possibility that the building would be the best thing about the stay. It very nearly is — but not quite, and the "not quite" is what makes it worth writing about.

This is a National Historic Site, and it wears its age with genuine grandeur: baronial halls, stone archways, tartan and firelight, corridors that seem to go on for a small kingdom. It is theatrical in the best sense. It is also, at times, a little labyrinthine — allow yourself extra minutes to find dinner — but getting pleasantly lost in a place this beautiful is hardly a hardship.

Service that rises to the setting

What surprised me most was not the scenery, which I expected, but the staff, who I did not expect to be quite so good. When one guest I spoke with raised a concern about their first room, the team moved them to a better suite without fuss or negotiation — a level of responsiveness that recurs again and again in recent reviews. From the front desk to the Fairmont Gold lounge, the people here understand that a hotel this storied lives or dies by how it treats you in the small moments.

The Fairmont Gold floor, if your budget allows, transforms the stay: a private lounge, a quieter check-in, and a concierge team that treats your itinerary as a personal project. And the mountain excursions are the sleeper highlight. More than one guest told me the guided trips to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake were the single best thing they did all week, thanks largely to a genuinely knowledgeable guide. For families, the kids' club, the bowling alley and the gorgeous heated outdoor pool — steaming against a mountain backdrop — turn the château into a proper playground.

A castle that could coast on its views and its history, and mostly chooses not to.

The rooms tell an older story

Here is where I must be even-handed, because the guests are. For all the splendour of the public rooms, the guest rooms are where the building's age shows. Bathrooms are frequently small — one seasoned traveller called theirs "the tiniest I've seen in a luxury hotel" — and the décor in places is a touch dated. That is often forgivable in a heritage property; less forgivable were the cleanliness lapses one guest reported across more than one room, paired with communication that did not match the standard set elsewhere. It is not the norm here, but it happens often enough to mention.

The dining is grand and, predictably, priced to match, and opinion on the celebrated afternoon tea is mixed — I found it pleasant rather than transporting, and I was not alone. The indoor pool, too, drew a few grumbles about its condition. None of this undoes the magic, but at this tier the details are the difference between a lovely stay and a legendary one.

Willow Stream, and the case for staying put

The Willow Stream Spa remains a genuine reason to book. It is expansive, calm and beautifully considered, and after a day in the mountains a long soak there is close to essential. My advice is to treat the château as a destination rather than a base — book a Gold room if you can, plan a guided excursion, an evening at the spa and a slow dinner, and let the smaller rooms be simply where you sleep between grand experiences.