bernse, were you staying at the Palliser?
bernse, honey poopsie darling - you were staying in a CP HOTEL.
Don’t you know that when you’re staying in a CP HOTEL you will pay the extra charges thankfully and bow down and kiss the feet of the concerege on the way out thanking your lucky stars that you’ve been given the privilage of handing over hundreds of dollars of your hard earned cash?!?
I mean, My God Man - it’s a CP HOTEL!!!.
BTW - if you think the Palaser is bad, you should try the Banff Springs - trust me - you have no idea the demented stuff they can charge you for.
Sorry, but the Banff Springs is great and worth every penny. Same too for the Royal York in Toronto.
:: drifts off into reminiscence ::
Yes, well great or not great, they still charge you for demented stuff.
And you can get WAAAAY more bang for your buck if you stay at the Rimrock in Banff.
“Charge 'em for the lights
Charge 'em for the mice
Two percent for looking in the mirror twice
Here a little slice
There a little cut
Three percent for sleeping with the windows shut
When it comes to fixing prices
There are lots of tricks he knows
How it all increases
All in bits and pieces
Jebus, it’s amazing how it grows!”
-Master of the House, Les MizHeh. I once had a meeting at the Chateau Frontenac in Québec. Talk about selling atmosphere over room space. OK, so the Atlantic Alliance was here in the 40s. Yay. My take was that this time I could make a case for paying for the location, which in all honesty rules … too bad all our rooms were “interior”.
BTW, there are no more CP hotels. They were all bought by Fairmont hotels and resorts.
Um, yes, well, I work for a division of one of those hotels mentioned above. (M_________). We depend heavily on business travelers. When business travel fell off after 9/11, we were hurtin’ a little bit. Business travellers, as a rule, do not sweat the “small stuff” because it’s all on their expense accounts.
Sure, lots of them. We have generally travelled south from Maryland, like Williamsburg, VA, Raleigh, NC, and through Florida. We get hotel coupons from Roomsaver.com, where they list all the amenities. I’d have to say 80% offer free local phone calls. However, the hotels that Roomsaver deals with are mostly mid-class, such as Fairfield Inn, Clarion, sometimes a Holiday Inn, AmeriSuites, stuff like that.
No, that’s correct, I don’t.
Other way around. CP bought out Fairmont and kept the name.
Don’t underestimate the value of location. Not to mention the fact that there are a “lot” of people willing to pay for the atmosphere. The majority of historic properties will have small (especially by todays standards) rooms, but people still flock to them for the atmosphere.
A bit of an aside, but I actually read the book I was delighted to discover that most of this verse is lifted verbatim from Hugo!
Well, I just got back from Calgary and a stay in the Palliser. Like bernse said there is no information in the room that indicates there is a charge for local calls. I was going to complain about it when I checked out, but I called them out on the fact that it took 45 minutes for a message to appear on my phone. A hotel that does cater to business clients can’t be run so poorly. However, they did comp my mini bar charges (I wish I drank more). That said, the hotel is great for large functions, they don’t seem to mess those up, and this weekend they did a very good job.
Damn! I should have thought of that!
The function itself that we were there for was handled quite well, too. They catered all the meals (including a fantastic breakfast buffet in the Alberta room) and those were quite nice.
Did you use the Valet parking?
No, I didn’t use valet. I almost never do. On Friday I did pay $26 for parking, $13 each time I left the lot, once in the morning, and once in the evening. That is insane, but I got them back as well, but not by anything I did. Something on their end fouled up and when I left on Monday morning, instead of being charged another $13.00, I was only charged $1.50, and I don’t know why.