Where To This Year Then ?

[Scotty]

Just got back from a trip out west with Big Stew and it was great ...... We spent a three days in Vancouver, took the train through the Rockies (27 hours) then spent a day in Edmonton and a couple of days in Calgary. I was also in New York in February with the wife which was also great.

My office colleagues think I am a whizz when it comes to finding good deals .... and I guess I am.

For New York we got the Megabus from Toronto and it cost about $35 return for two of us !!! It would have been cheaper if I had got the finger out and booked the outbound date early enough as Megabus rates to NY from TO start at $1 per person each way !!!! We stayed in the New Yorker hotel right opposite Madison Square Garden and although it is an older hotel, it was great. good rooms, breakfast in the cafe next door included and so close to things like the Empire State and Times Square etc.... just round the corner from the bus stop too !

For our Western Trip we flew from Toronto to Vancouver, took the train from Vancouver through the Rockies to Edmonton, then flew from Edmonton to Calgary and Calgary back to Toronto. Overall flights were good as Air Canada were having a "seat sale" !!! I got the Vancouver Hotel (Delta Suites) from Travel Zoo and this was perfect. The posted rate was something like $400 per night, but the TravelZoo offer got it down to less than $100 (and that is per room per night, not per person). No real options for the rail trip, it was a standard ViaRail ticket ordered through their website but we got a ViaRail special rate for our hotel in Edmonton (Days Inn Downtown) so it was less than $80 per night. We flew to Calgary from Edmonton and stayed at a hotel near the airport (Carlson Country Inn and Suites). The reason for this was because it got excellent reviews on Trip Advisor which is a site already mentioned above and one I always check before booking any place .. you get real reviews from real people and if you filter out the few % who are either always happy or always grumpy you tend to get a very good reflection of the place you are looking at. Although the Calgary hotel was at the airport, the bus stop was just across the street and for $2.50 we could get a one way ticket that took us to the light rail station where we transferred to a train and then into downtown in about 15 minutes .....

I recommend the following sites for looking up your travel plans or getting value deals

1. TripAdvisor: Has to be checked, it has most places on it and the reviews are solid. After being on their site, I tend to go to the hotel site and check rates/offers first before going to #2 or #3.

2. TravelZoo: A new entry for me !!! I hadnt really used this one before the Western Trip but it saved us a bundle.

3. Hotwire: An excellent resource for finding reasonably priced hotels. You dont find out the name of the Hotel until after you book (you only know what star rating and what general area it is in) but using this site we got the Ritz Carlton in Montreal last year for a great price.

Honourable mentions: not sure that these always give the best deals but they usually give me somewhere to compare stuff or find other hotels/trips that I can check on another site

selloffvacations.com, hotels.com, expedia.com, travelocity.com,

[Scotty]

No matter where you decide on this site gives rates and reliable ratings on Hotels, B&B's etc...

Hotel / B&B rates & reviews

www.hostelbookers.com is another good and cheap site - its not all hostels, we got a great hotel in Copenhagen through them although we did have to use hotels.com for the one in Stockholm as what they offered us for there was a bit naff.

[Doresboy]

Of to Hong Kong and Borneo in 2 weeks

[Canada Bob]

Hello Scotty...

Thanks for the nod on Travel Zoo, that's a new one for me, I use Tripadvisor a lot, and as you say if you take out the comments of those either talking a place up, or attempting to knock a place down then your in good shape.

There's a few folks on Tripadvisor that write it as it is, when I've booked on their say so I've never had a problem.

When I talk about good hotels for $80 a night {to the lads ore here} they think I'm slumming it, the only 4 Stars you'll get for 40 quid in say London would be the ones you see through a hole in the roof...

Did once stay in the dorms at the LSE {London School of Economics, where Mick Jagger went},though for less than 30 quid a night, basic, clean and a decent cooked breakfast thrown in, I'd rather stay there or on any other campus than chance a dodgy B&B.

Speaking of B&B's, they are still offering B&B for 11 quid here in Blackpool, but when you turn the blankets back it sounds like yer ripping velcro appart {you don't want to know}, you wouldn't need LSD to get psychedelic, just one of those lamps off CSI...

Different life aint in Canada...