TopDawg Travel

Archive for the ‘Canada’ Category

Beverly Burmeier tells us the delights and beauties of Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island in British Columbia….

“Every path leads to another spectacular view.  It’s Fantasyland for the horticulturist and Wonderworld for the masses. Famed Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, is a blue-ribbon showplace in one of the loveliest corners of the world.

Visitors marvel at the variety and harmony achieved by co-mingling easily recognizable flowers like dainty purple daisies and ruffled pink geraniums with unusual specimens such as teardrop fuchsia and delicate drooping trout lily.  Since passing the century mark in 2004, privately owned Butchart Gardens has featured more spectacular scenes than ever within its 55 acres.”

Read More…….

Wednesday night at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre, John Furlong, Chief Executive Officer, VANOC, Gordon Campbell, Premier of British Columbia, and Houourable Mary McNeil, Minister of State for the Olympics and ActNow BC held a ceremony to light the 2010 Olympic Rings at Coal Harbour.  The rings now sit on a barge in the water.   Read more, see a video and a slideshow -

Vancouver celebrated the 100 day countdown by lighting the new Olympic Rings

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Today the City of Vancouver will hold a ceremonial handover of the Olympic and Paralympic Village to the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC).  The official ceremony begins at 10:30 AM at the Salt Building with Mayor Gregor Robertson officially handing over the keys to the Olympic and Paralympic Village Vancouver to VANOC CEO John Furlong.  Read more….

Postcard from Vancouver – 100 day countdown celebration event today

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After a wonderful evening out with Breton Murphy, Senior Manager, Destination Media Relations, Tourism Whistler at Earl’s in Whistler Village, it was back to the Fairmont Whistler for a good night’s sleep.   One of the things I most love about the Fairmont hotels is that they allow pets. (a resounding 10!) For someone who has to travel without her pet, I can get a lot of “fur-fixes” from other people’s pets. And if I ever get to take the TopDawg with me I know where I can stay!

The hotel is older and very traditional in its looks.  In my usual travel journalist fashion, I take pictures as I walk into my room and of pretty much every inch of the room, including the view.  It was immaculate with handmade candy on a stone tray and an inukshuk (pronounced e-nook-shook) made of chocolate.  This inukshuk was meant as a symbol of welcome.  All this was handmade by the pastry chef.  There was a bottle of sparkling water as well, the help lighten the thick chocolate in my mouth.

The bed linens and pillows, along with the firmness of the mattress got an 8.5 on my scale of 10.  I slept very well under the covers.  The heat/air conditioning control was rather old fashioned and just a little hard to control and maintain an even temperature.  Once again I found myself struggling to control the amount of coldness or warmth.  I would give it about a 6.5 on the 10 scale.  I had a tussle with the WiFi and had to agree to a $13.95 room charge to get internet access.  By filling out a President’s Club application  (sort of a frequent stay/points kind of thing) the fee was politely reversed at check out.  Give the WiFi experience s 5 but the reversal of the fee a 10.  Then I found an Ethernet cable in the desk drawer and the Ethernet port on the wall beside the desk, so I was on a wire and gained a much faster connectivity.  That was a definite 10 to me cause I could then do a decent video chat with my family and see my dog.

The bathroom amenities were delightful, not so much in quantity but in quality.  The shampoo and conditioner smelled so yummy, I have to give them a 10.  The shower had great pressure and a massage showerhead which was very good (another 10), but the control of hot/cold water was almost worse than controlling the room temperature.  I seemed unable to find a happy medium between lukewarm verging on cool to so hot I could hardly stand under it.  I managed to eventually find a temperature that, while not as warm as I would have liked, was acceptable.  So I would give it a 7 on the 10 scale.

Breakfast this morning was a 10 all the way.  Everyone was in awe of how much excellent food was presented.  The Mallard Lounge was the setting for the breakfast which is normally closed at breakfast time.  At the breakfast Ms. Christina Smith, bronze medalist in the women’s bobsled competition in 2002 was in attendance.  She is an incredible athlete and promoter of the bobsled competition and will the topic for another article at a later time.

I declined to go on the ZipTrek excursion  as my fear of heights is way stronger than my desire to be a part of the group and experience the scenery.  I explored more of Whistler Village in the pouring rain and then headed off to the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Center.

Up next:  Visiting the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Center.

November 1st , Sunday morning:  We had to have our bags at the Best Western Dorchester by 7AM.  Since the time changed at 2AM to fall back 1 hour, we would supposedly still get a little extra sleep.  Unfortunately, in the room next door to me there were torch relay volunteers who were throwing their successful completion of the run party until 1 AM so sleep was not an option for me.  So instead I wrote the Victoria flame arrival piece and published it at 1AM, before the fall back time.

I was staying in the Coast Bastion Hotel on the 15th (top) floor facing east.  The festivities at the park in Nanaimo (on the west side of the building) also had amazing fireworks that went on for a really long time. Between the torch relay and the Halloween festivites, Nanaimo was amazing in the evening with people out walking and the street parties.  Peple are so relaxed, open and friendly in the up-island

The Coast was an interesting hotel for me.  There were many pros and cons as I looked at it from the travel agent point of view and a journalist point of view.  I tend to judge a hotel room from several points:  bathroom lighting, shower power, firmness (or lack thereof) of the mattress, the thread count of the linens, the amenities offered, the view and the ease of keeping the room temperature comfortable.  The view I had was awesome, clearly a 10; the bath lighting was outstanding, another 10; the linens were surprisingly comfortable and hypo-allergenic, as opposed to down feather (a positive for me) – about an 8 on the 10 scale.  The amenities were sparse with large pump bottles of shampoo, bath gel and lotion.  Unusual.-  about a 4 on the 10 scale.   Keeping the room temperature moderate and steady was next to impossible.  I would cool it off and then have to warm it up.  It was very challenging. (3 on a 10 scale).  This is always a real disappointment to me as a comfortable temperature in the room is critical.   Sunrise this morning was really awesome, which made up for a lot, so Mother Nature got a resounding 10.

We headed out for the ferry and upon arrival at the Quay, there was a Starbucks which even had  Top Pot Donuts Apple Fritters.  I had my first Americano in 4 days.  And I just had to have an apple fritter.  Once we drove on to the ferry, we had breakfast on the ferry compliments of  Tourism BC.  Then we arrived into the Vancouver port and headed off for Whistler.  I am writing this as we weave along the new Sea to Sky highway.  Stay tuned and I will be telling you lots more about the Whistler venues for the Olympics. 

I am so excited to be celebrating my birthday in Whistler.  What a great way to start a new decade!