Montreal

Ken and I are headed to Montreal this weekend for a romantic getaway. It was his birthday present to me, taking the train there, and staying at a nice hotel downtown. Our friends will be meeting up with us there as well. We're all looking forward to the getaway, especially with the beautiful weather we've been having. Sorry, I'm not saying that to hurt you west-coasters! But you have to be a little happy for us at least?!

There will be a Montreal Canadiens playoff game while we're there. I haven't made up my mind whether I'm okay with this or not. I'm pretty sure nothing will happen, it's not like I'll be getting in the middle of any rioting fans, but I'll probably be on the lookout once the game ends, that's for sure. I mean, if looting and burning out police cruisers is how fans react to a win... I just hope Montreal doesn't lose while we're in town haha.

As for weekend activities? We'll be taking a drive around some of the richer areas with views, and walking around Old Montreal. It's supposed to be beautiful. We have a reservation at a great Jazz club in Old Montreal Saturday night. Seems like something out of the movies.

This is probably the right time to tell you all about Hotwire as well. Ken and I will be staying at the InterContinental downtown near Old Montreal. It's a 4 star hotel that runs $199/night but using Hotwire, we got it for $89/night. We're both pretty happy because that allowed us to stay two nights instead of 1. It's supposed to be a beautiful hotel, a renovated old building. I haven't looked into it too much but the reviews online are fabulous. I'll be posting pictures when we return. .... Back to Hotwire though. I believe it's run by Expedia.ca, but the format is slightly different. When booking a hotel, you get to choose location (i.e., downtown Montreal, within a certain range of blocks), and the star rating of the hotel. Before booking, you know what amenities the hotel will offer, the exact price, the general location, and I believe you also get to see the tripadvisor.com rating by people who have stayed there. What you don't know is the name of the hotel & exact location. The website can tell you more about how this results in such big discounts. You don't find out the name of the hotel until you have booked and paid. The bookings are non-refundable and cannot be changed. This doesn't suit every vacation but it worked out great for us. Hotwire also does flights, etc, but they don't seem cheap the way the hotels do.

Anyway, hope you all have a great rest of the week.