Confessions of a YYC Travel Junkie

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by cmyden

For that matter, if there's anything that frustrates you about trying to plan a trip somewhere, or a 'I wish there was a way...' thought I'd love to hear it.

Most valuable tool to me would be something similar to what you have already, but where the dates can be restricted to specific departure/return. IE: What is the lowest cost per mile flights available from Calgary departing March 29 returning April 4th. Would be even better if you could add a day on either side.

I usually use itasoftware (and the 300 mile radius) for this, but it takes a long time to go through all the regions.

Basically like the farecompare.com/flyertalk tool, but with restricted dates (and actual availability!). Your current geographical display would be awesome as well.

Anyway, keep up the good work! I find more and more the hours I used to spend on Flyertalk get used for other things since you've started your site/blog.

[cmyden]

Blue Tag Thursday is out, and it's to San Francisco this week. It says $109 each way before tax from Calgary, but they're actually $99. Works out to $312 roundtrip after tax.

http://www.westjet.com/guest/en/deal...thursday.shtml

[malcolmk14]

I booked a trip to SF with the girlfriend for May 4-10.

Now I have to wade through a bunch of threads and advice to find out what we should do!

Anyone have hotel recommendations?

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

I booked a trip to SF with the girlfriend for May 4-10.

Now I have to wade through a bunch of threads and advice to find out what we should do!

Anyone have hotel recommendations?

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev...alifornia.html

$57/night - free cancellation up to May 2

If budget hotels in a great location are your style.

[getbak]

I'm pretty sure this is the place I stayed in San Francisco: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev...alifornia.html

DO NOT STAY THERE!!! Awful hotel in a crappy location. Do not stay in or near the Tenderloin district.



When I got stranded in SFO on the way back from Australia, Air Canada put me up for a night here: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev...alifornia.html

Nice enough place, but it's an airport hotel, and you're not going to San Francisco to visit the airport.

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by getbak

I'm pretty sure this is the place I stayed in San Francisco: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev...alifornia.html

DO NOT STAY THERE!!! Awful hotel in a crappy location. Do not stay in or near the Tenderloin district.

Wow a -61% rating on TripAdvisor, yikes.

[Hi-Psi]

I've been keeping my eye on flights for a Dive trip with the girlfriend. Been looking at mainly Belize and Cozumel but would consider Costa Rica or really anywhere with great diving.

Have you heard of any really good flight deals at all for either of those places or anywhere else with great diving? Best we have seen is $500 return to Cancun. From there we can get to Belize or Cozumel

Thanks

Jason

[billybob123]

Originally Posted by getbak

Awful hotel in a crappy location. Do not stay in or near the Tenderloin district.

I stayed at the Opal hotel (Used to be the La Quinta) on the edge of the Tenderloin on Van Ness at Geary/O'Farrell. It was a nice hotel and in a good spot - I'd agree with you though to stay out of the tenderloin unless you're into hookers and heroin junkies.

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by Hi-Psi

I've been keeping my eye on flights for a Dive trip with the girlfriend. Been looking at mainly Belize and Cozumel but would consider Costa Rica or really anywhere with great diving.

Have you heard of any really good flight deals at all for either of those places or anywhere else with great diving? Best we have seen is $500 return to Cancun. From there we can get to Belize or Cozumel

Thanks

Jason

Hi Jason,

I don't think I've ever seen anything overly interesting to Belize from Calgary. Cancun would be a likely suspect, but haven't seen anything interesting lately. Late April would be a time period that I'd consider to have a better chance than most of seeing something decent to Cancun.

US Airways has some $330 flights to Mazatlan (April 19-27) but that doesn't help with diving.

There was that excelllent $416 deal to Costa Rica in February, but haven't seen one since.

How's the diving in Jamaica? That seems to be where the deals are at for a warm location these days.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

I booked a trip to SF with the girlfriend for May 4-10.

Now I have to wade through a bunch of threads and advice to find out what we should do!

Anyone have hotel recommendations?

I really liked the Intercontinental in SoMa. Clean, modern hotel, close to the BART/streetcar/cable car stops, walking to Union Square and all the SoMa restaurants. Easy streetcar to fisherman's wharf.

I've also stayed in the Le Meridien, which is great, but the location isn't quite as good. It's near the Ferry Building in the Financial District, still has good access to public transit, but there is less interesting stuff in walking distance.

Wherever you stay it makes sense to take BART from the airport into the city, for big savings.

I've enjoyed baseball games at both of the Bay area stadiums, as well as more typical Alcatraz tour. The aquarium at Fisherman's wharf is pretty neat as well.

Check into the Citypass. It includes a bunch of stuff you may want to do(Alcatraz,museums, etc), as well as a public transit pass so you get unlimited streetcar/cablecar/muni metro (subway). Doesn't include the BART though. Also, if you want to do Alcatraz, you should book ASAP, since it sells out.

[Hi-Psi]

Originally Posted by cmyden

Hi Jason,

I don't think I've ever seen anything overly interesting to Belize from Calgary. Cancun would be a likely suspect, but haven't seen anything interesting lately. Late April would be a time period that I'd consider to have a better chance than most of seeing something decent to Cancun.

US Airways has some $330 flights to Mazatlan (April 19-27) but that doesn't help with diving.

There was that excelllent $416 deal to Costa Rica in February, but haven't seen one since.

How's the diving in Jamaica? That seems to be where the deals are at for a warm location these days.

I forgot to mention we're looking at either the first 2 weeks in April, May or June as those coincide with our days off. Probably 10-11 days max.

We saw the deal to Costa Rica in Feb and would have loved to jump on it but we were up at work. Jamaica isn't on our list as the diving isn't that great, at least not to what we're used to.

We'll keep our eyes open for deals and will keep checking your site to see if anything pops up.

Thanks Chris!

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by Hi-Psi

I forgot to mention we're looking at either the first 2 weeks in April, May or June as those coincide with our days off. Probably 10-11 days max.

We saw the deal to Costa Rica in Feb and would have loved to jump on it but we were up at work. Jamaica isn't on our list as the diving isn't that great, at least not to what we're used to.

We'll keep our eyes open for deals and will keep checking your site to see if anything pops up.

Thanks Chris!

Anything can happen, but in general, the first two weeks of April would have the best shot (of the time periods mentioned) for a flight to somewhere warm to drop their price.

The charter flights and Westjet tend to start winding down their schedules to warm destinations around the end of April, so by May/June while there's less demand, there's also less flights.

In April (especially late), there can be a sweet spot where you have less demand and still enough planes that need to be filled, so airlines can sometimes drop their price to encourage that.

If anything below $400 roundtrip after tax to Cancun or Cozumel comes out I'll be sure to post. To Costa Rica I tend to get excited if anything below $600-$700ish comes out.

Just curious if you've looked into how you would get from Cancun to Belize. Bus? Good thread about it here:

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntre...readID=1566049

[Hi-Psi]

Thanks for the info and the link, we had already looked up the options for getting to Belize city and that has been one of our concerns with this trip due to the fact that you lose a day each way. Cozumel has great diving too but we've already been to Mexico 3 times so would like to possibly try somewhere new.

I guess just keep our eyes open and hopefully find something along the way

Thanks again!

Jason

[cmyden]

Calgary to Wendover, Nevada + 3 nights hotel - $179/person after tax

There's apparently a 'casino junket' in Wendover, Nevada and they're offering flight + 3 nights hotel from Calgary for $179/person after tax from May 13-16.

My first thought was, where's Wendover, Nevada? Turns out it's about 6 hours from anything interesting, which might be why I haven't heard of it.

Here's what the 'strip' looks like:



Not exactly Vegas. For reference though, it's about 6 hours north of LV.



It's one of those small Nevada towns that only exists because of gambling.

My second thought was, ok, so who is it that's offering this package, and what does it include?

The link to the package can be found here: http://www.wendoverfun.com/flights/f...ervations.html

If you scroll over Alberta on the map, you can click on Calgary, to see that there's a package leaving on May 13th.

From the map, we can also see that they offer packages from departures all over the U.S. From U.S. cities it looks like they mostly use Allegiant Air (a good airline with cheap flights to Vegas). But from Calgary, they use a charter airline, Max Air. We'll get to that later.

Taking a look at their Facebook page they have over 6,000 fans and everyone seems happy. It does appear to be a legitimate offer from a legitimate company.

Here's the 3 hotels they're offering as part of the package:

Pepermill Wendover

Rainbow

Montego Bay

The Montego Bay hotel seems like the best choice. I don't think any of the 3 are great hotels, but they don't seem overly terrible.

As for the charter airline, having never heard of Max Air, I did some Googling around, and found a few reviews from people on TripAdvisor.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...er_Nevada.html

It sounds like they're quite reputable and actually really nice for a charter airline.

I would imagine on these casino junkets they do everything they can to encourage you to gamble at their casino. The interesting part to me would be ditching the casino and doing your own thing, just using it as a cheap flight to the Nevada/Utah area.

Looks like it's about a 2.5 hour drive to the Humboldt National forest. The thing is, after a quick search, it doesn't seem like there's anywhere to rent a car.

Here's some more reviews from people on TripAdvisor that have tried one of these packages:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserR...er_Nevada.html

If anyone can think of something interesting to do with this offer that doesn't involve the town of Wendover, let me know.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by cmyden

If anyone can think of something interesting to do with this offer that doesn't involve the town of Wendover, let me know.

If you could scare up a car it looks like its only about a 2 hour drive to Salt Lake City.

[getbak]

So, that's where the Mormons go to gamble?

[cmyden]

If anyone can think of something interesting to do with this offer that doesn't involve the town of Wendover, let me know.

Originally Posted by bizaro86

If you could scare up a car it looks like its only about a 2 hour drive to Salt Lake City.

The key word was interesting

Although a meal at the Red Iguana might be worth the trip alone.

Looks like there's 1 golf course, and the Bonneville Salt Flats are next door. Doesn't seem to be much in the way of speed records going on until summer though.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by getbak

So, that's where the Mormons go to gamble?

Looks like. Its just on the other side of the Utah-Nevada border, directly west of Salt Lake City.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by cmyden

The key word was interesting

Although a meal at the Red Iguana might be worth the trip alone.

Looks like there's 1 golf course, and the Bonneville Salt Flats are next door. Doesn't seem to be much in the way of speed records going on until summer though.

Fair enough. I'll amend it. Park City is 2.5 hours west, but this deal leaves after the end of ski season

[Knalus]

Wendover is in the middle of an old lake bed too - flat flat flat, with no features or vegetation for miles and miles.

Bonneville Salt Flats, though, are nearby for any gear heads. South along the road to Vegas is known as the Extraterrestrial Highway. One of the most isolated, empty roads in the States. Personally I find that kind of driving itself quite fun. South of that is Nuclear Testing ranges, and I believe Area 51 is in that vicinity as well.

Spectacular hiking to the west in Nevada, but perhaps not in April. Also not particularily well known spots (not like southern Utah), so it could be hit or miss depending on where you head out. North is the amazing Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho. But, by the time you get that far north, you start thinking it might be better to get there just driving from Calgary instead of Wendover.