Heads up: Birthday girl Fairmont Empress celebrates 101 years with recession-friendly $101 package

This just in from @fairmont hotels via Twitter (and why YOU should be on Twitter too!):   Twitter Early Access (in advance of Travelzoo launch on 3/18/09) – $101 room rates at The Fairmont Empress –http://tinyurl.com/empress101

The Fairmont Empress on Victoria Harbour

Victoria, BC‘s most-photographed hotel, the venerable Fairmont Empress, celebrates 101 years this year but in this economy she’s the one bearing the gifts: until March 24, you can book a room for any time up to December 23, 2009 for just $101 a night, INCLUDING a 15% discount on food, drink and indulgent Willowstream Spa treatments. It doesn’t get better that that–especially if you’re paying in Euros or US dollars.

 

If you’re tempted, don’t dither. This special package will hit TravelZoo on Wednesday…

 

News: Win a $50 gift certificate to sample Zin’s new nibbles

So recession kinda sucks huh? Seems every day it gets a little harder to justify an evening out when the sky is apparently falling. The way I see it, we can either cloister ourselves at home with our favourite depressant (in my case, Bombay Sapphire) and wait the downturn out–or, we can get out there and lift a budget-friendly glass to better times.

Win a Zin gift certificate!

Think you can’t afford an after-work get-together with friends right now? Not true! Check out the great $2 tapas menu on offer between 4 and 7 pm at Zin on Robson from March 16 to April 30.

Executive chef Karen Gin’s menu of toonie treats includes mac & Jack (with a hit of Jack Daniels), chili lime-glazed chicken wings, naan pizza, braised short rib poutine, and my personal all-time lounge-food fave: truffle popcorn. 

Zin is one of my two favourite martini bars in Vancouver (more about the other one later) and I’ve got a $50 gift certificate to Zin to give away in a random draw on March 27. To enter, just leave a comment answering these three important questions: 

• shaken or stirred?
• vodka or gin?
• one olive or two?

Make sure I can get in touch with you, and good luck! (And if just can’t wait to win, make sure you make Happy Hour reservations: call Zin at 604.408.1700.)

PS: Blog about this contest at your own site with a link back here and you’ll get a second chance to win!

 

The 24-hour Tourist: Vancouver’s top rainy day pleasures and pastimes

It’s spring break in BC’s Lower Mainland and that pretty much guarantees a gloomy weather forecast. (Old joke: how do you know what the weather’s doing in Vancouver? Easy: if you can’t see the mountains it means it’s raining and if you can see the mountains, it means it’s going to rain.)

You can’t let the wet stuff dampen your holiday spirit. Just grab the Gore-Tex and a sturdy brolly (the cheerful, wind-resistant offerings from Vancouver’s Cheeky Umbrellas are well worth the bucks) and make like a local with some of these recommended rainy-day pastimes:

Vancouver loves a Cheeky Umbrella

• Visit Hong Kong without a passport on a trip to Richmond’s Aberdeen Centre, where the city’s sizeable Asian population comes to shop, eat and be entertained. 
• Cloudy skies only heighten the moody atmosphere of the Museum of Anthropology, a celebrated repository of Northwest Coast Aboriginal art at the University of British Columbia. 
• Look up when it’s coming down: head for the snow on the nearby North Shore mountains. Look for specially priced ski-and-snowshoe packages here.
• Steamy and tropical, the domed Bloedel Conservatory in Queen Elizabeth Park blooms with birds, butterflies and lush floral vistas. (It’s the best place for foolproof photos, too.) 
• Indulge your inner culture-vulture at Tickets Tonight with last-minute, half-price tickets to Vancouver’s primo arts events and wait out the monsoon in a matinée.
• Rain or shine, the Whistler Mountaineer train between North Vancouver and Whistler is the best way to take in the coastal scenery along the Sea-to-Sky corridor. (The season runs May to October.)
• Drop your umbrella and your shoulders and say spaaaaaaah. My favourite sanctuary is still (and will likely ever be) the Absolute Spa chain, now with a new location at Park Royal in West Vancouver. 
• When you’ve exhausted the indoor pleasures of Granville Island Public Market, pop your top and walk the False Creek seawall west to Kitsilano Beach or east to Science World.
• Like hockey but can’t afford tickets to a game? Head downtown to Vancity Theatre for the Hockey Nights in Film series during spring break.

Where do you like to pass a rainy day in the Lower Mainland? Please share your suggestions!

 

The 24-hour Tourist: See Canada at sea-level

 

Aboard BC Ferries' Queen of Capilano

Surrounded on three sides by ocean and spattered like a Jackson Pollock painting with crystalline lakes and historic rivers, Canada’s magnificent landscape is perhaps best viewed from its myriad waterways. Sure, you could take in the iconic wilderness scenery on a luxury cruise through British Columbia’s Inside Passage. But if you’re pressed for time or money, there are plenty of other ways to experience Canada at “see”-level. 

Highly recommended day-trips:

• View BC’s dramatic coastline on a 20-minute mini-cruise aboard BC Ferries’ Queen of Capilano, which crosses fjord-like Howe Sound from Horseshoe Bay to picturesque Bowen Island 15 times daily. Or, hop on the new 12-seat Bowen Island Express running several times daily between Granville Island in downtown Vancouver and Snug Cove on Bowen.

• Have your camera at the ready when you make the 15-minute ferry trip across the St. Lawrence River from Levis to Québec City, QC: the looming view of Old Québec, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is particularly dramatic.

• For the prettiest views of the historic harbour in Halifax, NS, make the 12-minute ferry crossing between Nova Scotia’s capital and the city of Dartmouth. 

• For centuries, visitors have found respite from the urban bustle of Toronto, ON in the lushly wooded Toronto Islands, just a short hop across Lake Ontario from Canada’s largest metropolis. Year-round ferry service departs from the docks at the foot of Bay Street. The return trip offers great photo opps of the city skyline.

• At the historic junction of Manitoba’s mighty Red and Assiniboine Rivers is Winnipeg’s premier tourist attraction, The Forks. From May to September, the River Spirit water bus plies the scenic and tranquil riverfront. Or rent a canoe or paddleboat and explore at your own pace.

Have I missed any? Let me know!

 

News: Win tickets to Hockey Nights in Film–just in time for spring break!

Hockey is a big hairy deal around our house. It’s like a white noise (well, sometimes more like a black noise) that hums along in the background between October and April. And while I myself am not a hockey-head, I cannot escape its influence: since he discovered the sport in Grade 5, my now-teenaged son’s moods have been inextricably linked to his team’s divisional standings. I find Adam’s loyalty to the Canucks rather endearing: he will not abandon them, even though he knows they will inevitably break his heart.

Slap Shot

So how do I–the woman who once embarrassed her son by cheering for another team’s goal because she didn’t know they switched sides after each period–plan to bond with my hockey patriot this spring break? Easy: we are going to the movies. Hockey movies.

We’ll be heading downtown to the Vancouver International Film Centre to catch a few of the 11 hockey-themed flicks on offer from March 9- 20. The Hockey Nights in Film series runs the gamut from beloved national classics (The Rocket) to Hollywood joyrides (Slap Shot) and cinéma vérité documentaries (Junior). And at just $10 a ticket, it’s way cheaper than a hockey game.

WANT TO WIN TICKETS?

Is hockey a part of your family dynamic too? I’ve got a couple of pairs of tickets to give away, so leave a comment here with a hockey-related family memory and I’ll give the best story-teller a pair of tickets to see either Slap Shot on March 9 at 7 pm, or Junior on Thursday, March 12 at 8:45 pm.  (If you blog and would like to write about this contest or share your memory on your own site, please just leave a short comment below to direct me back to your own post).

Remember to leave your e-dress or blog URL so I can contact the winner. Contest closes Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 8 pm.