Judging hotels
It’s been just over a month since my last post and I was having a bit of a blog-withdrawal issue, so I’m back. The reason that I was away for so long was simply that I didn’t have much to say. I’ve just been working, the weather’s been blah, I’ve seen no aurora in what was supposed to be a spectacular winter – etc, etc…
There are always many things piquing my interest, though – little things, big things, things that stick in my mind and things that I forget a few seconds later. Many of those things at all levels concern travel in some form, and I love learning about destinations, even ones that I know well. I take many, many travel courses as a regular part of my work life – the best one in the past month was put on by Tourism Vancouver, and I got my “Vancouver Specialist” certification (I also lived there for 40 years). Not only is Vancouver a great long-weekend getaway for Yukoners, it’s also the best port to sail from on an Alaska cruise.
Vancouver isn’t really the trigger for this post, though, it’s the “Top 50 Ski Hotels” list in this month’s edition of Conde Nast Traveler. There are a few things about the list that I find interesting:
- The top-rated hotel, the Westin Riverfront in Avon, Colorado, is one of the least expensive hotels, at $179 per night.
- Whistler, British Columbia has 6 hotels on the list: the Pan Pacific Whistler Village Centre is #9, the Four Seasons is #12, the Fairmont Chateau Whistler is #14, the Westin is #33, the Pan Pacific Whistler Mountainside is #35, and the Hilton is #41. This is a very, very different list than TripAdvisor has for Whistler, where these hotels rank 1, 3, 11, 14, 6 and 10 respectively on the list of the 56 recommended hotels in Whistler.
- The Canadian Rockies have 3 hotels on the list: the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise is #10, the Fairmont Banff Springs is #19, and the Rimrock in Banff is #37.
- Alaska has 1 hotel on the list, with the Alyeska Resort at Girdwood in 50th place.
Maybe when I win the lottery my hobby will be staying at all of the hotels on these lists. You know, just hop in the Learjet and go to Jackson Hole for a couple of weeks, staying at #2, 3, 11, 24 and 34 🙂 But so far, I’ve only checked off one on that list (the Fairmont Banff Springs – and I agree with Conde Nast readers that the rooms are the one category that drops it from a much higher ranking).
It’s almost 02:30 am, and I’m sitting under my SAD light trying to get out of this mood. The Winter Solstice occurs in 51 hours, then the days start getting longer again. The forecast is for mostly sunshine today (for 5 hours and 40 minutes), so maybe it’s a good day to hit the road. It’s snowing in Skagway, though, so not that direction…
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