Everyone coming to Calgary knows about the Rocky Mountains. While Calgary itself has a lot to offer visitors, there’s always the lure of the spectacular Rocky mountains in the background. However, there’s more to Alberta than cows, oil, and big rocks. There’s also Dinosaurs. An easy and surprisingly scenic hour and a half drive north East from Calgary will land in the Badlands of Dinosaur Olympic Park, one of the richest sources of paleontological finds in the world.

While it is located in the ominous sounding Alberta Badlands (they should really be called the Alberta Bad-“Ass” Lands, click here to sign my petition), the Royal Tyrell Museum lives up to its majestic honorific. There are over 120, 000 fossils here, with 47, 000 square feet of floor space devoted to the various exhibits showcasing the incredible biological history of the planet. The exhibits cover every stage of evolution in the last 3.9 billion years of planetary history. The most popular exhibit is the Dinosaur Hall, with 40 fully assembled Dinosaur skeletons including Albertasaurus, Chasmosaurus, and everyone’s favourite, Tyrannosaurus Rex.

While typically it’s young children that get a real kick out of museums like this one, I have to admit that I had a blast here. Maybe it’s my inner twelve year old, but I couldn’t resist the magic of these ancient bones. Did you know that the Velociraptors depicted in the Jurassic Park Movies are completely wrong? Apparently the real Raptors are half that size, and all known species of them were covered in feathers. Although, after seeing what they actually looked liked like…

I can understand why Speilberg made them look a bit more intimidating.

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Image via Wikipedia

The very first Motel, seen above, ever built was the Motel Inn of San Luis Obispo, California. The word ‘Motel’ is actually a shortening of the term ‘Motorists Hotel’. You see, Motels are essentially a side effect of the Industrial revolution and the popularisation of cars in the United States. When the infrastructure of the United States Highways was built, it suddenly became possible to drive cars for long distances between cities and other points of interest. However, the quality of the roads at the time, not to mention the relatively low vehicle speeds and relatively high gas consumption meant that a 200-mile drive was an all day trip. This opened up a niche for accommodations specifically geared towards motorists.

Before Motels came along, there were few options for motorists out for a long drive. There were facilities called ‘auto courts’, which were basically large parking lots where the drivers could camp out next to the road. The only other option was to sleep in your car by the side of the road, or to try and find a gas station that had some small, chicken coop-like cabins attached to it.

At first individual owners dominated the Motel scene and there weren’t really any chains worth talking about. However, with the advent of the Holiday Inn chain by Kenmons Wilson in 1952 individually opened Motels began to decline, eventually becoming the minority. Which pretty much brings us up to date. Luckily for us, there’s still room out there for individually-owned Motels like the Centro. In fact, because the Centro Motel is one of a new wave of increasingly popular Boutique Motels, you could say it’s the start of a new chapter in the history of Motels.

The Centro Motel is Calgary’s first Boutique Motel. Located in the Montgomery neighbourhood, just south of Calgary’s Motel Village, The Centro offers stylish, trendy rooms at competitive prices. For more information on booking, rooms and rates, check out the home page, or Contact Us.

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The Bow River is also known as the “Bue Ribbon Bow” to fishermen. While it’s possible to find some Rocky Mountain Whitefish in the Bow, the main fish population is composed of Rainbow Trout, Brook trout, Bull Trout in the upper reaches, and Cutthroat Trout. The quality of the fishing on the river is renowned for both the quantity and size of the trout dwelling in its frigid streams. This is not to say that those fish are living in the stretch of the river that flows through Calgary. While the Bow River is a tremendous fishery, the best fishing is, sadly, not found in Calgary. For that you might want to check out the links posted at the bottom of the article.

However, there’s still some pretty nice fish to be had within the City limits, and there’s some pretty idyllic fishing spots along the banks near the Centro Motel. If you don’t want to bring your own fishing gear, there are plenty of rental spots near the Centro, just south of Motel Village.

The Centro Motel is Calgary’s first Boutique Motel. Located in the Montgomery neighbourhood, just south of Calgary’s Motel Village, The Centro offers stylish, trendy rooms at competitive prices. For more information on booking, rooms and rates, check out the home page, or Contact Us.

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Throughout the course of the Calgary Stampede there will be pancake breakfasts held all over the city. Although no one’s really sure how they started, the Stampede Pancake Breakfast is almost as traditional as the rodeo at the Round Up Centre, and no Stampede experience would be complete without attending at least ONE Pancake Breakfast. For a list of all the breakfasts in the downtown core of Calgary, click here. For a complete list, click here. And if you want to know more about the pancake breakfast at the Centro, just keep reading.

The pancake breakfast at the Centro motel is being held on July 13^th, at 7:00 in the AM. Attendance is not mandatory for guests (but who’s going to say ‘no’ to free pancakes?), and everyone is free to stop on by. After all, what would a cowboy festival be without that famous western hospitality?

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Most complaints have their sources in genuine misunderstandings, no hotel is actively trying to ruin their guests’ stay, but while some common complaints are more than valid, there’s always another side to the story. Believe it or not, there are reasons for hotels doing some of the things they regularly do that drive some of their guests to irritation. Here’s a list of some of the most common complaints made against hotels, and some reasons as to why hotels behave the way they do.

Lost Bookings

Okay, so you’ve booked your room on hotels.com, packed your bags, made the trip, and now that you’ve arrived at the hotel it turns out they had no idea you were coming. This one can have many reasons behind it.

Firstly, how long ago did you book your room? Keep in mind that when you book a room on a website like hotels.com, or Expedia, in many smaller hotels the booking is not instantly entered in the hotel’s database. What actually happens is a three step process where the website sends the information to the hotel in the form of an e-mail or a fax, which is then manually entered into the system by one of the Check-In staff, then a confirmation is sent from the hotel to the website. It’s surprising how few people don’t realise this. I once had a guest book a room on Travelocity as he was walking in our front door, and he was quite surprised that his booking wasn’t instantly recorded by the time he made it to the Check-In desk.

There is also the possibility of human error. Sometimes things get entered into the system wrong, or the hotel gets overbooked. While no hotel will ever willingly admit that they’ve made this most heinous of mistakes, it does happen. However, most hotels have a partnership with another, similar hotel nearby that they can move unlucky guests over to, in case the unthinkable should happen.

Cancellation Fees

Many hotels will charge a fee if you cancel your stay at the last minute. While larger hotels might be able to absorb the loss, it makes good sense for small hotels to adhere to some sort of cancellation policy. In fact, we have a 24 hour cancellation policy here at Nuvo. In our defence, we only have 32 rooms and if someone cancels the day of their booking there’s a pretty good chance that we won’t be filling that room. Since it actually represents a fair chunk of change for us, we have a cancellation policy in place to help us break even on last minute cancellations. However, if there’s a good reason for the cancellation (like a family emergency, flight cancellation due to a volcano, car breakdowns, or ninjas), we’ll likely waive any fees.

Housekeeping Ignoring the “Do Not Disturb” Sign

This is one of the more unacceptable mistakes a hotel can make, in my opinion. Once you’ve put down your money for the stay, the room is yours and you should be able to get a little bit of privacy. Not to mention that random people walking into your room while you’re sleeping is horribly invasive.

There are reasons why the housekeepers do it, though. Housekeeping staff usually work in shifts, and since they typically have lives outside of work, are not available to clean rooms 24/7. They really only have a limited amount of time to do all the cleaning for the day, and every occupied room has to be cleaned. It’s also very common for guests to leave the room without taking down the sign on the door, so if it’s past a certain time of the day, it’s normal for housekeepers to peak their heads into a room to check and see if anyone’s actually home. Also, in a situation where it’s the last day of the booking where a guest hasn’t checked out on time, or informed the hotel that they will need a late check-out, with another guest trying to check in to the same room… Well, in that case housekeeping, after getting approval from management, may very well enter a room, more to try and figure out what’s going on than to clean it, though.

Additional Room Charges

I personally hate this one when I travel. You check into your room and eat a granola bar from a bowl on the counter, only to find out two weeks later that you were charged $4.00 for it. That kind of upselling is sneaky and, dare I say it, dishonest. There are also hotels that will charge extra for services that you have no way of opting out of. That’s just the hotel management’s way of making as much money per booking as possible, sometimes to the detriment of their guests.

There are some cases in which having additional charges attached to a booking can be argued as being reasonable. For example, here at Nuvo there is an extra daily fee should you require the use of a parking stall. We do this because we don’t own the stalls ourselves, we rent them from our neighbours. Woking the cost of keeping those stalls into the rack rates for the hotel and forcing every guest to pay for them, whether they need a stall or not, seemed wrong. So, we worked out a rate that allows us to keep the stalls for our use without having to charge everyone who walks through our doors

Charging Extra for Internet

I have no argument for this one. Any hotel that is still charging its guests for WiFi needs to re-evaluate it’s pricing. These days, a simple high-speed internet set-up costs very little to maintain, and there’s really no excuse for not offering it to paying guests free. If Coffee Shops can do it for free, why can’t $400 per night hotels? That’s right Starwood Hotels, I’m looking at you.

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Bravo Television helps fans stalk their favourite shows

Cable television network Bravo is now using Foursquare to help drive its viewers to more than 500 locations associated with the network’s shows. The incentives offered aren’t great for now, just more badges, but Bravo is promising that there will be sweepstakes and awards coming in the future.
The Wall Street Journal Uses Foursquare to distribute exclusive news:
The Wall Street Journal recently launched a new metro section exclusively for New York, and is using Foursquare to help promote it. In addition to offering the usual badges for checking in to certain locations, the Journal is using Foursquare as a distributor for some of its exclusive NYC-related content.

Zagat Makes Its reviews More Accessible

Before you ‘check in’ to a restaurant on Foursquare, users will soon be able to view the attached Zagat reviews, as well as share their own comments to other Foursquare users. Of course, there’s also an obligatory ‘Foodie’ badge involved that is earned when a Foursquare user checks into a Zagat-rated restaurant.
MTV Also Helps Fans Stalk their Favourites
In a truly horrifying turn of events, MTV wants MTV and VH1 viewers to be able to track the moves of their favourite reality TV stars. As if Reality TV wasn’t obnoxious enough, personalities from shows such as Jersey Shore, The Hills, The City and Real World: New Orleans will be receiving their own ‘celebrity mode’ Foursquare accounts that will be publicly accessible to anyone who wants to know what they’re up to. You know, beyond what is shown in the television shows chronicling their lives.

Starbucks Surprise No One By Diving Into More Social Media

Starbucks was, and is one of the first truly big brands to fully embraced social media, so it’s not really surprising that it has a deal going on Foursquare. Coffee Lovers can get their Foursquare ‘Baristas Badge’ by checking in on Foursquare from five different Starbucks locations. Starbucks is also currently considering ways to reward customers who check-in, which really shouldn’t be much of a question mark for them at all. Free coffee anyone?

Why are all these major companies flocking to Foursquare? Personally, I think it’s because Foursquare was designed almost exclusively for GeoMarketing. Sure, you can use it to see what your friends’ favourite places to eat are, but that in itself is a great marketing tool. As long as Foursquare keeps away from the privacy pitfalls that are currently being encountered by Facebook, it should continue to grow. After all, there’s no real downside to using Foursquare to promote your own activities and, while there isn’t too much of an upside right now, there looks to be some pretty cool deals coming through it for the future.

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Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg, Manitoba

The Fort Garry Hotel is supposedly haunted by the ghost of a woman who hung herself in the closet of room 202 after she found out her husband was killed in a car accident. The haunting manifests as a cloaked figure that stands at the foot of the bed in Room 202, though sometimes this figure is described as a lady in a white ball gown. There are also stories of a presence getting into bed with the guests of room 202, and blood is said to trickle from the walls. Hotel staff members have also reported strange lights and noises, everything from white noise (static), to tapping noises, to motion sensor lights going haywire all throughout the second floor.

Dragsholm Castle in Horve, Denmark

Dragsholm is a great name for a haunted castle. It just sounds spooky, and really with all the ghosts hanging out there, it should. Dragsholm has three different ghosts lurking within its walls.

The first is the Gray Lady. It’s said to be the spirit of a woman who once worked there and now returns every night to make sure the place is in good repair in gratitude for the curing of a toothache when she was alive. That must have been some toothache. But the gray lady is almost never seen, and less known than the two following ghosts:

The white lady is said to be the daughter of one of the many owners of the castle. The story goes that she fell in love with one of the servants in the castle, and when her father found out he had her entombed alive in the walls Cask of Amontillado style. The story continues into the 1930s when the owners were doing some working on the plumbing of the old castle. Apparently, during this modernisation work the skeleton of a young girl was found inside one of the walls. I have to mention here, I can’t find any mention of this in any reliable source like a newspaper, news magazine, etc. But, hey, let’s not let that get in the way of a good story. So, if the old stories are true it would explain the spectre of a white lady seen prowling the halls at night.

As Crownland during the period from 1536 to 1664, Dragsholm Castle was used as a prison for noble and ecclesiastical prisoners. In the late1500s the famous Earl of Bothwell, third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots was held there. He was imprisoned there for five years before dying in his cell. The Earl has since been seen riding into the courtyard of the castle with his horse and carriage. Many visitors have claimed to have heard the horses hoof beats upon the cobbled yard, despite the complete lack of any horses on the castle grounds.

Hotel Rialto in Victoria, British Columbia

The historical Hotel Rialto was originally built as the Hotel Douglas in 1911. Behind the hotel’s check-in desk in the lobby you’ll find the only door that leads in and out of the basement. The door is always kept locked. Every once in a while, employees will hear knocking from inside.  However, upon opening the door nobody is ever there.  Apparently, the basement of Hotel Douglas was once a morgue, and there are things trying to get out…

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Cafe Koi

1011 1^st Street SW

Cafe Koi is part stylish cafe, part breakfast joint, part vegetarian mecca, and part spin club. A bizarre blend of ideas and concepts provide downtown Calgary with a forward thinking, and very alternative, environment that supports local art and culture. Warm colour tones, candles, and glowing concrete floors, as well as small tables for two that are easily grouped together, are counterbalanced by the two manned turntables that play an eclectic mix of upbeat music. It all adds up to an interesting, yet relaxing, setting with great coffee (organic fair trade, of course) and some really good, healthy food.

Cafe Deville in Fashion Central

214 7 Avenue SW

There are now three Cafe Deville’s in Calgary. They started in Art Central, and now have off shoots in Fashion Central and the Commerce Building. I think the key to the Deville success story can be found in their equipment. A great coffee really is the sum of its parts. At Deville they use really good coffee beans, an excellent espresso machine, and to cinch it all together, they purify the water they use with a reverse osmosis re-mineralized water filtration system. And while in many cases you do get what you pay for, at Deville the prices are actually more reasonable than at the Starbuck’s across the street. Not that that’s saying much, but still.

Deville is also licensed to sell alcohol, and as such they also have happy hours (Monday – Friday 4-7pm, all day long on weekends).

Hours of Operation:

Monday-Friday 7:00 AM – 7:00 PM

Saturday 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Sunday 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Insomnia Coffee Company

239 – 8 Ave. SE

Insomnia is a pretty young little cafe. It opened on for the first time on July 1st of 2009 in the historic Burns Building in downtown Calgary. Insomnia Coffee Company Ltd. is a unique, family run destination for coffee lovers. While anyone can run in and grab a plain old cup of coffee, it’s the enthusiasts and connoisseurs that will really get a kick out of this place. After all, Insomnia specializes in gourmet coffees from around the world. They serve excellent, French press coffee and espresso-based beverages. They also have quite the little bakery there, and everything in it is produced on site and made from scratch.

Hours of Operation:

Monday – Wednesday: 7 am – 5 pm

Thursday – Friday: 7 am – 7 pm
Saturday: 9 am – 5 pm
Sunday and Holidays: Closed

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Menger Hotel, San Antonio, TX

This hotel is on the National Register of Historic Places, and has been graced by such famed guests as Robert E. Lee, Ulysses Grant, Oscar Wilde, Dwight Eisenhower, Mae West, and Babe Ruth. However, the owners seem equally proud of the 32 ghosts said to inhabit the halls. Spook-tacular encounters can range from hanging out with a buckskin-clad cowboy, to a mysterious woman knitting, while utensils float around the kitchen and restaurant. President Teddy Roosevelt himself (supposedly) still shows up to have a few drinks in the hotel bar every now and then. Chambermaid Sallie White still wanders the Victorian wing halls, carrying towels but ignoring housekeeping requests. Richard King, owner of the famed King Ranch, died in his private suite here and supposedly walks through the walls. Staffers have reported hearing heavy footsteps only to find a pair of army boots by the door. This hotel was constructed about 23 years after the adjacent Alamo fell, prompting speculation that fallen soldiers still haunt the land.

Heathman Hotel, Portland, OR

Also on the National Register of Historic Places, this hotel was renovated in the 1980s and quickly became the linchpin for downtown Portland’s redevelopment. However, it’s also known for the nasty ghost of a man who jumped down the stairs outside of room 703. His restless spirit apparently now haunts the rooms on the way down, although baffling phenomena seem to occur all the way up to room 1003. Although the rooms in that vertical column (903, 803, etc) are particularly susceptible to supernatural doings, room 703 features the eeriest events of all. Inexplicably moving objects, mysterious tapping, and cold spots occur almost regularly. Photos taken in this room occasionally depict a dark cloud, and videos contain strange shadows, distorted faces, even electronic voice phenomenon. Guests have reported that upon returning to their room after leaving for the day there was the appearance that someone else had used the room. Apparently, things like glasses taken out, towels used, and furniture having been moved around gave them that impression. However, the electronic key record has always been able to verify that no one else had entered. One guest actually reported hearing increasingly heavy breathing as his bed sheets practically mummified him. When he finally freed himself from their stranglehold, his large heavy luggage flew across the room towards him, followed immediately by a figure running into the closet. Security was able to demonstrate that he was quite alone in the room at the time, though.

The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, CO
During a stay here in the 1970s Stephen King, one of the masters of modern horror, had the living crap scared out of him. Yup, this converted mansion overlooking the Rocky Mountain town of Estes Park inspired the fictional Overlook Hotel, the setting for King’s novel, The Shining. The building and the land surrounding it was originally developed by the English Earl Lord Dunraven. He built a hunting lodge, cabin, and hotel for his guests and illegally homesteaded up to 15,000 acres (61 km²) in an unsuccessful attempt to create a private hunting preserve. However, angry locals as well as lengthy and costly legal battles eventually drove him out and the famed automaker F.O. Stanley opened the Georgian-style hotel in 1909.

Apparently, the tenaciously bitter Lord Dunraven (jerk that he is) still haunts the 4th floor, his ghost particularly fond of terrorizing guests in rooms 401, 407, 412 and 418. Lights switch on and off mysteriously and the furniture has a habit of moving around by itself. In addition to Lord Dunraven, the ghosts of children have also been heard playing in the hallways, and his late wife likes to play the piano in the ballroom. This is also the only hotel I’ve come across where a guest has reported a case of full-on possession that drove him to speak in tongues. That happened in room 412, by the way.

As for Stephen King, he had the misfortune of staying in room 217, the site of the grisly death of a hotel maid, on a night when the hotel was almost entirely empty before closing for an extended period of time. In recognition of this unintentional inspiration, the Stanley Hotel now shows the uncut R-rated version of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining on a continuous loop on Channel 42 on guest room televisions.