My travel notebook for today touches on a cannabis-friendly hotel for Sin City, cruise news from Holland America, a Singapore tourism update and a wave season deal from Celebrity Cruises. OH, WOW, MAN: A CANNABIS HOTEL FOR VEGAS In a town known for its “bigger is better” philosophy, there is a new reimagined property set to bring an intimate, modern, urban, and sexy travel experience to Las Vegas, and it will make its stunning debut this spring. Open while undergoing a multi-million-dollar renovation, the once famed Artisan Hotel Boutique is evolving into The Lexi – Elevations Hotels and Resorts, a Read more

Montreal is consistently ranked as one of the world’s best cities to visit. Now it’s ranked as one of the safest. The Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection Group’s new city safety ratings put Montreal at number three in te world, behind only Reyjavik, Iceland and Copenhagen. “Less than a point separates Copenhagen and Montreal, which should give you an idea of Montreal’s relative safety,” Berkshire Hathaway stated. The only other North American city in the top 15 was Honolulu, ranked #12. “This former No. 1 safest city finished less than a point outside of the top 10,” the report said, From Read more

A top Canadian airline executive says he’s opposed to the idea of giving passengers automatic refunds for delayed or cancelled flights. Speaking on CTV’s Question Period today, Andrew Gibbons, WestJet’s vice-president of external affairs says the airline is opposed to what the network called “wall-to-wall federal rules around automatic compensation for passengers in the event of flight delays.” “We don’t think bulk automatic policies are the way to go,” Andrew Gibbons told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos, in an interview airing Sunday. “We do like to have an individual relationship with our guests.” Some Canadian travel experts have called Read more

The crack of a bat. The sun on your face. There may not be a better way to spend a sunny afternoon than lying in the grass watching Spring Training in the Scottsdale/Phoenix area of Arizona. Chances are you’ll never get this close to Major League Baseball action or players. At least not for this price. Lawn seating for Arizona Diamondback games are listed online for as low as $19. It’s almost spring training time in both Arizona and Florida, where major league ballplayers gather to hone their skills for the regular season. Games begin around Feb. 25, so we’re Read more

The Trudeau government is promising to beef up air passenger protection rules in the wake of a chaotic holiday travel season that saw hundreds of Canadian stranded far from home. Speaking to a special session of a House of Commons committee on Thursday (Jan. 12), Transport Minister Omar Alghabra suggested that Ottawa is looking to changing regulations so that more of the onus is on airlines to show why they don’t have to compensate a mistreated customer, The Globe and Mail reports. According to the Globe, Alghabra said passengers are too often told by airlines that they’re not entitled to Read more

Canada’s major airlines are undergoing a grilling in Ottawa today, and the head of Sunwing said his company could’ve done a better job handling holiday travel chaos. Summoned to a House of Commons committee that wants answers to questions about the holiday travel chaos that left many Canadians stranded overseas, Sunwing president Len Corrado was asked about cancellations that left hundreds of Canadians stranded in Mexico. He also was questioned about why Sunwing cancelled all flights to Saskatchewan over Christmas. Corrado apologized for the way the situation was handled. “The bottom line is, we know we could have done better,” Read more