Great downtown Toronto location? Check. Sleek room design with a kitchen and laundry? Check. Chic lobby with a giant bank vault in the basement and a huge, grand hall upstairs? You got it. I had a chance to bed down at the historic 1 King West Hotel and Residences on the weekend and came away hugely impressed. I had a model suite and not all rooms look like mine just yet, but I’m told they’re being renovated and mine will be pretty typical. The suite I had on the 10th floor was quite large and comfortable; probably 425 square feet. Read more
restaurants.
Canada has a new five-diamond hotel. And it’s a local success story. The American Automobile Association and Canadian Automobile Association last week quietly released their new list of top-rated hotels and restaurants in Canada and the U.S., and it gave the (relatively) new Four Seasons hotel in Toronto a coveted five-diamond rating. That brings the number of Canadian properties with five-diamond status to five in Canada: the Four Seasons in Toronto’s Yorkville area, the Ritz-Carlton Toronto downtown, the Ritz-Carlton in Montreal, the Four Seasons in Whistler, B.C. and the Shangri-La in Vancouver. Which means Ontario is the only province with Read more
DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA – I had no idea. I’ve driven past Delray Beach a few times on my way from Palm Beach or Orlando to Miami. But I had no clue it was this vibrant and fun and interesting. And I didn’t know how sumptuous the Boca Raton Resort really was. I was just down in Florida for a tourism event called Florida Huddle; a chance to meet with hotel and attraction folks and tourism destination reps at the Palm Beach County Convention Centre. But I did a two-day visit to Delray and Boca Raton prior to the meetings that Read more
ALBERTA – A snazzy and sleek spot in downtown Calgary. And a totally unexpected roadside surprise outside Canmore. I recently spent four days in and around Canmore, an absolutely breathtaking town that seems to me has most definitely emerged from the shadow of big brother Banff. I went dogsledding on a frozen lake and visited a wolf dog sanctuary and rode the gondola up Sulphur Mountain in Banff and soaked my bones in Banff’s Upper Hot Springs and had a great massage at Solara Resort and Spa, a comfortable, newish property with huge rooms and a good location close to Read more
WANDERING THE NAPA VALLEY IN CALIFORNIA – I often tell folks in Canada that I vastly prefer Sonoma Valley to Napa Valley when it comes to wine tasting and generally tooling around. But I think I have to them back on pretty even ground. I spent a lovely day in Sonoma a week or so ago. We then drove over to Napa for a night at the Napa Valley Marriott Hotel and Spa, which doesn’t look like a chain hotel. There are lovely flowers and a really nice-looking, free-form pool in a courtyard surrounded by large trees. They had an Read more
