Over the past ten days, I’ve slept in Vancouver, Kamloops, Yoho National Park, Calgary, Edmonton and Fredericton. We stayed in a variety of hotels, and I wanted to quickly share two anecdotes–one of expectations disappointed, and another of expectations exceeded.
In Yoho, we booked in at the Cathedral Mountain Lodge. It’s a fairly fancy spot, with a nice main lodge and great room. The setting is gorgeous, wedged between towering peaks and beside the Kicking Horse River. They rent out cabins, which are neatly appointed in, uh, Canadiana. Think Bay blankets and old snowshoes on the wall.
Our cabin was actually half of a duplex, and so the interior space was disappointingly small. To get a sense of how cramped it was, there wasn’t enough open floor space for me to lie down and do some back exercises. Likewise, there was no view of the river.
As a point of comparison, we paid Long Beach Lodge money for this place. The rooms and cabins at Long Beach Lodge are much bigger, finished to a similar level, and a bunch of them have a killer view of the ocean. So, I went away from Cathedral Mountain Lodge feeling like we overpaid by about $75 a night.
Incidentally, isn’t it weird that you can operate a hotel inside a national park? That happens in the States, too, but it always strikes me as a little odd.
A Happy Customer
On the other hand, I stayed at the (awesomely named) Crowne Plaza Lord Beaverbrook in Fredericton. It was a pleasant if ordinary hotel.
On Saturday night, I noticed a lot of noise coming from a room adjacent to me. Throughout the early evening, I discovered that several rooms next to mine (I was at the end of the hall) were full of boisterous young men. Anticipating a loud evening, I called the front desk and requested a room change. I wasn’t complaining–I just figured it would be way simpler for everybody if they moved me instead of trying to police the dudes next door.
The front desk staff quickly obliged, and upgraded me to an executive suite on the ‘Quiet Floor’ (there’s really a sign by the elevator) for my trouble. I slept peacefully, the guys downstairs had their fun, and the Crowne Plaza gained a happy customer.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
I was going to speculate that the Cathedral Mountain Lodge was built long ago, with small rooms, but it looks like it’s pretty new. So much for that theory.
Indeed. And I should have specified more clearly that they do have larger cabins, we just got stuck with a duplex (not something you see on their site).