Any Toronto area DUers?

[LynneSin]

My trip was postponed until mid-October. I'm thinking of staying at the Delta Chelsea - is that a decent hotel?

[iverglas]

1. the Delta Chelsea

I've stayed there a lot, and I quite like it. It's very central, it has a gorgeous swimming pool on the top floor (when I used to stay there, there were early-morning water aerobics classes, free) with a big patio and bar, the rooms are pleasant, and it's a fairly reasonable price.

It used to be that there were different rates for the older and newer parts of the hotel; I got to stay in the older wing -- govt rates. Ah, I see on a hotel reservation site (I was there anyhow, looking for a hotel in Montreal myself) that there are "Delta" rooms and "Deluxe" rooms, with about a $25 differential, so that will be the old/new wings. Go for the old; they're perfectly fine, probably just a bit smaller.

You're right off Yonge Street, close to the Eaton Centre, and right by transit. And you can walk a couple of blocks to Allen Gardens, if you like botanical greenhouses. Gorgeous Victorian things. Pic here:
http://www.emorse.com/SingEyeII/gallery/pages/AllenGard...

[Spazito]

2. I have stayed there, it is very nice....

I think you will be very satisfied with it.

[ClusterFreak]

3. Very nice hotel indeed, right in downtown T.O. too.

[SidDithers]

4. Good choice, central to most of the city...

The University of Toronto is just north of there, Eaton Centre and Yonge St. just east, and the theatre district is a couple of blocks to the south. Bloor West Village is nice too, trendy shops and restaurants - it often subs for New York when movies are filmed up here.

Sid

[Telly Savalas]

5. I've never been in it, but it's a good central location.

[tuvor]

6. While you're in Canada, be sure to pick up this CD

http://entertainment1.sympatico.msn.ca/Music/Artists/Ar...

[LynneSin]

7. I ended up at the Best Western Primrose

For 2 reasons:

First, my class is actually being taught at the Best Western. Last time I took one of these classes, I didn't stay at the hotel of the class but something I preferred a bit more. But then every morning I'd have to lug this big bag of everything I think I might need since returning to my room was a 10min cab ride.

Second - Chelsea charges for connecting to their internet whereas the Best Western, the rate I'm getting it's included. Spending $10/day and it's my own money I would have to spend - I'd rather find a hotel where it's included plus the cost was about $15/night less expensive.

Hopefully it'll be ok. If anyone knows anything dire - please PM !

[Canadian Socialist]

8. OMG! Not the Best Western Primrose!

You haven't heard the stories, I gather. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be fine.

















just kidding.

[LynneSin]

10. Do me a favor - smack yourself for me

It'll do, I really don't want to be suck paying $12/day for internet connection

Thanks for the laugh!

[Canadian Socialist]

13. Smack delivered, ma'am!

However, just a head's up... whatever you do, DO NOT LET THEM put you on the 2nd floor. Just sayin'

And, if by some quirk in your karma this happens... stay away from room 213...

[LynneSin]

14. I'm going to challenge Karma by specifically asking for that room

teeheehee

[Canadian Socialist]

15. Sure. Fine. Whatever.

Just, when you walk up to, you know... don't come whinging to me. sniff.

[SidDithers]

9. A tiny step down from Delta Chelsea...

but the location is just as good. A bit further north and east, but you're closer to the subway line for easy touring around. The subway runs north - south under Yonge and University, and east-west along Bloor.

http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/subwaymap.htm

You're staying about a 2 minute walk from the College stop on the Yonge/University line.

Enjoy your stay!

Sid

[LynneSin]

11. Yeah that's what I was thinking. I have a cap of $200can for hotel

But the hassle of having to go back and forth to a class that will be 5 days of intense training just makes sense.

[iverglas]

12. and I'll be at the Best Western in Montreal

Cheap, central. Great minds.

[Jazz2006]

16. Well, I got here too late to make a recommendation but...

I would have suggested the Pantages:

http://www.pantageshotel.com/index.asp

Gorgeous place, wonderful history, terrific rooms, interesting theme, great location, internet included, very comfortable beds, superior linens, etc.

I also like the Cosmpolitan but it is too far from where you have to go to make it a good choice for you on this particular trip.

I don't want to rain on your parade but, personally, I wouldn't stay at the Best Western Primrose. It is kind of old, dated, a bit rundown.

The Delta Chelsea is nice enough, certainly a step above the Best Western Primrose, and definitely worth the extra $10 per day over the BW Primrose. There are lots of nice BW hotels across the country but, in my opinion, the Primrose is not one of them.

Just saying.

Of course, the convenience may be a big factor for you, but... just a head's up.

[iverglas]

17. uh oh

There are lots of nice BW hotels across the country but, in my opinion, the Primrose is not one of them.

How 'bout the one on Sherbrooke in Montreal??

I usually stayed at the Tour Centre-Ville when I went to Mtl a lot on business -- converted apt building on René-Lévesque, cheap, right by the big federal buildings. But we're meeting up with a DUer from the US who'll be there on business and is staying at a big fancy hotel, and I'm not paying $300 a night, and it's just one night and all we'll be doing is sleeping, so I went for cheapest in the same area.

I have bad hotel luck. Stopped off the highway one New Year's Eve when I was just too tired to drive on, went to a big chain hotel, and we got put on the same floor as the entire first-year law class from the local university. Security finally shows up at 3 a.m. or so to politely insist that they go back in their rooms, and I hear "Hey Murray! He touched me! Hey Murray! That's an assault!" I often wished we real lawyers had shiny badges we could flash at snot-nosed law students ... . They all got 7 a.m. wake-up calls courtesy of moi ... and the hotel actually thought I was going to sign the credit card slip the next morning.

At the Chateau Frontenac for a conference, I got the room right above the front door where every five minutes, all night, someone leaned on a horn. At the Radisson in Ottawa, when my dad was waiting for neurosurgery in another city to fix the roller-coaster subdural haematoma that made the New England Journal, and had insisted on leaving hospital for the weekend, the wake-up call system went berserk and rang my room at midnight and hung up, of course prompting me to imagine long-distance calls telling me the worst. Dead tired in Alabama, I picked the same motel the local hookers used, and I've never met such thin walls.

In Las Vegas, we discovered two days in a row that housekeeping had left our door ajar the entire day -- in Las Vegas! TV didn't work (well, it worked when they went in to check it), sauna didn't work ... I gathered I was the only one in the hotel who wasn't gambling and even noticed there were TVs and saunas.

Then there was the Bond Place in Toronto (the Delta Chelsea had given my room away when I was late) ... Young Conservatives camped all over it. Partying in the halls, puking in the elevators.

But my favourite was a cheap motel in Toronto in the motel strip social services uses for housing (I now know; too tired to drive on, again) -- the family from hell in the next room; when we finally gave up on getting the manager to do anything, about 2 a.m., we knocked on the door and there they were, every light on, TV blaring, and mama, papa, son and daughter, dressed in track suits and running shoes, standing in the four corners of the room screeching at one another ... we realized we'd entered the twilight zone, and went on back to bed.

Oh well, I guess the Best Western can't be any worse!

[Jazz2006]

18. Yikes ~ you do have bad hotel luck!

I don't know anything about the BW on Sherbrooke in Montreal, as I have never stayed there. It could be very nice for all I know, but, as you said, after your experiences as set out in your post above, it certainly can't be any worse than those

Besides, you are only staying for one night and you don't plan on spending any time in the room besides for sleeping, so I'm sure it will be fine. (And it sounds like you're well experienced at dealing with strange goings-on at hotels, in any event.)

That's great that you're meeting up with a visiting DUer. I've only met one DUer so far, and it was someone who I met in real life before I joined DU - we accidentally discovered that we had previously met in real life when she recognized a photo of me that I had posted in a Lounge thread. So, I haven't actually met any DUers through DU yet, but I hope to one of these days.

[iverglas]

19. strange meetings

I met my present co-vivant on line, through an actual personals site. He'd spent much of his life at the Horseshoe to that point. I had also become good friends with someone else I met through a personal site -- a woman whom another person on the site pointed out to me as sounding just like me. The person who pointed her out to me and I had been chatting on the site, knowing we probably weren't "romantically" interested but having a giggle, and he said I hadn't said where I lived. I'd had a couple of glasses of wine, so I said: told him I bought my clothes at the Zellers around the corner from where he lived, and if he'd ever lived in the other end of town, he'd probably voted for me. To which he replied: I worked on your campaign, ____! (____ being my real name) Anyhow, I became friends with that other woman, who it turned out was best friends with her next-door neighbour couple, the male half of whom was a bartender at the Horseshoe whom my new co-vivant had been buddies with for years ...

Six degrees and all that. Sometime, when the person from south of the border says "you're from Canada! do you know so-and-so in Yellowknife?", we may indeed.

I've met a couple of DUers whom I knew before they came here, having previously met them elsewhere on line and then visited/stayed with them on the way through the eastern US three years ago. That was fun. It's one of my favourite DUers I'm meeting in Mtl, so while it will be brief, it should be a gas!

Odd as it is to go to Mtl to meet one from the US. A brother, and a somehow distantly related cousin I've met through genealogy research, to meet and greet in town too (oddly enough, although our closest connection must be something like grx4 grandparents, she and I -- and my brother -- have the same occupation), so it's an all-purpose visit.

[Pierre Trudeau]

20. enjoy your trip!

Yeah, the Delta Chelsea's pretty swank, actually, and you'll be right downtown & at the subway line, so, very convenient.

And mid-October is a great time to be here, too.

I hope you enjoy your stay in TO! Best wishes from a total Torontonian. (I was even born here! )