Decorations are up, the local slopes are ready for ski season, and Santa’s parade route is set. The holidays are here already. Before the long check-out lines, arms full of bags, and jockeying for parking spaces run you down, there is relief in sight. Park Royal is once again hosting Starry Nights. On November 22nd and 29th you can purchase a ticket to an exclusive shopping experience with stores at Park Royal being open after-hours just for participants.
You can shop exclusively at Park Royal North on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 from 7:30pm to 11:00pm and at Park Royal South on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 from 7:30 to 11:00pm. Tickets to have your run of the mall are just $10, proceeds from which will be donated to North Shore charities. Last year, Starry Nights raised over $10,000 for local organizations.
This after-hours shopping experience also comes with great deals like 25% off at Bellissima, 40% off everything at Change, 30% off at Dunn’s Tailors, 30% off at Ingledews, and you can pick up a $100 travel gift card at Maritime Travel for just $50. A full list of participating retailers and their specials for Starry Nights is available online.
You can get a $10 ticket for one night or a $15 ticket for both nights from guest services or directly through local charities (all listed at the bottom of this page). Each will have a wine and cheese lounge, jazz music, catering, free cupcakes, chocolates, carolers, and more. It will be the ultimate holiday shopping experience with plenty of comforts and no rushes.
Park Royal has once again offered up a great giveaway for my readers. I have two grand prizes available that include two tickets to both Starry Night dates as well as a $100 gift certificate good for any Park Royal retailer. I also have five two-night tickets available as secondary prizes. In total that’s seven two-night passes and $200 in gift certificates!
Here’s how you can enter to win one of these great prizes from Park Royal’s Starry Nights:
- Leave a comment on this post naming a Park Royal retailer (1 entry)
- Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)
I will draw two grand prize winners and the five secondary winners at 10:00am on Wednesday, November 16, 2011. The winners will be able to pick up their tickets and prizes at Park Royal guest services before Starry Nights or on the night of the event.
Update The two grand prize winners are: Leanne & Sundeep. The five secondary prize winners are: @natalievana, Rick, @_joeycheng, Elisabeth & Kevin.
It’s always a challenge to come up with a theme for my weekly series. However, being that this month is all about facial hair growth for Movember, I decided to make “moustaches” my focus this week. All of the photos below were taken in Vancouver over the last century and found via the Vancouver Archives.
Remember to support Movember participants this month by donating to their campaigns. Funds raised in Canada go to programs for Prostate Cancer Canada.
The City of Surrey is hosting their first Surrey Open Data Hackathon this month. The concept is to use Open Data (the City’s free and public data sources) to create concepts and innovative tools like web applications, mobile applications, Google Maps mashups, and more.
An example of usage (from Vancouver) could include using the newly accessible park listings to create an iPhone app that shows you all local parks on a map with pins or stickers indicating if they have water fountains, a pool, an off-leash area, and other features. Someone’s already created a map of water fountains in Vancouver, a trash day calendar, and a street parking guide using the City’s open data. Toronto, New York, Washington DC, and Nanaimo also have open data.
The City of Surrey is enabling Hackathoners to come up with new ideas for accessing the information and to engage citizens in their region. Surrey’s open data collection currently consists of property data, aerial imagery, water infrastructure pipes, sanitary infrastructure, drainage, transportation data medians, and environment and topography fish classifications.
Surrey’s Open Data Hackathon will take place Sunday November 20, 2011 from 9:00am to 5:00pm at the new City Centre Library, meeting room #418. Lunch and coffee will be provided. The event is open to everyone with ideas and especially programmers.
With a strong Canadian dollar, despite long waits at the border, Vancouverites love to spend time south of the border. Shopping at outlet malls, professional sports games, hitting the slopes, and more shopping are main draws between the two rainy Pacific Northwest cities. Over the last few years, John and I have enjoyed Seattle together, mostly during day-trips and mostly during baseball season. I’ve spent the night in the city a few times and searched the usual online review sites to pick a room based on ratings and location. Thanks to a media trip I was a part of last week, I now have a list of four hotels throughout Seattle that I know I can choose from based on their neighbourhood, price-range, and comforts.
Pineapple Hospitality hosted a group of media from Vancouver last week so share their story, which includes operating four family-owned Seattle-area boutique hotels. They have The Watertown Hotel and The University Inn in the University of Washington District (just North of downtown), HotelFIVE (in the heart of downtown), and The Maxwell Hotel (Queen Anne).
I took this photo of the hotel’s location from the Space Needle.
We stayed in The Maxwell Hotel for a few days and met with Michelle Foreman Barnet, President and COO, and her team around the fireplace in the lobby. “Experience transcends the physical product,” she said to our group when talking about her hotels. And we had quite the experience at The Maxwell.
Just one year old, The Maxwell (named after Michelle’s son) was crowned one of the Top Ten Trendiest Hotels by TripAdvisor, and I can see why. It’s not often I walk into a hotel room and say out loud: “Nice!” (for various reasons). I think the last time I did that was at the Beau-Rivage in Lausanne, Switzerland, at The Wick, or upon coming across the phenomenal showers at Tulalip.
The Maxwell is located at the foot of Queen Anne Hill, which Managing Director Marco Baumann told me is one of the seven hills on which Seattle is built. It’s walking distance to the Space Needle and Seattle Centre (I also took the Monorail from Westlake downtown back to the hotel on my own), and there are some great restaurants nearby like Pesos and Toulouse.
I enjoyed entering a room and being immediately welcomed by a vase with flowers and a little ledge on which I placed my room key. One peek around the corner and the room opened up. Hardwood floors, bright colourful fabrics and prints, a large flat-screen television, pod coffee maker, tall windows, and with one more turn into the bright bathroom I spotted amenities and plenty of counter space.
I stay in dozens of hotels each year and there are a few key things I look for in a room:
- Suitcase stand: This might seem rather obvious but I don’t like putting my luggage on the floor. If I can easily find a stand for my suitcase that’s the first “win” for a hotel room in my books. The suitcase stand was out in the open (not hidden in the closet) at The Maxwell.
- Outlets: I travel with a lot of tech. I plug in my laptop, charger for my camera battery, an Airport (for my own WiFi), and charger for my iPhone. Sometimes I have to unplug clocks and lamps or crawl under a desk to find an outlet. Not at The Maxwell. There were several easy-to-spot outlets above table-level where I could charge-up.
- Television: A must-have for me in any hotel room is a sleep-timer on my TV. I don’t travel just to watch TV in a hotel however I do use it to help me fall asleep – I like the background noise. Having a sleep-timer allows me to turn on the TV, watch for a few minutes, and have it automatically turn off after 45 minutes. Complete with timers on the remotes, when you hit the power button you also immediately get local channels, not a hotel ad. A nice touch.
Again, those seem rather simple and might not phase a casual traveler, but they’re little things that I enjoy seeing in a property. I also mention them because I could simply type descriptive words like “elegant”, “comfortable”, “modern”, “bright”, and “welcoming” to describe The Maxwell, but those small touches do make a difference to me. That, and the delicious mini pineapple cupcakes that are served with complimentary coffee in the lobby each day.
A quick check of the rates online and you can book a room from about $139-$179 a night this winter. Bonuses are free WiFi and parking, free bike rental, an indoor pool, a coffee shop counter in the lobby (the incredibly large lobby at that), and it is a dog-friendly hotel. While they’re comfortable for a solo traveler or a couple, the rooms are practical for families, with two queen beds available, a small living room area, and a fridge. A restaurant will also be opening in the new year.
The staff was friendly, from Justin who checked me in at the front desk to Tyler the General Manager, along with Sam and Marco – our super hosts during our stay. Thanks to this trip I got to spend time in an area of Seattle that I had not previously explored and am looking forward to seeing how the Queen Anne area grows around the Maxwell.
Over the years a few Presidents of the United States of America have visited Vancouver. Whether it was during the depression or war years or for speaking engagements after their terms. In 130 years the Commander in Chief has been no stranger to our city, although some visits have been few and far-between.
American Presidents and Vancouver
Harding
You may have noticed a very grand dedication to Warren G. Harding in Stanley Park. In 1923, he was the first sitting President to come to Vancouver. He spoke at a luncheon at the Hotel Vancouver and to a crowd of 50,000 in Stanley Park. One week later, in San Francisco, Harding passed away and Vancouverites were stunned. The Kiwanis Club started a campaign to get a memorial put up in Harding’s honor, in the place that he spoke in Stanley Park. Charles Marega (Caption George Vancouver statue at City Hall, Joe Fortes Monument in the West End) was commissioned for the piece.
President Harding in Vancouver. Archives item# Port N1271.06. Photographer: W.J. Moore.
President & Mrs. Harding’s motorcade along Granville.
Archives item# Port P554. Photographer: Harry Bullen.
Harding & Vancouver Mayor Tisdale in the bandstand at Stanley Park. Archives item# Port N1271.16. Photographer: W.J. Moore.
Roosevelt
In July of 1915, Teddy Roosevelt and his wife were on a train that would pass through Vancouver, where they were going to catch a boat to Seattle. According to Vancouver History: “The Vancouver Board of Trade had formed a welcoming committee to greet the Roosevelts, who would arrive at the CPR station. The Board, unwisely, had not included Mayor Louis D. Taylor in the delegation. (They didn’t like him.)”
Roosevelt’s motorcade in Vancouver heading up Hastings to Cambie
(notice the Flack Block in the background). Archives item# CVA 1477-652
As a result, Taylor (for whom Taylor Way is named) hopped on the train in Port Coquitlam to welcome the pair on his own. He was even the first to step off the train in Vancouver and introduce the Roosevelts to the crowd that waited. As the story goes, he took them for a quick spin around Stanley Park before dropping them off at their ship. The source of this story is Daniel Francis’ book L.D.: Mayor Louis Taylor and the Rise of Vancouver.
The First Lady also left an indelible imprint on Doreen Reitsma, who worked at the Hotel Vancouver at the time of the couple’s visit. After a conversation with Eleanor Roosevelt about pursuing dreams, Reitsma made history as the first to enlist in the new Women’s Division of the Royal Canadian Navy.
