mushroom

Hi all,

I've posted on the traumas of the house sale we're going through and also I had some fab advice from many contributors which helped my family settle on Calgary as our preferred destination.

We've booked 2 weeks in May/June with Canadian Affair to Calgary and I thought I'd share what has become the most expensive trip I've ever went on.

£1200 - Canadian Affair London - Calgary (2 adults 1 child with seats booked)
£100 - hotel and parking at Gatwick
£400 - 4 nights at the Sheraton Cavalier Calgary
£1100 - a (deluxe) camper van with mountain bikes for a 10-day trip up around the mountains (Banff, Canmore, Jasper and my little girl is determined to go to Pocahontas.....)

It kind of crept up on me cos I paid for the flights a few months back but that's already nearly £3K before leaving our front door.

Just pointing out that the cost of an exploratory pre-move trip can be pretty significant (but it should be fab). Also, any views on Calaway park, Calgary Zoo, any other child-friendly day trips in Calgary at end May / start June?

Love and hugs to all (especially you)

Mushroom

PS That sheraton hotel does great deals which include either free entry for 4 to Calgary Zoo or Calaway (sp?) Park or a £50 IKEA voucher !!! Unfortunately there were none left for our dates but it's a great deal.

Judy in Calgary

Well I suppose you should set aside some time for looking at practical aspects of Calgary. But, when it comes to vacation type attractions, I think the number one thing around here, aside from the mountains, is the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller. It's between 1.5 hours and 2 hours east of Calgary. Basically you have to make a day trip of it. It's a very child-friendly museum, and the dinosaur skeletons will knock your socks off.

Hope you have a great trip.

Piff Poff

[QUOTE=Judy in Calgary]Well I suppose you should set aside some time for looking at practical aspects of Calgary. But, when it comes to vacation type attractions, I think the number one thing around here, aside from the mountains, is the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller. It's between 1.5 hours and 2 hours east of Calgary. Basically you have to make a day trip of it. It's a very child-friendly museum, and the dinosaur skeletons will knock your socks off.

Hope you have a great trip.[/QUO

I agree the hoodoos and landscapes are amazing and you get an idea of the 'big sky' as you drive out there! The museum is cool to. Well worth the visit! (Dare I say it - it's better than the Natural History Museum - if only because there is space and you can actually see the exhibits without being jostled!) We went to Calgary zoo in Jan 06 plenty to see even in winter, we will go back in the summer months at some point. Calgary tower is worth the trip to the top - we watched the weather change and the rain come in off the mountains - what we should have done was left before the rain hit - yes typical tourists - no coats/umbrellas (it was summer)/no car - just on foot - heavens opened, soggy English people and yes we would do it again 'cause it's cool how the cloud formations change, only we may wait and have coffee in the revolving restaurant before venturing outside in the downpoor

Alison33

[QUOTE=mushroom]Hi all,

I've posted on the traumas of the house sale we're going through and also I had some fab advice from many contributors which helped my family settle on Calgary as our preferred destination.

We've booked 2 weeks in May/June with Canadian Affair to Calgary and I thought I'd share what has become the most expensive trip I've ever went on.

£1200 - Canadian Affair London - Calgary (2 adults 1 child with seats booked)
£100 - hotel and parking at Gatwick
£400 - 4 nights at the Sheraton Cavalier Calgary
£1100 - a (deluxe) camper van with mountain bikes for a 10-day trip up around the mountains (Banff, Canmore, Jasper and my little girl is determined to go to Pocahontas.....)

It kind of crept up on me cos I paid for the flights a few months back but that's already nearly £3K before leaving our front door.QUOTE]

Thats sound like a very nice trip youve got booked there. We are also trying to book up but plan on going to St Johns, Newfoundland leaving on Aug 3 for fortnight. The cheapest quotes weve had are around the £2800 mark and thats just flights. Luckily I have family who will put us up for our stay. I believe Air Canada has the monopoly on flights in and out of St Johns. If anyone knows different I'd be pleased to hear because it just seems so extortionate for 2 Adults, 1 12 year old (classed as adult) and 1 child (10yrs).

Would appreciate any advice from someone in the know. Apart from Air Canada don't know where to start? Help!.

dbd33

WestJet and Canjet fly from Toronto, YYZ, to St John's, YYT. That'd be slow but cheap. Continental goes into YYT from Boston and Canjet from New York though the latter would involve changing airports. Continental and Delta go into YYT from Charlotte, CLT, which is a hub for USAirways so LHR-CLT-YYT might work.

Travelocity suggests bmi, non-stop, LHR-YYT for C$500-$C900 return depending on the date. That looks the best to me. When I've bought bmi tickets before they've turned out to be on AC but cheaper.

dbd33

There's also service on Lufthansa, presumably via Frankfurt and somewhere in the US, for $600+change. That's after being some wicked brutal trip.

joelsa

Hi Mushroom,

I know what you mean about costs creeping up!
We're flying to Calgary in May (Canadian Affair bargain @ £1435 fo 5 of us)
Renting a house for 2 weeks (£500)
Car hire for 3 weeks (c£600)
1 weeks worth of hotel bills as we drive over to Vancouver for 3rd week (£300)
Petrol, minivan fuel for 3 weeks (£75-£100?)
Thats without costs for food and nappies.
Each individual thing is really good value, we shopped around and got value for money, but collectively it's going to be quite an expensive trip, as yours is.
Like you, we are really looking forward to it, we're looking for places to take take young children. Judy's suggestion sounds great, and i think we're going to the Zoo or Calaway park.

Enjoy your trip, i know we will.

Jo xx

R2D2

Yes ..............but WHAT A TRIP. You can't compare it to what you'd pay for 2 weeks in the MED. A different animal altogether !!! You will be seeing some of the most amazing natural sights the world has to offer and I'm sure you'll feel it was money well spent and a real trip of a lifetime.

And if you do find out loads of helpful info whilst you are here, then that has to be worthwhile..............hasn't it ???

We did the big family holiday around the Rockies back in 2002 and my husband also did a reccie trip here on his own in 2004 and did that on a real budget. The flight and tiny motor home only cost him just over 500 GBP altogether. Then he just had food, petrol etc.........and he got his job out of that trip...........so most definately money well spent in our case!!!

You should have THE most amazing time..........................hope you love Canada !!!

Judy in Calgary

Calaway Park is a lot of fun. However, it's pretty much the same kind of amusement park as you can find in dozens of countries. If you have older kids and if you and they want an exciting ride, I think it would be more interesting to do the "real thing," that is, white water rafting on the Kicking Horse River in Yoho National Park, near Golden, British Columbia. It can be done from a base in Lake Louise or Banff. The Kicking Horse gives you Class III and IV rapids. Alternatively, you can raft on the Sunwapta or Athabasca Rivers out of Jasper (slightly tamer, with Class II and III rapids).

Joelsa, one of your previous posts said you fell pregnant during your PR application process, so I take it you must have a very young child. For little kids, a cute place to visit is Heritage Park Pioneer Village in a southwest suburb of Calgary. It has a steam train, a paddle steamer that plies the lake, an old fashioned amusement park that is much more low key than the one at Calaway Park but that young children love, farm animals, a blacksmith, etc. When our kids were young they used to like watching the blacksmith working, and he always used to give them miniature horseshoes that he'd made. At the same time, the adults in the family can learn some history. Visit the sod house, and see how early European settlers lived.

For Vancouver the ultimate resource is the Find Family Fun website. It's maintained by a real life Vancouver family with three children. You can sort the attractions by price range, by geographic location, and that family's top twenty favourites. Each description tells you the age group(s) to which the attraction appeals.

More tourist info on Calgary, the Rockies, Vancouver and Victoria is available at my website. I can't remember if I gave you the link before. Possibly I did. However, the info may be of use to someone else who reads this post.

R2D2

Hi
Can't comment on Calaway Park as havn't been there, but going up the Calgary tower is good (you won't need long there though..........my kids spent most of the time on the glass floor !)
Any comments anyone,.... on the Olympic Park as we are thinking of visiting there this Spring. ????
Calgary Zoo is very good. They have a dinosaur section too which is OK for younger kids.
But if you want serious dinosaurs, then head for Drumhellers Museum. Judy in Calgary is a big fan and so are we. Its superb and we felt it was one of the best Museums we have ever been to. My 5 year old LOVED it. For older kids you can book them into workshops where they can "have a go" at being a paleantologist etc.
The whole landscape around Drumheller is bizarre. The town itself is not up to much, but its worth a run out to the HooDoo's and walk up them. Its kind of like the land that time forgot around there.

Judy in Calgary

That's true if you count only the scenery and the town's amenities (aside from the museum). However, I suspect a social anthropologist could spend whole lifetimes studying the unusual convergence of subcultures. There are the paleontologists who work at the museum (and who obviously believe in evolution), there are the fundamentalist Christians who participate in the annual passion play (and who tend to believe in creation), there are the bikers, there are the tractor dealers and their customers on the surrounding farms, there are the staff and inmates at the penitentiary, and there are the oil industry workers who pop in and out.

Although I have not tried it myself, I've heard that the luge or skeleton or whatever that crazy thing is that you can ride there is heaps of fun. Enjoy.

Judy in Calgary

Debbie, I had a vague recollection of a height / age cut off for the luge so, after posting my previous message, I phoned Canada Olympic Park (COP) to check. The news is not good. If I remember correctly you have a 5-year-old, and I forget the ages of your other kids. Anyway, you have to be a minimum of 14 to ride the luge and a minimum of 16 to ride the bobsled. Besides that, the outdoor luge and bobsled shut down at the end of February. If you are the minimum age, you can ride the luge and bobsled in the ice house in July and August, but not now. The outdoor luge and bobsled will re-open in November.

I asked the guy what a drop-in visitor could do in the spring. He said it was an in-between season. They would run some camps for school kids. For the most part, however, the winter activities would have ended, but the summer activities would not yet have begun. He said the only thing that was available for drop-in visitors in the spring was a tour of COP. You could go to the top of one of the ski jumps and see what it looks like from up there, and you could do go through the exhibit hall that explains the 1988 Winter Olympics.

Hope that helps.

R2D2

Judy, you are so kind..................thankyou for all that information. It was more my 'big kid' of a husband who wanted to do the Bob-Sled/Luge thingy, but after your advice, I think maybe a winter visit would be better to see more things operational.
Thanks again for your input on this sight, you are of so much help to everyone
Debbie xx

Alberta_Rose

Come to COP in the winter and you can try the luge thing ... or hire some ski's/snowboard and have a go at that .... book a lesson even. They also have crosscountry skiing if that is more your thing, but from what I've seen the X-country has quite a few hills too! During the summer they do mountain bike riding (descents) and the courses for that look truly horrifying! We just got the brichure through today. They do summer courses for kids (of ALL ages!) who want to learn to do the stunt-rding and jumps too!

R2D2

Ooooo wow.............sounds like a good place. Thanks Morwenna. I think I'll contact them and get a brochure sent out too. Was there stuff for little kids to do on the bikes (ie 5/6 yr olds) ?