Now that one vacation is over, we can start planning the next trip!

In September, I’m going to Dallas for work. (Bor-ing!)

In November, I’m going to Las Vegas for fun. Jim will probably attend with me, but if not, I’ll go alone and meet friends there. I’ll be attending a conference on blogging, and I’ve been invited to participate in a discussion about being a top earner with PayPerPost. I’ve never been to Las Vegas, so that’s cool. And, I’ll get to knock another state off my list, in my quest to visit all 50 states.

In 2005, my map of visited states looked like this. I added Utah to the list and in 2006, my visited states map looked like this.

Now, in 2007, I’ve got this:

create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

I need a road trip in the Northeast, and another to the Northwest!

I’m sitting in the Detroit airport right now, waiting for my plane. I just paid $7.95 for a day of wireless access, of which I’ll only use an hour of. I’ve got a great story about coming through security to share later, but right now I have a little boy dying to go online right now!

I expected a cheesy, over rated tourist trap, and while the town is a bit over the top with attractions and chain restaurants, the falls are simply breathtaking, and everyone should see them at least once. We did a tour today that took us to Table Rock, inside the falls so that we could view them from inside, and of course, we did the Maid of The Mist and got soaked from Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. The falls are spectacular, and the perfect ending to our Canadian vacation.

I hate it when you enter a non smoking hotel room, in a NON smoking hotel, and some idiot who stayed in the room before you decided to smoke in it. Not cool. On top of that, the hotel is fully booked, and they couldn’t switch us to another room. (Seriously - at 5pm in the afternoon? You have not a SINGLE room that you haven’t given out yet? Right.)

We’ve had the maid up to Febreze the room, but I just came in from the pool and it stinks.

Jim and I got some alone time tonight, so we took the metro, and then a shuttle bus to the Casino de Montreal. (Finally, my high school French was useful! “Où est l’autobus?”)

The casino was huge, but weird for us, since there isn’t a hotel attached. It’s just…a casino. The whole thing was non-smoking though - a huge plus! There were 5 or so levels of games, including several floors of JUST slots, and a whole floor of table games. And the place was packed. It’s a real destination, even without a hotel, like we’re used to seeing in Vegas or Atlantic City.

Another oddity - no alcohol is allowed on the casino floor. You can go to the bar for a drink, but when you’re at the slots or the tables, you’ll get offered coffee. Oh - and no coins in the slots! When you cash out, you get a ticket that you can take to the cashier or to a machine, and you’ll get your cash from that.

Once we lost enough money, we went to one of the bars and took our beers outside on the terrace for a great view of the city. It was the perfect end to our stay here in Montreal.

We took a long tour around the city of Montreal today, and then ended up at the Notre-Dame Basilica, where we enjoyed Mass in French. (Well, the kids didn’t enjoy it so much, but the adults did!) The city is so different from Toronto, and I said to Jim more than once today, how it felt like Paris. With the cozy streets and row homes and everyone speaking in French around you, you can forget that you’re still in North America. And because everything is MUCH cheaper than Paris (even with the 14% in taxes) you’ll save money over going to France.

We like it.

Looks can be deceiving.

I say that, having typed on my other blog this afternoon that our hotel here in Montreal was stunning. And it is, visually. As far as the amenities and staff - I’m unimpressed.

For starters, when we were looking online, weeks ago, for a hotel in Montreal, we specifically chose THIS hotel because it had several things we not only needed, but wanted. In the needs columns:

• Free breakfast (eating out gets to be expensive each morning)
• Coin laundry in the hotel (we knew bringing enough clothing to last the whole 9 days would be too much, so we packed enough to get us halfway through)

In the wants columns:

• Close to downtown, or in downtown
• A pool for the kids

When we checked in, my husband asked the front desk about the coin laundry, and was told there wasn’t one, but that we could walk 5 blocks to one. He was also told there was a breakfast, but it wasn’t free. Hmm…that didn’t sound right, but we needed to eat and laundry and food for the morning wasn’t the priority right then and there. We set the a/c in our room to frigid and left to find some grub. When we returned, the a/c wasn’t really blowing, and it was downright warm in our room. It was almost 11pm, so I called the front desk and asked about 3 things - the a/c, the laundry, and the breakfast.

The front desk clerk told me he would send someone up within 10 minutes to check the a/c, and that our ‘package’ didn’t include breakfast, and that the coin laundry was on either floor 2, or floor 3. The problem with that is that the website says, “FREE BREAKFAST” without a mention of a package. The other problem? I searched floors 2 and 3 and found no laundry. I went to the front desk and complained in person. I was told that we could get free breakfast after all (squeaky wheel?) and that the laundry was on the 4th floor. (How does the hotel staff NOT know where the coin laundry is?

So I go BACK upstairs to my room, get the laundry, the soap, and go to the 4th floor. Dump in the soap, clothing, and put in the money - nothing. Wait, do a dance, sing a song - still nothing. Go back down to 1st floor, and now I am irritated, as you can only imagine. Their solution? Check into it tomorrow and reimburse me the $2.

Again, I’m not impressed with that.

So I go back to the 4th floor, stuff clothes back into bags, and head to my room, where I rinse soap off my jeans. You can BET that the hotel chain is getting a letter from me once our stay is over. Not only were both of the machines for laundry not working, but one wasn’t marked, so I’m stuck with soapy clothes and a trip to a coin laundry five blocks away.

Oh, and that a/c issue? Our thermostat is set on 10 degrees C. I should have icicles coming off my nose at that temp. Instead, it’s barely cool, and the hotel’s solution was to give us a fan to make it through the night. A freaking fan?! I’m way hot, and I don’t mean just from the broken a/c, either.

I absolutely hate issues like this, and it’s inexcusable when you’re paying close to $150 a night for your room. The fact that the staff had an apathetic “oh well” attitude about everything makes me even more upset.

In the days leading up to a trip out of town, my routine is always the same. Shopping, confirming plans for the dogs to go the kennel, making sure I have hotel and airfare confirmations printed out, and obsessively checking Weather.com.

For the past few days, I’ve been checking the Toronto & Montreal weather only (our stay in Niagara Falls is too far out to check), and agonizing over the 10 day forecast. It’s not good. Rain is on the forecast for our entire Toroto stay, so we WILL be packing the ponchos. We’ll be in Montreal next weekend, and we should see sunnier weather there. Good thing, since we’ve planned our time in Montreal to coincide with Fête nationale du Québec (”Quebec National Holiday”).

If you haven’t checked out the sample sizes aisle at your local store - do it! We hit the one at Target on Sunday and found a lot of useful items for our vacation next week:

• Mini jugs of Tide - 4 loads for 99 cents! The last time I did laundry in a hotel, I put $1.00 into a vending machine for a one use box of powdered detergent. That’s all well and good if you’re traveling alone, or only with one other person, or if you only need to do laundry once during your trip. But we’re going to be gone for over a week and there are 6 of us. I bought two little mini jugs and they’re small enough to pack, and I’m saving money!
• Toothbrush covers - both the tube kind which encase your whole toothbrush, or the snap on head type that only protect the head. (Those snap on head covers are great for the kids bigger electric toothbrushes.)
• A small bottle of hand sanitizer with a loop attached to it so that it can be hooked onto a purse or keychain - 99 cents!

The sample aisle is also a great place to get stocking stuffers for Christmas, or things to fill gift baskets!

We’ve booked the rest of our hotels for our trip to Canada this month, and it’s a relief to have that over and done with. Because we’re going with my mother and the kids, and booking 2 rooms everywhere, and we’re going to be gone for over a week…well, it wasn’t as easy as it normally is when I book a hotel room. Instead of me being in charge, we had to get the approval of 3 adults on each hotel, and it had to have laundry facilities so we don’t need to bring 2 weeks worth of clothing, and a pool for the kids.

Luckily, we found something that would fit our needs in each of the cities we’ll be staying in - Toronto, Montreal, and Niagara Falls, and online, all of the hotels looked just perfect. I’m hoping they’re as good in person!

I stayed at the Port Orleans Riverside Resort in Walt Disney World for the 3rd time last weekend, and the third time was really the charm. We didn’t have a loud and clunky a/c unit, or a slow maid. The only issue we had was entirely our fault. My oldest daughter dropped an earring into the sink, so we had to call maintenance to remove it for us. We ate our fill of beignets, we enjoyed Star Wars Weekend at MGM, and had a very relaxing (and somewhat rainy) weekend.