Our Banff trip

On August 17^th Wildor came home from work and in a round about way, asked me if I wanted to go to Banff Springs Hotel for a couple of nights. That's weird, where did he come up with about a thousand dollars to take me to Banff Springs Hotel!? As I questioned more, he said that mom is offering him a gift certificate for us to go. It expired on August 23^rd though so we would need to use it right away. Mom told him that if we wanted to use it that they would take the girls for us for that time. So after cancelling an appointment with my visiting teachers, an appointment with our bishop and Wildor calling his boss to make sure he could get the three days of work off, we called and made a reservation at the hotel. We checked in to our room on Wednesday August 19 and checked out on Friday August 21. So what exactly did the gift certificate include? 2 nights deluxe accommodation for 2, valet parking, breakfast both days for 2, and spa access for 2, both days as well. Not bad, we didn't know though until we went, how “not bad” it really was. Let me tell you a little bit....the room had a king size bed...love it! Anyway the room alone is about $500 a night so for the two nights it would have cost $1000 JUST for the room. Valet parking was about $30 a day (so let me help with the math $60), breakfast, well i don't know for sure why but it was a different cost each morning..on Thursday it was about $63 and on Friday it was about $40. (don't know why such a difference in cost, there was nothing different about it, it was just a breakfast buffet, so about $100). Spa access was $50 per person per day so that's another $200. Spa access meant that we could get into the spa and use their facilities, they have sauna's, hot tubs, steam rooms, mineral pools (in doors) and a hot tub outside. If you wanted a massage or manicure/pedicure etc that cost extra. So all in all, we figured the gift certificate was worth about $1,500.00. So we got wondering, how did we get so lucky as to get something like this handed down? When we asked mom, she said that Auntie Margie and Uncle Ken got it from some people when they moved here from BC and Uncle Ken didn't want to go so they gave it to mom and dad and dad didn't want to go so they asked us. You better believe we will say yes. This is actually one of those once in a lifetime sort of things, we can't really think of anyone, unless you have alot of money that would say “lets go to Banff Springs Hotel for a few nights”. We were pretty happy with the room that we got. We were able to look out our window and see the main hotel, what an amazing building!

While we were there we really enjoyed the time together. On Wednesday, the day we got there we went and looked at the shops at the hotel and then we went to dinner at a German restaurant called the Waldhaus, there, I went out of my comfort zone and ate something I normally wouldn't even want to try...I had duck. It was yummy! I am sad to say that i couldn't eat all my food though, we had a fairly large lunch on our way to Banff and so there wasn't a whole lot of room for dinner, after that, we learned to NOT eat lunch the next day so we could actually enjoy our dinner and have a chance of eating it all. On Thursday we went down to main street in Banff and went to the shops along that street. I found an amazing coat that Wildor bought for me. :) A bit later in the afternoon we both went to the spa and each got a massage, neither one of us had had a massage before so we were really looking forward to it. Yes, it was very expensive! It was called a stress relief massage so guess what? We were able to submit the receipts and we get reimbursed through Wildors work for them! The spa there is the number one spa in Canada i believe...it is amazing! After our massages we went and sat in the mineral pools for a little while. Thursday night we ate at a restaurant at the hotel that is called The Banffshire. It is a very high end restaurant. We have never paid so much for a meal before and unless we go back there, i don't think we ever will spend that much on a single meal again. :) There again i went out of my comfort zone and ate some things that i generally have no interest in and don't want to eat...i have raw tuna, and lobster.

The food was absolutely amazing! We were very happy with the good and the service. Mind you, we better have got good service for what we paid!

After dinner we went back to our room and vegged. On Friday we went back to the spa and made good use of their mineral pools in the morning then we had appointments to each get a manicure, well mine was called a manicure, Wildors was called “executive hand grooming” the only place that mine and his differed was i got my nails painted and he didn't. :) After those, we went back to our room and called for our car and our bags to be picked up and we headed home. All in all, it was an AMAZING time! As we sat in the mineral pool, we kept discussing our option to make it a yearly thing, we know how much money we have to save up so we save up and go every year. So i guess we will see if we do it again or not.