Canadian Personal Finance Blog

As I have written before, I have two daughters that play basketball so this weekend is being spent in beautiful London, Ontario for the provincial championships. It’s quite interesting, and a bloody long drive (about 6.5 hours and about $80 worth of gas each way). It’s always interesting to see how much it costs to stay in a hotel for the weekend, and what you get for your money.

Right now, I am using the complimentary high speed network access, but I won’t use their phones, because I have my cell phone instead (which even with the inflated long distance charges is cheaper than the hotel phone). So I get data access for free? What if I used Vonage or another VoIP service? Then I’d get my phone for free too! Hey, that is something to think about for my next trips. I do have a Voice Over IP client, but it is my company’s. The free data access is a good thing.

The pool is ok, except there are 10 girls basketball teams, a convention AND the Harlem Globetrotters here, so the pool is a little overcrowded right now. I think the pool is a”push”, it might be good, I just can’t use it.

I am paying $10 for parking. That just cooks my turkey, it is a money grab by the hotel. Make the parking look complimentary eh? Overcharge everyone and make the parking free. I hate being nickel and dimed on this kind of stuff. Parking charge, VERY BAD!

The toiletries supplied are appreciated by my daughters, and again a useful bit of advertising for the hotel as well, good idea, whoever thought of that one.

Do I think staying in a hotel is a good deal? What are you nuts? If I could I’d stay in a tent and save some money, but that option is not open, I am just trying to keep from going crazy watching my money FLY out the window!

–C8j