Calvin's Weblog

Whistler Getaway

Ah - good to be back... We just had an AWESOME weekend getaway in Whistler DESPITE the fact that pretty much everything that could go wrong did. Okay, I take that back - a lot more could have gone wrong, and I'm thankful it didn't. The absolutely uncanny thing about this comedy of errors is that we actually seem to have come out on top some how.
Let's start at the beginning: A few weeks ago it was announced that my company was hosting a family ski day at Whistler, which included a BBQ luncheon on the mountain. Great! I hadn't been skiing in two seasons, so this was my chance! I booked my reservations for lift tickets, the hotel, and the BBQ. All I had to do was wait a week, get my ski gear together and make my way to the village. Friday afternoon, right after work, we loaded up the car and headed north. By 7:00PM, despite the rainstorm that quickly turned to a thck snow flurry as we aproached the resort, we were there - at my hotel. The rest of the night's agenda consisted of checking in to our economy room, and then hitting the local clubs. Well, that 'would' have been the plan, if the hotel had heard of me, or had any record of my reservation on this 'apparently' sold out weekend. After much a-do, they finally found my paperwork... I was supposed to check in Monday they say. "Oh sorry, your booking isn't for two more days, and we're completely sold out. In fact, the whole mountain is. It's a very busy weekend."
"Really?", I say... "is there an event going on this weekend?"
"No, there's a big competition next week, nothing special going on this weekend though. It's just busy."
"Funny," I say... "Since this is the last weekend of your winter rates, and all prices drop on Monday for the spring season... it's funny people would book up this weekend and pay double."
"I guess they want to catch the last of the 'powder'" he says.
"Wow... it looks pretty wet out there now... you mean it gets worse after tomorrow?"
"You never know. So here's what I can do for you - we've got a hospitality suite available, but it's twice the price of your room. I'll give you $50 a night off, if you want to take it - it's more of a display suite, we book it for meetings, people don't stay there too often. You want to see it?"
"Sure".
He takes us out of the hotel, down the galleria mall, up an elevator, outside again, over a restaurant, down a hallway behind a shop, into a stairwell, and there, in this emergency exit stairwell is a door marked "Room 100". He opens the door, and it's HUGE. There's a foyer for the coats and ski equipment, a kitchen, a bar, a massive oak dining room table, a couple large chesterfields in the living room, wrapped around a big screen TV, and eleven foot high, wall to wall bay windows looking right down at the pool and hot tub a floor below. In the bedroom, a king size bed (of course) and another gargantuan TV. Better yet, not only did we have a private entrance to the pool, but right our our door (and through the stairwell) was the outside exit, directly across the square from the ski lifts.
"Sure... we'll take it." - it turned out to be over $400 for two nights, but I'd be lying if I said it was a steal. So - after loading in, it was off to the clubs! We walked around trying to find some live music, occasionally going in to the like of The Longhord or Buffalo Bills for a pint, but it seemed everywhere was playing lame dance crap. Maxx Fish and Garfinkles ( the two main live music venues) were both 'not' hosting live music, so we finally just said screw-it and went into Dub Linn Gate for a pint. The place was packed and there was an Irish band playin' so it was a great atmosphere. Well, I did get a shock ordering our two beers though. Knowing the crazy prices in Whistler, I pulled out $12, expecting the pints to be something crazy like 5.75 each, but when she said "fourteen eighty please" - I exclaimed "WHAT???" To which she replied with the biggest grin I've ever seen: "Welcome to Dub Linn Gate - the most expensive pint on the mountain. Dub Linn Gate is the home of the only seven-fourty pint in Whistler!" - she was beaming with absolute pride. I shit you not. We tapped our feet to a few Irish standards, finished our beers (or as I now refer to them 'capitalist-pride-pints') and B-lined straight for the liquor store for a $9 six pack.

The next day, we skied our butts off. We started at opening bell - 8:30AM, and weren't back until 3:30 - only 1/2 an hour before the lifts shut down. We only took one break, and that was for lunch. Let me tell ya about lunch... 'apparently' they had no record of my lunch confirmation, and therefore I was not permitted to attend... even though over 500 other employees seem to have had no problem, and even though I was able to produce my confirmation code, proof of employment with the company, AND proof that my lift tickets were reserved with the same discount code that my company provided to register for the lunch, they maintained 'sorry, too late - we have not record that you wanted to attend the lunch, and we've only ordered enough for our registered guests. There's nothing we can do." - so, while we didn't get a free lunch, Carole and I DID enjoy the best damn $28 mid-mountain BBQ burger and a cervesa that I have ever had. Bar none. It was TASTY. The biggest irony is that the free lunch invitation said to show up at the Glacier Lodge at noon. Since they had already told me at the ticket desk that I wasn't getting in, we didn't bother going all the way down the hill, and instead hit one of the mid-mountain eateries. Irony of all ironies, the one we hit was called "Glacier Creek" and it was PACKED with company employees - it turns out that the free luch was actually happening right there... the Glacier Lodge in the invitation must have been a misprint... if I had actually THOUGH that I was going to this free lunch, I would have made my way down the hill to Glacier Lodge, and I would have missed the whole thing... Crazy, eh?

So anyway, we skied until we could ski no more, and then we called it quits. Unfortunately, Carole's knees called it quits rather abruptly, and we just happened to be about 5 minutes down from the very top of Blackcomb when that happened. We had another vertical mile to go, and the bottom quarter mile of that (which we avoided all day) was the grossest slush you'd ever try to ski through - NOT the knee wrenching stuff you wanna be plowing through at the end of the day! It was rough going, and my legs were giving out before we got down, but we finally made it... cervesa time!
You know, that reminds me - I forgot to tell my breakfast story. Before going skiing, we went to Tex Corleones for breakfast. We got seated okay, but we didn't see a waitress the whole time we were there. Okay, sure, we say them, but they refused to acknowledge us. Since it was a buffet style, we assumed it was just 'help yourself'. We helped our self to the buffet, we had to get our own orange juice, toast, coffee, well, everything... until after about 35 minutes when I got up to get some more orange juice, when a waitress storms over and says "may I help you with something?"
I replied "No, no sense in starting now, I'm just getting myself some more orange juice, and I'm here now, so I can manage."
"But drinks are NOT included in the buffet!"
"Oh - really? Why are they sitting here at the end of the buffet then? Never mind - I'm fine. I don't need any juice." ( I didn't tell her it would have been my third)
So I guess the waitresses must have figured out that they had all been ignoring us, because one of them came up to our table with a bill, and while I was expecting them to start yelling at us about how they were going to charge us for all the drinks we had been stealing, she instead said - "I gave you a 10% discount" - and then walked away. So, two buffets came to $29.86 and I can tell you, I was PISSED that I didn't have exact change... I wanted to make a statement, but I didn't want to wait around another 1/2 hour so I left a twenty and a ten, and was forced to leave her a fourteen cent tip, and I can tell you that gnawed on me all day... she DID NOT deserve it!
I will not be eating there again - it's just principle.

So, where was I... yeah, the day of skiing was done, and I had the remnants of a six-pack in the fridge. We had a couple drinks, and decided on three or four places to check out for dinner. We walked to every one of them and checked out the menus.... I swear, if any of them had an entre for under $28, we probably would have eaten there. Again, it's not a money thing, it's principle. If you've never been to Whistler, you may not know that the prices are one step past rediculous - they're just stupid. If you go to a "Bread Garden" quality deli, would you expect to pay $21 for thawed and nuked lasagna portion? Naw, me either. We had hoped to have a nice dinner. but instead ended up at Citta. Yeah, it's a bar. But as far as bar food goes, it was good. Expensive as all F**K, but, this is Whister - at least it was good. We started with edamame, and it was awesome. I had a corn chipotle chicken and Carole had a goat cheese lasagna. We each had two drinks, and the grande total was $80 something plus tip. YES, I said this was a bar. Ah, vive la Whistler.

The next morning, I awoke to find that my legs didn't work, and my face was sunburt to all hell... YES! I put sunblock on before skiing!!! I swear! But now I've got goggle-face. We stretched our legs out by walking the village again, had breakfast at a coffee shop (the only deals in Whistler!), checked out, then made out way home. It was a BEAUTIFUL day - 12 degrees in Whistler, 17 degrees in Vancouver when we got home. The sky was clear blue all day, and the sun was shining the whole way. We got back before 2PM, and I spend an hour relaxing in the back yard. All told, the weekend that I budgeted at $300 cost a few pennies shy of $600, and despite all the crazy prices, setbacks, cancellations, errors, and screwups, we had a DAMN good time. Still good to be home though!