We’ve come to the end of another great trip, and shortly it will be time to head home.
On the day we arrived at the Banff Springs, I talked about the Gold lounge, but I didn’t post any photos. Below are a few photos of the lounge where we had many of our morning and evening meals this week. Because we had breakfast early, and also because the holiday weekend is over, I was able to get a few photos without crowds of people.
This was a nice cozy spot to relax with a drink by the fire!
The kitchen area was very well set up.
This is an additional lounge area across the hall.
As I mentioned before, I’m not sure I’d choose to stay on the gold floor here again. The lounge itself is nice enough, but I find it large and not as personal as Fairmont Gold at other properties we frequent. We also get better views from our regular suite on the 6th floor. This hotel has nice lounges, restaurants and common areas, which are just fine for spending time.
After breakfast, I managed to secure a massage appointment at the Willow Stream Spa, which is probably our favourite spa anywhere. It was a nice way to finish the trip; to relax the sore muscles from the skiing and hiking.
We checked out of our room and headed downstairs to load up our van. I’m always impressed by the lobby here.
Before leaving town, we decided to drive down the hill to Bow falls at the intersection of the Bow and Spray Rivers, just to see it up close in winter. There’s not nearly as much water flowing over the falls in the winter!
Here is a short video panorama.
And then it was time to drive to Calgary to head home.
Upon arrival in Calgary, we stopped for lunch, and saw that bad weather back east was causing havoc with airline schedules today. The weather was fabulous here, but the aircraft we needed was still delayed somewhere else. Our early afternoon flight was delayed multiple times, eventually leaving well past midnight. Fortunately, we were able to standby for an earlier flight, which was also badly delayed from earlier this morning, but ended up leaving not too long after our original flight was scheduled to depart. The list of delayed passengers hoping to get on the flight was long, so were very happy when the gate agent called us up before boarding. Not the smoothest travel day we’ve ever had, and we had to take an involuntary downgrade from Business Class (for which Air Canada was later good about refunding the ticket price difference), but we made it back home safely.
It was a great trip and a great skiing experience, and we’re excited to return next winter. Skiing the rest of the winter back home in Ontario is going to be quite the let down!
