2026 travel plans

[GDSman]

The walk along the Bow river and also Princess Island Park is nice. The area between 2 and 4st SW up against the park, around the Eu Claire centre is good for cafes and a few restaurants. I liked ‘Joey Tomatoes’ on a Friday evening.

Check to see if there’s an ice hockey game on at the Saddledome. Absolutely go to it if you can. Fan engagement (so to speak) puts AFL to shame.

If you are up for a long walk, there is a trail along the Elbow river. Pick it up where 1st St SW crosses it and head upstream.

Stroll around Upper Mount Royal to see some very nice ( big!) houses.

The trams along 7th Ave SW used to be free for the length on the CBD.

Deville coffee in 2nd st SW used to have the best coffee in town

Saltlik a good steakhouse and Charcuterie at Le Germain also good, the latter expensive. 8 th Ave SE, west of 1st Street SE a mini strip of small restaurants.

Bars - I’m too out of date - sports bars are a big thing.

If you’re into hunt’n fish’n and camping then make the trip out to Bass Pro in the north of the city. A temple to all those things and an amazing experience just to walk around the huge store.

This is great @RooFlyer - thanks so much for these tips. I will have Friday late afternoon through till Saturday around 2pm so will try to take advantage of some of these...definitely up for a walk/bite/drink...

 

[VPS]

We're off next week - for 6 weeks in Yewrop (fka Europe ) - 1 week in Malta, 2 weeks in Sicily, 2 weeks in the Dolomites and 1 week in Austria. Flights:

• SYD-CAN-IST on China Southern $3000 pp in J one-way (after cancelling 2 different awards, one on VA/QR and one on TG)
• IST-MLA $400 pp in J on Malta Airways
• MLA-Catania on RyanAir for about $80 pp +++
• Palermo-MUC $800 pp on LH in J
• MUC-SIN-SYD on SQ J award

some excellent spots there - enjoy

 

[Beer_budget]

I fear we will come to regret not booking the intra-European flights earlier. The direct TRD-MUC LH flight has tripled in price (J now cheaper than flex Y), fortunately DL to TRD still cheap and cheerful. Will have to decide what the $$ pain point is before I suck it up and deal with an AMS transit instead.

Will have to start wrangling rellies and firming up the itinerary before it gets any worse.

Too many unknowns in the rellie wrangling, and the cousin near Gatwick is now moving to Spain (!), so pulled the trigger on an LH itinerary, Euro J LHR-TRD via FRA and TRD-MUC on the twice-weekly direct service. Almost $1000 cheaper through Amex Travel than booking direct for a refundable flex fare, cheaper even than a direct Y flex fare, and used my travel credit to book. It's a 9:30am departure from Heathrow so I've also booked the Hilton Garden Inn at T2/3 (it's fine, and very convenient - though a bit of a nightmare to get into by taxi).

 

[Seat0B]

Too many unknowns in the rellie wrangling, and the cousin near Gatwick is now moving to Spain (!), so pulled the trigger on an LH itinerary, Euro J LHR-TRD via FRA and TRD-MUC on the twice-weekly direct service. Almost $1000 cheaper through Amex Travel than booking direct for a refundable flex fare, cheaper even than a direct Y flex fare, and used my travel credit to book. It's a 9:30am departure from Heathrow so I've also booked the Hilton Garden Inn at T2/3 (it's fine, and very convenient - though a bit of a nightmare to get into by taxi).

Score!!!!

 

[Brucetiki]

Next trip for us is our annual footy trip. This year we're off to Sydney in July

 

[shuuy]

Thanks @RooFlyer . True, not a lot of time there. Get in Wednesday night, staying at the Westin on 4th. In conference Thur/Fri but I have Saturday morning for a bit of sightseeing so any tips are very much appreciated. Was just planning on walking around downtown and grabbing some lunch before flying home. Also any good bars or restaurants in the vicinity would be good.

The Calgary Stampeders (Canadian Football [Gridiron]) have their season opener on Friday the 5th if you are a big sportsperson. you could take the Light Rail to get there.

Caesar's Stakehouse is the OG (where the drink was founded), and would be the 1 place I go if I could. If you want more authentic Cow-town, take an Uber over to the Ship & Anchor Pub.

 

[Beer_budget]

Score!!!!

It's being somewhat offset by the eye watering cost of accommodation in Trondheim that week, and the friends we're visiting don't have reliable enough health to plan on staying with them.

You win some, etc.

 

[GDSman]

The Calgary Stampeders (Canadian Football [Gridiron]) have their season opener on Friday the 5th if you are a big sportsperson. you could take the Light Rail to get there.

Caesar's Stakehouse is the OG (where the drink was founded), and would be the 1 place I go if I could. If you want more authentic Cow-town, take an Uber over to the Ship & Anchor Pub.

Thanks @shuuy - I will be there on the 5th so that certainly sounds possible and Caesar's sounds like a must (I do like a Caesar) - thanks for the tips!

 

[Warks]

Just had a change to my flights by Finnair. We are flying on VA1 to Doha in August (J reward) and have a separate booking with Finnair to Stockholm via Helsinki. Email came through saying our flight had changed to be 30 minutes later BUT it was also now a QR flight. As we are on QR metal to Doha does that mean I can link the two flights regarding baggage now if I inform VA/QR I wonder?
If they cancel VA1 due to Trump's war this also gives me the get-out clause for this flight too.

 

[Beer_budget]

Too many unknowns in the rellie wrangling, and the cousin near Gatwick is now moving to Spain (!), so pulled the trigger on an LH itinerary, Euro J LHR-TRD via FRA and TRD-MUC on the twice-weekly direct service. Almost $1000 cheaper through Amex Travel than booking direct for a refundable flex fare, cheaper even than a direct Y flex fare, and used my travel credit to book. It's a 9:30am departure from Heathrow so I've also booked the Hilton Garden Inn at T2/3 (it's fine, and very convenient - though a bit of a nightmare to get into by taxi).

It's being somewhat offset by the eye watering cost of accommodation in Trondheim that week, and the friends we're visiting don't have reliable enough health to plan on staying with them.

You win some, etc.

The best laid plans etc. I wound up incredibly grateful I'd booked through Amex Travel on a cancellable, rebookable, reroutable fare, because we managed to time our (originally intended) Norway leg with a massive, biennial fishing convention that's booked out most of Trondheim's hotel capacity. Just on the three days we planned to be there. Since I actually didn't fancy $1300pn to stay in a Radisson Blu, we went back to the drawing board.

We originally had a full week in London, with plans to take a day trip Oop Norf to visit such rellies as are still with us by then. Instead, we'll have three nights in London, then fly to TRD for three days before it's overrun by fisher folk, then fly back to the UK into MAN. We'll hire a car for a few days, troop around the rellies from a base in the Lake District, or possibly along the Military Road somewhere, and then fly back out of Manchester to meet up with our friends as planned in Munich. Still undecided on direct flight vs via Zurich and rail, but leaning towards the latter at this stage.

I'll tell you what though, I did not have "finding an archnemesis in Nor Fishing" on my 2026 bingo card!

 

[kevviek]

I just booked my first overseas trip with wifey for what seems like forever, and hoping it's not going to be too adventurous.

Used CBA points and Travel Booking by hopr for the first part which is Melbourne to Lisbon. That had it's own challenges. I wanted to use a credit from a planned trip to Darwin last year that got cancelled due to the cyclone, and the only way I could do that was to book two separate legs, so I'm MEL-HKG on QF29 with 4.5 hrs before joining a Turkish Airways flight HKG-IST-LIS. I'm assuming that's enough time to collect and recheck baggage as both flights are listed as terminal 1.

I also had to do the first leg as separate bookings for each of us. I called Qantas today to get them linked, which has been done, but her ticket does not allow seat selection. I have Silver so I was able to do so for me, but wondering if she will automatically be allocated the seat next to me if we do nothing else?

Planning to drive from Portugal through spain to Granada then to Croatia (Split) via Barcelona. Heard suggestions the fast ferry is the best way to get from Split to Dubrovnik and then need to figure out what flights home to Melbs from there.

 

[luxury-lizard]

@kevviek - we recently (last week) transited IST and also needed to clear immigration, collect our luggage and re-check in with a different airline - it took about 30 minutes from landing to settled into the lounge. We arrived at 7am so the time could vary depending on when you arrive.

 

[kevviek]

@kevviek - we recently (last week) transited IST and also needed to clear immigration, collect our luggage and re-check in with a different airline - it took about 30 minutes from landing to settled into the lounge. We arrived at 7am so the time could vary depending on when you arrive.

HKG-IST-LIS is all on Turkish booked as single ticket so I assume that would be seamless? Stopover is 1hr 50 min

 

[I love to travel]

HKG-IST-LIS is all on Turkish booked as single ticket so I assume that would be seamless?

Yes