Travelodge Calgary University

I picked this hotel as a reasonably priced one not too far from the Calgary airport, to serve our needs on the first night in town on our June/July, 2006 trip. Based on previous business and personal trips all over North America, I have always found this chain to be good value for money, and this one was no exception. We were a bit late arriving at the hotel, because our luggage had not arrived with us on our 4:30 PM landing when we checked for it on the baggage carousel. That was no big surprise because our flight out of Fredericton had been an hour late and we barely made it onto the connecting flight out of Toronto, so I thought the bags would likely be on one of the subsequent Toronto-Calgary flights. We registered the lost bags with Air Canada and then continued on our merry way to check-in and meet up with our youngest daughter.

Unique Quality: The hotel had the usual comfortable beds and all the necessary amenities, including a nice breakfast area (2nd photo) in the lobby where a free breakfast could be had, and it was good I might add. I was pleased to see that the hotel was equipped with a wireless internet system so I could check up on our home emails with my laptop while on the road. After we had met our daughter and her boyfriend at the nearby 'The Keg' restaurant, we returned to our room to see what had happened to our luggage. I checked on the Air Canada web site and there was no news. Sue called their 1-800 number and still no news at all. That was it, at 10 PM (1 AM our home time) we headed back to the airport to check things out for ourselves. Luckily, it was only a 15-20 minute drive to the airport and I left Sue in the idling car outside the area where we had earlier checked for our bags. When I entered the building to the luggage carousel, there were our bags circling around with all the others from another inbound flight! I picked them up, went to the Air Canada desk with my missing stub so they could delete the issue and headed back to the Holiday Inn Express. We were very glad to get the bags, because we were heading out of Calgary first thing in the morning for the 7 hour drive to Cold Lake where our oldest daughter lives! Our total room cost was C$129 (~US$114) and I am really glad I picked one close to the airport!

Directions: After landing, drive south to Route 1 'TransCanada Highway' and head west for quite a few blocks until you come to Banff Trail West. Turn right and it is immediately on your left.