Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The fitness center has had a recent upgrade and is now lined with slick, state-of-the-
art equipment.
PAN PACIFIC VANCOUVER
HOTEL
$$$
( 800-663-1515, 604-662-8111;
www.vancouver.panpacific.com
; 999 Canada Place; d $319;
; Waterfront)
This luxe Canada Place hotel starts with a cavernous lobby,
complete with its own clutch of totem poles. The large rooms, many with panoramic
Burrard Inlet vistas, are no less impressive; they come with decadent maple-wood fur-
nishings and the kind of beds where the linen thread-count is off the scale. More pam-
pering required? Hit the luxurious on-site spa, a city fave.
The downtown core is minutes away by foot, and Gastown (great for nightlife) is just
around the corner.
VANCOUVER'S TALLEST HOTEL TOWER
Standing at the corner of Thurlow and W Georgia Sts and craning your neck sky-
wards to the building dominating the intersection is a somewhat futile gesture:
however hard you try, you won't see much of the rooftop garden sitting up top.
The city's loftiest artificial green space, it resides at the apex of what became
Vancouver's tallest building when it opened its doors in 2009. Housing the ul-
traluxurious Shangri-La Hotel (
Click here
)
on its first 15 floors, the Shangri-La is
a sheer 201m glass box that beats the city's previous record holder - the dark-
glassed One Wall Centre at 1088 Burrard St - by more than 50m. Slick con-
dominiums occupy the rest of the building above the hotel, including one 'pent-
house estate' that was reputedly sold for $15 million. Check out the raised box
blip that sticks out a little from the rest of the building's mirror-like fascia: its loc-
ation marks the previous height limit for buildings in the city.
West End
BUCHAN HOTEL
HOTEL
$
( 800-668-6654, 604-685-5354;
www.buchanhotel.com
; 1906 Haro St; d $139, with shared
bathroom $99;
;
5)
The cheap and cheerful 1926-built Buchan has bags of
