Canadian Rockies Road trip (Banff & Jasper)
British Columbia
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Aug 1 - Aug 7, 2022
Overall our Rockies Road trip (Banff & Jasper) was a wonderful and unforgettable experience. Our specialist Marie-Christine quickly understood what we wanted and tailored a trip plan to suit our needs, including booking hotels, rental car and the Banff Gondola ride (which was amazing!) .
The drive from Banff to Jasper and back was exhilarating. Even though we only stayed overnight at Jasper It was worth doing - the views of the Rockies on the drive were fantastic and we stopped off at several places en-route to see the sights such as Maligne Canyon, Athabasca and Sunwapta Falls and lake Peyto.
On the negative side, picking up the Budget rental car was not smooth Their rep (whose English was not good) said no cars were available for 1-2hours and actively tried to encourage us to try the other rental companies! Also I am glad we got a Parks Pass online for the duration of our stay on advice from a friend rather than buy as you go as suggested by M-C. It is cheaper and saved us having to queue at the highway checkpoints. Also it was not pointed out that you have to book online for a Lake Louise Excursion to get a slot for the park & ride. LL is so busy that we missed a morning slot while doing this process and, unfortunately , the day turned out to a damper in more ways than one as we were caught and utterly soaked by full a Rockies thunderstorm :( . Apart from this we were lucky with the weather.
We have returned with wonderful memories. If you are thinking about doing this - do it!
Hotel Reviews
Helpful staff. We enjoyed our stay there as a base into Banff (only about 30km away)
Beautiful Swiss style Inn Hotel.
Good place to crash overnight. Well designed rooms.
Activity Reviews
Banff is obviously the main tourist hub town. On our first day we did not find the rep at the Visitor Information Centre helpful - he was more interested in selling us multi-day bus passes which was irrelevant since we had a car. Anyway we figured it out ourselves by the second day.
Super way of seeing Banff, Bow River Valley and the surrounding peakis.
Thank you as well for your feedback, it is very helpful. I'm sorry that you had a negative experience with the car rental company, we'll follow up with them. As for the Parks Canada Passes, we've never had any issue before in terms of waiting time at the gates, but it's good that your friend recommended to buy the Discovery Pass ahead of time! In regards to access Lake Louise, finding a parking... Read more