Toronto Residence Inn-Ants are Okay but your paying pet is a nuisance

We have been staying at Residence Inns' for years, it is the only Marriott that takes pets.  As a pet owner that travels with their pet you learn that getting nice accommodations with a pet is increasingly more difficult. One also does sympathize with hoteliers that all pets and pet owners are not well mannered and respectful of the property and other guests.  I do not have a solution to that and understand that simply me saying that my little dog is the most docile, quiet and obedient dog that I have ever seen little less having the privilege of being her human has probably been heard before by the front desk and proven untrue.

Now of course is the HOWEVER, if you say you accept pets, and you charge $100 regardless of how long they stay they shouldn't be relegated to the floor and perhaps the room known to have an infestation of ants.
We should have said something when we went into the room and there were no less than 5 ant traps.  We mused that since it is December and very cold someone had just not picked them up.  Well of course you feed your pet in a bowl that you put on the floor.

I prepared her dish from freshly opened packages that I had brought with me placed her dish on the floor.  In her typical Princess fashion she did not immediately wolf it down (it's hard for a Shih Tzu to wolf), in probably 5 to 10 minutes I went to check to see how she was doing with eating in a new place...to my horror she had eaten about half of the food and was sitting in front of her bowl shaking her little fuzzy head vigorously, hmmm, I looked in her bowl and there was about 100 ants!  I should have taken a picture, but my immediate reaction was to make sure she was okay.

I grabbed the bowl wrapped it in a plastic bag then started an in depth examination of Miss Ambassadorable.  I gave her a thorough exam, washed her face, chest, paws, gave her a prescription ear wash that we carry for her because of allergies.  When she seemed calmer I took the bowl to the front desk.  The front desk manager was seemingly as horrified as I was and did in about a half an hour switch us to an upper floor.  We were told that we could not have an upper floor when we checked in because we had a dog, dogs had to be on the first floor.

In fairness to the Inn, they did move us and comp'd our last night, they provided a name of a vet in case we needed to take the fuzzy one for an exam.  Think how delighted I was after months of planning for our long trek to Europe with a pet, that we might miss a plane because the hotel had such infestation that my precious little one got too sick to fly...little less be imported to Europe.  I was shaking down to my core.

She seems to be fine no more head shaking, she is adorable and cute and fluffy and in about 3 hours we are on a flight to Paris.  Thank you front desk hotel clerk from righting the best you could a stunning hotel experience, but I am done with Residence Inn by Marriott.  Pets are not welcome.

We Did It! Colorado to Toronto-First Leg of an Undetermined Legged NEXT!

So much has happened since the last post when I said triumphantly that we were going to buy tickets, which we did....but it is stunning how difficult it is to travel with a pet in-cabin across the Atlantic.  Thank you Air Canada!  

 So much planning has gone into this trip, months in reality, and it hasn't been without the help and support of our children and grandchildren. The family was almost all together for a wonderfully big Thanksgiving Dinner, a great way to begin a big adventure. Thank you, even the tiniest baby helped with her beautiful little smile when we cuddled her bye bye for now.  The tallest grandbaby gave us sweet hugs and we hold them dear forever.  Daughter you were instrumental in getting the last of the house ready for our extended trek, we simply could not have stepped on the plane without your organizational push, no wonder you are so good at what you do, thank you. Son, thank you for the ride to the airport with sister it was great to get the extra time and funny stories, we love you both so much.

We are spending a couple of days in Toronto in order for us and Miss Ambassadorable to rest up for the flight to Paris. Being OCD when it comes to planning we have a couple of errands to do today before we get on the plane tonight....and of course have a little time to watch some of our Broncos today...go Manning.  

There is much more to say....but I will do that later.  The next topic will be Marriott Residence Inn Toronto, Ants and their Pet Policy.  The pic is Miss Ambassadorable patiently waiting on her Princess pillow in our new room that is NOT infested with ants

How on earth did I get here?

How did a little girl born in poverty of a 15 year old mother and a father who was almost twice her age and with a very sketchy past get to this spot in life of wondrous anticipation?  Well, the truth of it is that is was hard, required a lot of determination to NOT be what I saw all around me.  There just had to be more.  There is more, every step of the way, there is simply more if you reach and if your hand gets smacked you reach again.

Not to ramble about with this blog thing but perhaps I should say what wondrous thing is going on.  I retired, my husband is about to retire and we are going to Europe for at least 6 months to wander around, learn, see, meet, experience, reach for more.  Tomorrow we buy the tickets.

It is a big step.  We will rent out our home, we aren't going on an organized tour, we do know our first couple of locations but after that we will methodically find together the things we have read about all of our lives.  Oh, I forgot to mention we are taking our beloved little Shih Tzu.  We have been talking of this trip for 5 years and planning it for the last year.  Did I mention tomorrow we buy the tickets?

There is a lot of planning and research that goes into a trip like this and the 'next' people we are becoming.  This blog is just one example.  This week I will link all of the key resources that we have been using to give us our high degree of confidence to travel vicariously.

That Which Seems Like the End is Only the Beginning

Well, here I am in an unexpected place, a person that has always been pretty private, with a small group of friends.  But something big is about to happen and it's time to change my ways.  Perhaps the something big is just for me and my little niche of my world, but nonetheless to me it is big. This "blogging" thing is not the first step in all of the changes that have been taking place the last couple of years, it is a vehicle to facilitate MORE.

Travel Vicariously will be talking about a journey to be sure...but it is so much more than planes trains and automobiles.  Travel Vicariously will be life learning, loving, moving on and perhaps endings.  Shouldn't all of life travels have been for something?