Denver’s off and Montreal is on. This is good news. I have no problem with Denver and was looking forward to going, but I am more excited about a trip that involves a passport.

I generally don’t have much use for those last minute travel sites, since I like to start my planning months in advance, but this time it worked out great. Here’s what I did.

1. I went to http://www.11thhourvacations.com (recommended by a friend who bought a trip through that site and didn’t get ripped off)
2. I chose the Last Minute tab and put in my home airport (unlike a lot of these sites, it lets you choose even dinky airports like Cedar Rapids and Des Moines), then chose International and All Cities.  You can be more specific, but I wanted to see all my options.
3. A search resulted in the “Montreal, Canada: Luxury Hotel Getaway” package.
4. I chose my hotel, my flight times, and boom, done. We even get to earn frequent flier miles, which is another thing a lot of discounters don’t let you do

They also had a regular hotel getaway, but it was the same price, so why bother? Granted, we’re probably getting the smallest, cheapest room in the place, but it’ll be fun to stay at the Ritz Carlton Montreal anyway.

Best of all, it was downright affordable. Let’s just say that 2 round-trip plane tickets from Cedar Rapids and 4 nights at the Ritz were in the same price range as some of the hyper-modern cribs Denny was interested in. I think the money is better-spent on this; babies have no taste.