Originally Posted by
kcaluwae
I will be staying for the first time in a Fairmont hotel soon at Jasper.
The hotel has a very interesting winter package with snowshoes, skates,etc. for a relatively cheap resort fee of $ 30.
Does the hotel in Banff offer a similar package? It looks like a very stylish hotel but at twice the price of its namesake in Jasper I would expect something more than just a room.
Has somebody experienced this hotel in winter?
Is it worth paying twice the price of the Fairmont in Jasper, as well as on average double the prices of other hotels in Banff?
While both hotels are located in their respectively named National Parks in the Canadian Rockies, they are very different hotels. The Fairmont in Jasper is named the "Jasper Park Lodge", not "hotel", because of what it is. They do have a main hotel building where there are some rooms and all of the services and dining options, but it is mostly a sprawling property around a mountain lake, with individual cabins around the grounds that you stay in. It is well set up for things like skating and snowshoeing. If you are looking for a hotel in Banff to partake in ice skating, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, etc. right from the hotel's front door, then you will find more of that at the Chateau Lake Louise than the Banff Springs Hotel. The Banff Springs is in a lovely mountain setting, but would focus more on travellers looking for a more luxury hotel experience than a luxury outdoor adventure experience. The Chateau Lake Louise is a mix of the two.
In the winter, the most popular outdoor service to guests of the Banff Springs is probably the free shuttle bus to the area ski hills, rather than skates and snowshoes (which they do have, although I've not used them so don't know if they're free or come with an additional rental charge). However, they do have a small outdoor skating rink. But unlike Lake Louise and Jasper, the Banff Springs is not on the shore of a lake, so it's a man-made skating rink.
I've stayed at all three of them several times, and they are all great places. Jasper is normally cheaper than the other two, probably because it is twice as far from any international airport. Jasper National Park, in general, receives half the number of tourists than Banff National Park.