July 2001 Montreal Research Report
A Somewhat Different View than Dave's
And Transportation Options
First of all, I would like to thank Dave for all the great information
he posted in his website.
I got a lot good stuff there. However, I had quite a bit of different experiences
in my recent trip to Montreal. Therefore, I decided to write up this report.
I intended to cover some of the things that Dave didn't include in his report.
I hoped this would be useful to your future trips to Montreal.
The areas that I will be covered are: transportation (rental car, airport
shuttle, metro and buses); money matter (exchange booth, bank, credit card,
ATM card, tax refund); daytime activities; escort (incall, outcall, my experience).
All prices are quoted in Canadian Dollars, except for the one's label in "US$"
* Transportation (rental car, airport shuttle, metro, buses):
If you are only going to be around Montreal area (as you are not planning
to drive to anywhere more than one hour away), I highly recommend NOT to rent
car at all. A rental car is way too expensive to keep, it cost at least $35
per day to rent them. Gas are about the same as in the US. However, you will
have to pay to park almost everywhere in Montreal. If you stay around downtown
area, you'll need to pay about $15 per night to park at the hotel's lot or
somewhere near by. These costs can add a big chunk to your trip expenses.
Furthermore, you can waste a lot time the downtown as the traffic are quite
heavy most of the time.
From my own experience, I rent a car from the "Dollars Rental Agency". After
two days of the above experiences, I decided to return the car. It turned
out, they charged $1,000 at 1.497:US$1 to my credit card initially. Then,
they refunded the balance at 1.538:US$1 when I returned the car. This costed
me US$16 in exchange rate differences for nothing. Other than the above mentioned
expenses, my rental car also got scratched by the hotel's drivers which it
costed me a bit of time to file paper work with the insurance.
So! How do I get to downtown Montreal from the (Dorval) airport? There is
Airport Shuttle Bus right outside of the terminal which they leave every 30
minutes. It cost $12.50 one-way and $19.75 round trip. They will drop you
off and pick you to/from your hotel. However, you'll need to reserve the pick
up two hours ahead on your way out.
In my experience, they didn't tell me about the two hours reservation required
when I bought the ticket. When I called for pick up, the bitch at the reservation
desk had a real bad attitude. She refused to provide neither any help nor
giving any direction about how to get to there terminal. With the direction
for the guys at the hotel, I ended up walking down to the main shuttle bus
terminal about eight blocks away. When I got to the shuttle bus station, I
saw the pickup coach pulled with only one passenger in it.
The following bus route information would be my way of re-paid that bitch
at the reservation desk.
For the more adventurous type of people whom have only a carry-on or a backpack,
this is a cheaper ($6) solution here. Once outside of Dorval Airport terminal,
you need walk for about 175 meters to catch the number 204 bus for a short
ride, then transfer to number 190 bus at "Gare Dorval" and ride to the end
of the line, then transfer to metro line 1 (Green) at "Lionel-Groulx", then
you may get off at most downtown area along the metro line.
This information was obtained from:
http://www.stcum.qc.ca/English/a-somm.htm
-> Tous Azimuts (How to get there...) -> Start ("Tous azimuts") -> Text Search
-> Important place (by list) -> Airport -> O Dorval -> Metro or train station
-> Guy-Concordia (destination) -> Accept -> Calculate (make your choices)
-> Calculate
or
http://www.stcum.qc.ca/azimuts/calcul.wcs?lng=a&jparc=semaine&pmarc=oui&hdep1=08&hdep2=00&umetro=oui&utrain=non&MADITUC=Calculate
Map from Dorval Airport terminal and the number 204 bus route:
http://www.stcum.qc.ca/English/bus/PLAN_LIG/A-PL204.htm
Map for the number 190 bus route:
http://www.stcum.qc.ca/English/bus/PLAN_LIG/A-PL190.htm
Map for the metro lines:
http://www.stcum.qc.ca/English/metro/a-mapmet.htm
As for getting around in Montreal, the Metro and buses are fairly good. The
cost is $2 per ride the Metro which you can also get transfer ticket for the
buses near the exit. If you are going only one place, it'll be better to go
with the single journey ticket. If you going to many places, it will cheaper
just to buy a one day tourist ticket for $7 (or $14 for 3 days) which you
get unlimited rides for buses and metro system from 5:00 AM to 1:00 AM for
that day (or days).
In my experience, I bought the single journey ticket for the day I visited
the Biodome Park for the entire day and I bought the whole day ticket for
the other days which I was sight seeing in multiple places.
One final note, a Montreal street map from "AAA" is really useful and essential.
* money matter (exchange booth, bank, credit card, ATM card)
I arrived on a weekday. The banks were opened. Unlike Dave's experiences,
although I did seeing better rate at most exchange booths along St. Catherine's,
but they were all scams. Because, they would charge you another 2%-4% worth
of service charge. For example: I saw the rate posted as 1.4941:US$1, the
real rate was 1.4343:US$1 after the service charge. Whereas, the banks were
offering 1.4928:US$1 at the same time. The bank I had good experience with
was Bankquo Royale on St. Catherine.
For US travel checks, the banks offer a bit better rate (a few Canadian pennies
more per US$1). However, they do charge a flat $2.50 per transaction. Therefore,
you may want to get your travel check exchange done in one lump sum.
Ask for credit cards, they do offer better rates. You may pay all the other
expenses like restaurant and lodging with your credit card. However, all the
escorts in Montreal are cash only.
I've seen ATM's in the banks but I didn't try them.
Yes, you may get a refund of the sale tax (15%) for any single receipt with
a pre-tax amount of $50 or greater. In fact, you can even get a cash refund
right at 4th floor of the department store: Ogilvy on St. Catherine between
Crescent and De La Montagne during normal business hours. Otherwise, you can
file your refund through mail. The forms are available at the hotels. Beware
of the forms with the white envelope at the airport though, they are from
some kind of service company which they will charge you something like 20%
handling fee. Why pay them a fee if you can send the forms in yourself! The
bad new is that you can no longer claiming tax refund on your hotel bills
after Sep. 2001.
* daytime activities
As most of the report talks about the escorts and girls only. It can be out
right boring during the day or when you are not screwing/drinking. The followings
are a few suggested places to visit during the day.
Jean-Drapeau Park is a nice place to walk around, take some pictures or even
have a picnic/lunch. It can be reach with the Metro line 4 (yellow), and get
off at the Jean-Drapeau station.
The Biodome and the Jardin Botanical Garden are two huge parks at the East
side of Montreal. It may take you two days to go through the parks. The complete
ticket package is $24 and it is good for 30 days. They accept credit cards.
You can get there with metro line 1 (green) and get off at Viau station.
Angrignon Park is the Western end of metro line 1 (green). It is a great place
for a nice and quiet picnic.
The underground city is also a good place to check out (especially during
the Winter with sub-zero outdoor temperature). They are huge clusters of underground
shopping malls along the metro line in the downtown area. In addition to the
shops, there are a lots of food courts there which they sell good food from
all part of the world. They are great take outs for picnic and lunches. Sometimes,
you may even pick up some nice dinner there if you are too tired to go out.
Their prices are very reasonable and you don't need to pay any tips.
Here is a map of the underground city:
http://www.stcum.qc.ca/English/metro/mtl-sout.pdf
If you want to visit the nearby towns, there are commuter trains which they
connect to the metro. You can go down the station check out for yourself.
In addition, there are half day and one day cruise along the Saint Lawrence
River. You can find the information all over the town.
* escort (incall, outcall, my experience)
Most guys prefer outcalls simply because they are just convenience. However,
the cost can add up a bit higher as most hotels charge $1 per each local call.
In addition, the girls will make a couple times to their agencies and drivers
once there. Then, it can be hard and costly to send the girl back if you don't
really like her for any reason.
On the side of the token, most guys may think that you'll need a car to visit
the incall places. Actually, you really don't need a car as quite a few of
the incalls are located in the downtown area which you can get there be metro
and a short walk. The nice thing about incalls is easier for you walk out
if you don't like the girl.
However, I observed some facts about these downtown incalls in trip. The situation
was that the agencies would rent an apartment around the downtown area for
a very short period like a couple days to a week and one girl would station
there at a time. Some girls would stay there up to 12 hours whereas some may
stay for a few hours. The agencies would give the direction how to get there
when you called for an appointment, and you needed to call the agencies again
once there (around the block). Then, they would tell you which apartment and
etc.. All of those apartments were nice residential places. So, you would
need to keep in low key as there were few legal issues here. After all, these
girls were not paying income tax.
This also brought up the phone call issue here, there were public phones almost
every street corner in the downtown area and the local call were 25 cents
each. Many of the phone booths even have doors which they provided a little
privacy. After my first night, I made all of my agency calls at the public
phone booths instead of paying $1 plus tax at the hotel. One more fact, the
hotel would print out the phone number you called onto your bill, how nice!
Yes, I agreed with Dave that most of these girls were intelligent. One of
the girl was telling me about diversified investment whereas another one was
telling she was able to install WindownXP by herself. In addition, many of
them hated paying their income tax! I would say no doubt these girls were
very intelligent.
The following are my experiences with some of the agencies:
Although there were many good opinion about Fantasme, my experience with Fantasme
wasn't very good however. First, the jack ass who answered my call by the
name of Richard was kind of cocky. He told me that no girls would do kisses
or bbbj and etc... when I asked. So, I asked him who was available, he suggested
that I might want to try out of one of his girl whom provided better services.
At the end, he sent me a much older girl whom wasn't attractive at all. I
felt bad to send her back in my first night there. But, I have never called
back to Fantasme for the rest of trip. Overall, that experience was below
average.
I visited two different incall location from Private. First time visited Annie
at De Maisonneuve. She was great! She allowed everything except anal sex.
Overall, it was a great experience. Second time visited Annik at Hutchingson.
She was a bit older. We had some good conversation. However, the sex was so
so.
I also visited another incall at 582-6068. The man: Jacque who answered the
phone was very nice. The girl named Cynthia there was nice.
Unlike Fantasme, the girls at all the incalls I visited all allowed kissing
and bbbj. I was glad that I didn't call back that stupid agency.
Here are some update to Dave's and Robin's spread sheet:
971-7888 (Elegance) -------: don't understand the recording in French 931-3411
(Melissa) --------: don't understand the recording in French 935-4206 (Best
Kept Secret): wrong number 984-1920 (Choose an Escort): disconnected (or Choose
other Escort) 846-1077 (Cosmopolitan) ---: disconnected
Questions and comments (no flame please):
noexistir@hotmail.com
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