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