The Place to Stay

When going to the Olympics, one of the most critical things to get is The Place to Stay. I started looking for our place about a year out and finally reserved our condo through the Vacation Rentals By Owner (www.vrbo.com), which is a service I've used a couple times now for things like ski condos and beach houses, etc. You type in the location, they show you all the places that match and have availability. They all have pictures, prices, maps, types of payment accepted, everything you need to know to get the place you want. With the Olympics everything was about 2-5% what it normally goes for and with a limited budget on what we felt we wanted to pay for the location we wanted, it was quite a challenge (many places were going for $1000+/night!)

Part of my goal in planning for the Olympics was to make things as stress free as possible. I wanted to be close enough to everything such that we didn't need a car. I knew parking would be basically non-existant at the games, plus I wanted to be green and mainly walk to events/pavilions/bars. Anything else, I wanted to use public transportation; so location was a huge priority. We were so lucky with the place we finally settled on: A condo right on the Seawall, across the street from the Science Centre, 2 blocks from the Skytrain, 5 min walk to the BC Place (Opening Ceremonies Venue) and several Olympic Pavilions. The location is sweet!

Inside our Condo is amazing in so many ways! It is in a beautiful glass sided condo with 1 bedroom, 2 bath, beautiful granite kitchen, gas fireplace, and enclosed glass patio. The place is really swanky.

Our hosts Ken and Nancy are completely awesome as well. They live a few floors higher in the same building and were so gracious and hospitable when I met them on the first day. They not only did the usual receiving me in the lobby/showing me around. They had stocked the place up! We had a food basket with cheese, red wine,

fruit, chocolates, nuts! The had gone out and bought pastries, milk, o.j., water, pop, placed an additional white wine chilling in the fridge, and the two best things: frozen pizza and beer.

I was so hungry when I arrived from Seattle and I was so grateful,

O totally and went to town on all the snacky-snacks. They also incredibly social and invited me up for wine and to admire the view (which is amazing and faces the Seawall harbor) and talk Olympics. Nancy and Ken Rock!