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PET FRIENDLY?
Because my dog was a huge part of my family (sadly she passed away in February 2007) I was always looking for pet friendly places to vacation. Most places I come across seem great but there are those places that charge what I would consider outrageous amounts to bring your pet, some of which have even been brought to my attention by petfriendly.ca. One establishment wanted $50 per night..per night, not per visit....that's not pet friendly. My impression is that they don't really want you to bring your pet but if you do they'll make it worthwhile for themselves. How much damage and/or extra cleaning is required if a pet has stayed in a room? I believe that people who love their pets so much that they want to take them on vacation with them are the same people who take excellent care of their pets, always clean and healthy, free of fleas. I would love to find information so that I could compare the amount of damage/mess done by pets compared to the amount of damage/mess done by children. I bet people who's pets damage the place where they stay are more than willing to pay for damages, I would certainly expect to if my pet caused damage....but I'm sure many people who's children cause damage, writing on walls, breaking things, etc., feel that children are young and things happen so it is supposed to be considered acceptable. Oddly enough many hotels don't charge for children under a certain age when they are with their parents. I wonder if anyone has ever taken the time to do some research and see whether animals or children cause more problems, perhaps the extra charge shouldn't be for the pets.
Now, before anyone gets upset with me I am NOT saying that all children behave poorly, many are wonderful and a joy to be around...the same goes for pet owners.
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When I go on vacation, I usually leave my pet with one of my family or friends. I can't afford $50/day for my pet. Well not on my budget anyways. If you can afford it, then by all means cause they are like family.
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Note from Moderator: link has been removed, as we do not allow links to sites that sell pets for profit.
The Marriot in downtown Ottawa (at end of Sparks Street Mall)is amazing.
simply fantastic!
bonus: fastest elevators I have ever seen & we were on the 18th floor with a 5 month old Lab
I agree that $50 is a bit much! I have never yet gone on vacation with my dog yet, but we are planning on it sometime next year. I'm hoping to find somewhere that doesn't charge so much! Where does everyone find their pet-friendly accommodation when they go on vacation? I don't really know how to go about this. My family and I are considering renting a holiday house or apartment, but I image not any regular rental agency will allow pets, or am I wrong? I have researched some sites, and these are some of sites I thought looked good so far:
http://www.vacationhomes.com/pet-friendly-vacation-rentals/
The houses look nice but they seem quite large and a little bit costly. I also found this site which lists nice accommodation options (you can narrow down the results by checking that you want pets to be allowed):
http://www.casamundo.co.uk/
This site also looks decent:
http://www.petvacationhomes.com/
Any other suggsetions of how I can go about finding a pet-friendly home rental agency, I would appreciate it!
Some places that advertise "No pets" on their websites will accept pets if you call and ask. Don't take what is written as the only option. We found a great condo to rent over Christmas by calling and asking if we could bring our dog. They were fine with it as long as we brought his kennel. Do get this in writing/email though just in case there are any misunderstandings when you get there.
I found this Pet Friendly website to be a great resource for places to stay that don't just "allow" pets but really welcome them. We stayed at a great place in Tofino called MacKenzie Beach Resort that provided mats for food bowls, dog towels, and a place to hose the sand off their feet. Lovely place.
The Accent Inn in most towns are pet friendly and give dog cookies at the registration desk. They charge a small extra fee.
Hi! I'm one of those people who have paid $50/night, lol. We left our dog once in a fabuolous "kennel" out in the country where the owners took him for runs in a safe fenced area and spent time with him. After all of our "upgrades" to make sure he got what he was used to at home, we paid MORE THAN $50/day to BOARD him! We would rather take him with us on holidays. We do think $50/night is high to stay in a hotel but if it is the right place we would probably still pay it again. Maybe I'm crazy, lol, but it's worth it to us (for the right place).
I agree with you Furbies, I'll pay anything if it makes things work out for my pet and my family but it's the point. If the place was truly pet friendly they certainly wouldn't charge $50 per night. If they were trying to do what they want us to think they'd charge a refundable damage deposit and then maybe a reasonable nightly or one time fee, but it doesn't cost them these huge amounts to do extra cleaning because a pet was there (and if it did that's where the damage deposit would come into play). Can't remember if I mentioned this in my first post or not but I came across one place that charged $20 for your entire stay and they donated that money to the SPCA. I sent them an email telling them how they were what a pet friendly place should be...they responded that they've never had a dog jam a tape in the VCR backwards or break wine glasses (they agreed with me that in general children cause much more damage). Anyway, just my opinion.
I will preface my post by stating that my wife and I used to own a pet-friendly vacation cottage. We were pet owners ourselves and agree that (in general) there is more damage caused by children. I am of the opinion, however, that accommodations should and must charge a pet fee. I can't say how much is "reasonable". We charged $25 per night on an average nightly rate of $250, so about 10% for a pet fee.
None of our guests ever complained about the fee but I suppose it is possible that they didn't like it and just didn't speak up. From our point of view the pet fee helps to pay for all of the "pet extras": our securely fenced "dog run" through the trees, which required maintenance every year not to mention the grassy area within the dog run (playing dogs are fun to watch but they tear up the turf). Our separate "dog beach", complete with poop bags, even though many people never used them and in the end it was up to us to clean up after the dogs. The huge amount of cleaning supplies we needed to clean up after pets (vacuum bags alone cost us a fortune, so did mop heads).
From a practical standpoint we can tell guests they are responsible for picking up after their dog, but if they don't do it, how would we ever "prove" that the dog poop was theirs and not some other guests? We end up doing the cleaning because we don't want the other guests to see it. That is only one example of the work that goes in to allow pets. We did consider our cottage to be very much "pet-friendly" but there is no way we would have allowed dogs even for $10 or $15 a night. I can't speak for other hotels or cottages or resorts but in my opinion there is more to being "pet-friendly" than the amount of money charged for your pet. Also I know that we personally lost a few bookings because we allowed pets.
By the way, we used to have dogs too. We paid the pet fees because we understand them. Maybe one way to look at it is to see how much the pet fees are in relation to the overall nightly fee. If I were asked to pay a $50 pet fee per night for a $100 room, I would be outraged. A $50 pet fee per night on a $300 a night cottage in a pet-friendly environment (room to run, dog beach, whatever) I might be more willing to accept.
Just my two cents.
Taking your pets on your travel or vacation is much pleasing to your pets and in fact you're giving them much attention that they deserve but paying $50 a night is too much! Anyway, I have found a website re taking your pets on vacation or while traveling with them. I hope this will help you.:) http://blogs.trb.com/features/lifestyle/pets/blog/2008/07/happy_trails_a.... Cheers!
Hi Susan,
Thanks for your post. While we can't comment on children, we can comment on travelling with pets! Pet Friendly is in a unique position where we get to hear from both sides (travellers with pets, as well as the accommodations that allow pets). There are lots of people, like you, who feel that $50/night is too much. There are also many who object to paying ANY fee at all. Then there are people who are frequent travellers and expect to pay a pet fee.
Like you mentioned, there are lots of very responsible pet owners (and the accommodations will tell you this too -- many of them say that visiting pets are extremely well-behaved). But there is also a small group of travellers who don't care, or don't know any better.
Examples of cleaning/damages are: cleaning up of fur (random stray dog hairs are difficult to remove from carpets and furnishings); accidents in the room (hey, sometimes accidents just happen, even to the most responsible dog owner); "freshening" the air (wet dogs in particularly don't smell that great!); excessive barking (which disturbs other guests who may leave, costing the hotel business); and picking up after dogs when the owners don't bother to do it themselves.
Ideally, people would pay for the damages that their pets cause but that's not always true. Even for those that do pay for damages, sometimes it only covers part of the true replacement / repair cost.
Every accommodation sets different fees. Everyone has a point where they feel the pet fees are too expensive. Fortunately more and more accommodations are now allowing pets so there are a fair number to choose from -- if the pet fee (or pet policies) aren't to your liking, you're able to find another place.
Thanks for your comments and happy travels!
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