Public being Shut Out of Olympics

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by EdinVan

Why do people divulge these kinds of personal details? Couldn't your point have been made without referring to your comfortable financial situation?

Would it matter if they divulged they spent $500 on tickets to U2? or $500 on repairs to their car? or buying U2 tickets instead of repairing the car? Having that kind of money to spend doesn't automatically make someone financially comfortable.

I would raise my eyebrows if someone talked (bragged) about getting the $68K Molson Beer Tent package ...

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

Ha, for a city that sells tourism, we have a shameful amount of hotel rooms even for regular crowds. Try getting a Hotel in CoV or Richmond or Burnaby on short notice any week in the summer. If you can, typically it will be in the hundreds a night for a room that hardly has space for a queen size bed and TV (except November, which is our low low season).

I forget the numbers, but we are right near the bottom when it comes to number of hotel rooms for cities in North America.

It sucks for the Olympic Visitors trying to stay here, but believe me, it sucks the rest of the year, every year, too.

They may be full during the summer, but not in the off-season (more than just November). The problem is Vancouver is such a seasonal destination, building more rooms will exacerbate the low occupancy in the winter.

[Radster]

Just read the 3 pages in here, and I must say that I too am frustrated with Vanoc by this point. I have been dreaming of attending the Games in person, especially the Winter Olympics, since I was a kid, so now with Vancouver hosting them, I have my chance, as I was not living in Canada during the Calgary Games. I lucked out by having a good friend of mine move from Ottawa to Vancouver a couple years ago, as this means I now have a free place to stay at during the Olympics, right downtown Vancouver in a condo tower.

My main beef has to do with tickets! My Vancouver friend signed up the before Phase I of sales, and so did I. I got NOTHING in the first phase, as I did not opt for any packages, I wanted specific events (no, not gold medal hockey!) like ski jumping in Whistler, short-track speed skating, etc. My friend scored tickets to women's bobsleigh run 1&2, YAY OMG!!!!!!! (NOT!).

Then in the second phase I got tickets to the Sweden vs Belarus men's prelim hockey game, which is ok (I can cheer for Alfredsson since I am a Sens fan).

Phase III - NADA!

So now I will be depending on scalpers and/or the official Vanoc ticket reselling website which is not up yet.

Now, for getting to/from Whistler. WTF is it so damn expensive? This Riderbooker.com just SCREAMS MONOPOLY!!! You can't drive there, can't take a train, can't take a different bus, this is your only way!!!

I can already see hitchhiking becoming the 1st unofficial sport of these Winter Games!! Oh, I can also foresee Whistler residents and all other residents with permits for the Sea-to-sky access, making HUGE $ by selling extra spots in their cars/vans to people who can't afford the Monopoly bus or for those who couldn't find tickets to sold out monopoly busses.

Lastly, these shuttle busses returning to Vancouver are horribly timed. last one in the evening is at 11pm, the next one is 6am. What about the people who want to enjoy some famous Whistler nightlife and soak in the atmosphere late into the night? Guess they gotta wait until 6AM to return to Vancouver!

This was a dream come true for me a year ago, I was very excited about these Olympics, but now, I have a big sour taste in my mouth, and we are still 4 months away from the start!

(please, if anyone on here has extra tickets for events, or knows someone willing to sell some for a decent price, and/or knows other ways to travel between Vancouver and Whistler, drop me a line!)