How to play, plan and book

The city guides tell you where. These tell you how. They are written for a Canadian reader who has a specific booking in mind — a first room, a child’s birthday, a work afternoon, a Valentine’s night in February — and wants to get it right without reading forty reviews first.

Each guide runs about a ten-minute read and ends with a numbered plan you can follow in order. Where a figure appears — a price, a deposit, a lead time — it comes from our own bookings across the five cities we cover, in Canadian dollars, and it is a range rather than a promise. Operators change their terms; the shape of the advice does not.

If you are not sure which guide you need, the room picker below asks four questions and points you at the right one, along with a nudge toward the city index. It runs entirely in your browser and records nothing.