Traveling to Ottawa- looking for cheap entertainment!

[herselftheelf]

Hi everyone I'm traveling to Ottawa at the beginning of February and looking for cheap entertainment (museum discounts etc) and CHEAP hotels near the Lester B Pearson building- no idea where that is- or are there good hostels??

[Brandy Hunter]

LBP, the school ?

[r0c0upons]

lester b pearson...the building on sussex, close to downtown i think

ive only seen the jail hostel, which looks cool but i believe may be a little expensive- not sure what your budget is!

the museums are free on thursday but only between 4-8 but if you do check out a museum can i recommend the nature museum?! it's so cool! but anyway, the area of town you'll be around....i think the mint is right over there if you wanna check that out. never been, though...and if you go down the parkway the other direction you can get to the aviation museum

[Brandy Hunter]

And if you have kidlings, you can go to the Science and Tech museum, right beside the midway!

[ottawagurl20]

stop by Parliament Hill and take a tour.. its free
the best museums are the Science & Tech and the Nature Museum.. i find that The Aviation museum sucks big time.
if u have kids you can bring them tobogganing theres some awsome HUGE hills like at Conroy Pitt (we bring our kids there every year)
theres also the Winterlude that is from February 4 to 21.

[lekate]

Skating on the canal. Fuuun, can't wait

[ottawagurl20]

maybe these websites can give you more ideas
http://www.ottawatourism.ca/en/media...ly-free-ottawa

Haunted walk (we do this every few years and we love it) http://www.hauntedwalk.com/ottawatours.php

[Tuktu60]

I believe some of the libraries in Ottawa have passes to museums that you can check out like a library book. They are valid for almost all the museums in the city.
http://biblioottawalibrary.ca/en/mai.../passes/museum


http://www.canadascapital.gc.ca/winterlude/
And of course you can't miss skating on the Canal during winterlude.. and you have to try a beaver tail. Yummy!!!

[herselftheelf]

Wow thanks guys!!!! I'm so happy with all the ideas- I'm there from Feb 1-5 so I can take in the FIRST day of winterlude yay!!! I'm so excited to be going! Where I will be working is here:
Lester B. Pearson building
125 Sussex Dr.

And I need to find a midrange-nice hotel for the first three nights near here (need one desperately!) and a cheapo one for the other as I'm paying for that one on my own! I will unfortunately not be bringing my son He is staying at home. The jail one sounds cool but I'm looking for cheap, cheap for that night.

I am so excited for skating and parliament tours for sure!! I've never been to our Nation's capital and it's like Christmas for me I'm so over the moon about it.

I will definitely check out the parliament buildings (can one spend an entire day there) and the nature museum- is that the natural history one? What's the official title to it?

Interesting Tukto60- those library passes are something I'm going to look into for sure.

Ottawagurl20- I'm going to pass on the haunted walk as I'm not bringing my family and nothing worse than crawling into a hotel bed at night scared!

Thanks so much you guys on places to go and see! Now I really need help on where to stay! You guys are great!

[lekate]

I don't know how long Parliament tours take (I did it once when I was 10), but I was there recently, anywho, if you can you should go to question period, it's...actually very entertaining (imo at least..., I haven't been but I watch it 1-2 times a week when they're in session!)

[herselftheelf]

Also can you rent skates there? I'd bring mine but I don't want to check my bags and there are some pretty sharp blades on them right now!

[herselftheelf]

holy junk lekate you can go INTO question period? I'm so there! How and when???

I'm a politics junkie in my spare time when I'm not a mom, cleaning, baking, crafting, cooking, laundry doing, dog walking, shopping, career girl!

[Tuktu60]

Yup you can rent skates at Dow's Lake Pavilion! and I think there are other locations as well close to the Westin at the end of canal.. not 100% on that..

[r0c0upons]

i did a tour of parliament about...ehhh.....8 months ago. it was about 45 minutes long. the library is really cool, and then at the end we all went up the elevator to a viewing deck thing and took in a cool view of the city. i was there on a weekday, but q&a wasn't in session. if it was i believe i remember them saying you can still sit in on that.

the official name of that museum is the museum of nature, i'm not sure if its the same as natural history? there's dinosaur bones and gemstones and stuff...it's neat. as for the aviation, i'd only recommend that if you had your son with you, i think! my hubby loves it and there's a couple hangars you can go to, but i'm not sure if you'd go down that way just to check it out.

there are a few people on kijiji who rent out rooms like hotels/hostel stays so depending on your comfort level that could be something you could look into. when i was checking out hostels the ones in ottawa did seem expensive and since you'll be here for winterlude they probably will be pretty busy!!

edit: http://ottawa.kijiji.ca/c-housing-sh...AdIdZ246607913 is kind of like what i was talking about. i see them all the time on kijiji. i don't know this person and i'm not endorsing their ad or anything, but i did a quick search on kijiji under the short term rentals and this was one of the featured ads

[herselftheelf]

okay wow that is cheap and just what I was looking for!!! Not sure of the serial killer level though but it' s worth checking out I think-I might go and see what they are like!! THANKS!!!