Banff, Alberta, Canada, Wednesday, October 28

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fall break 2026: fairmont banff springs

Banff, Alberta, Canada, Wednesday, October 28

How are we already halfway through this beautiful trip?

Oh, the passage of time, why are you so quick through fun things and so slow through staff meetings?

The mountains are beautiful, the food is comped--get out and enjoy it!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

We're still at the Fairmont Banff Springs! Located inside Banff National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, this hotel has been nicknamed the Canadian Castle in the Rockies and has 764 rooms and 12 restaurants and bars.

Four students will each be sharing two bedroom Excursion Suites. Pairs of chaperones are sharing King Suites.

[OOC: Room assignments are here, NSFW goes into personal journals.]

Yes, we said 12 different restaurants and lounges! They have breakfast too!

Yes, you can have steak for breakfast.

"I can't believe we can have steak for breakfast!" Henry chuckled, above his massive steak. "If only Mutt were here to see this..."

"There's no rules," Flint assured him with a grin, "but don't get the cavier. It's disgusting."

"What's that then?" Henry asked, looking up. "Is it an organ or something?"

"It's fish eggs," Flint said. "I have no idea why they're so expensive."

"Perhaps fish nests are hard to find?" Henry suggested.

He had no idea. Caviar was not a big thing in medieval Czechia, for some reason.

"Or maybe there aren't many eggs in each nest," Flint said, equally mystified. "I feel for the first poor bastard hungry enough to eat them. It was probably a sailor."

"Must've been starving," Henry mused. "Eating anything he could find."

"Even tiny, tiny, stupid raw eggs," Flint said.

"But why have tiny eggs when you could have steak?" Henry asked. "Seems like an odd custom to continue."

"It came next to the steak when I ordered it," Flint said, wrinkling his nose up.

"Perhaps they have leftovers and they were hoping to get rid of them?"

"Perhaps," Flint said, frowning thoughtfully. "Still, I'd avoid eating them. The steak is fine without them."

Hot rock treatment? Facial? Running for an hour on a treadmill? The wellness options have you covered.

Experience ancient ice on the Columbia Icefield Tour along the spectacular Icefields Parkway. Stop at breathtaking viewpoints, including Peyto Lake, before reaching the Columbia Icefield. Walk on the 1,000-year-old Athabasca Glacier and brave the glass-floored Glacier Skywalk suspended 918 feet above the valley. Pack essentials: This full-day tour covers significant elevation changes, so bring layers and comfortable walking shoes. The Peyto Lake viewpoint offers one of the most photographed scenes in the Rockies.

Dante had rolled out of yet another bedroom that morning (hotel staff, kind of cramped) and right back outside to look at... ice?

Sure. He was going to look at ice.

(There were like a dozen magic puns Anders could've made here and wow, was he not following that thought to its conclusion.)

And so he eventually found himself on the stupid skywalk, glass below his feet, staring at the sun. Thinking about the past again, and fuck, he hated it, all of this brooding did not feel like him. But he still stayed up there like that, well after the rest of the group had left, until the sun started to sink and he could snap a picture of it slipping down, down, down past the glass.

Vaulting down to the hotel afterwards was easy.

Illyana was loving this.

She was going to stand out on the Skywalk, enjoying the wind in her hair and the crisp air.

It almost felt like home, once-upon-a-time.

"Now that's a view," she murmured to herself, and let the very start of a smile tug at her lips.

Edited 2026-10-29 00:27 (UTC)

Tell us what you found!

The rooms, dining options, and fitness stuff are still open!

Room service is an option, NSFW follow-up goes in personal journals.

Dante got back after nightfall and collapsed on his bed. Didn't really want to do anything else anymore, so.

"You want anything from room service?" he asked his mattress.

Jo startled at being addressed. “Er…I wouldn’t say no to tea,” he offered tentatively, still wondering if Dante was actually speaking to him.

Dante shifted his head against the mattress to look at him, which would at least clear up the 'speaking to him' question. "Just tea?" he said. "'kay, man."

"I...er. Well, I don't really eat...much."

Which might explain his physique.

Dante didn't necessarily need to eat much. Didn't stop him from being built like a brawler-swimmer. "Tea bags in the room not your taste?" he asked, after a beat.

It was a sincere question.

"Oh, the bags are fine," Jon said. "But the kettle doesn't really get hot enough. And I, um. Well, I tried using the coffee machine, but then it just tasted like coffee."

Dante sat up, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his arm. "Not hot enough...?" he said. "How hot is tea supposed to be?"

"Um. Well, if it's not really boiling, it doesn't brew properly. Not that you drink it that hot. But, um. Apparently it's supposed to be a strong boil. And microwaves don't count."

That was what Martin had insisted on, anyway. And it was one of the few things Jon could cling to.

"They don't have a kettle or something?" Dante asked, peering over his shoulder. Wasn't that how these things worked? Fuck if he knew tea. "Huh." No kettle.

Jon shrugged. "We're supposed to, but this one broke and they haven't replaced it yet."

Not due to any supernatural trauma, the Eye just liked to drop random thoughts in his brain. Probably.

"So, um. Yes. I've just been ordering downstairs."

Dante shrugged. "I mean, if that's all you want," he said. "I was gonna order pizza."

Multiple.

"Pizza. In a swanky Canadian hotel."

Jon, you had no room to talk.

"I mean, it's gotta be good if they have a whole restaurant for it," Dante said, unperturbed.

"Wait, wh...er. An entire restaurant." It was straining Jon not to ask that as a question.

To be fair, he hadn't paid much attention to the restaurants available, but he'd somehow missed there was one exclusively for pizza.

It wasn't even a fully dedicated pizza restaurant, just an Italian one, but still: Dante was kind of eyeing him at this point. "They don't have pizzerias where you come from?"

A sad place if so, but hey, could be possible.

"Not in fancy hotels!" Jon protested.

Not that he'd been in many, granted.

"You think fancy-ass people don't like pizza?" Dante asked. "You gotta get out more."

“I…” Jon sighed. “Well, I suppose I can’t argue with that. But the ‘fancy-ass’ people I’ve known are generally too pretentious to eat anything so pedestrian as pizza.”

Are you tired of steak yet? Flint isn't.

Nothing like a hot tub soak after a day on the ice, right?

The gondola goes up at night, too, and the views are epic. Or find your own thing to do!

Today we tabletop at work!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Banff, Alberta, Canada, Wednesday, October 28

Daytime

HOTEL

Rooms

Breakfast/Lunch

Steakhouse

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Fitness

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Columbia Icefield Tour

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Make Your Own Fun

Evening

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King Suite 1

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Dining

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OOC