New Year's Eve is always a fun and exciting time of the year and the options of celebration events are endless! For me personally, I usually try to get away for New Year's Eve - with the last two times in Whitefish, Montana and the time before those in Varadero, Cuba! Not only is it a blast getting away from reality for a bit, but celebrating the turn of the year with your closest friends or family, is really something special and amazingly fun! I'll tell you a little about my New Year's vacations...
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Cuba New Years 2009-2010
Photo by: Heather G |
My two best friends and I went to Varadero, Cuba in 2009 for a week over New Year's Eve. We stayed in a 3 star resort, nothing too fancy, and were about a 5 minute walk to the white sandy beach. We had some very interesting experiences in Cuba to say the least. One example that sticks out in my mind was with the hotel staff "losing" all of our passports and not being able to find them until the day before we had to leave. I thought taking our passports when we checked in was a weird request in the first place - but they insisted and said all resort guests had to do so? Needless to say, we obviously ended up getting out of the country, although this particular event had me not very impressed!
Even with this weird and suspicious circumstance, along with a few other interesting events - we still had an absolute blast! While we were there we tried to fit in as much activities and sightseeing as we could. The beach and the ocean were absolutely stunning and was the best thing about the trip by far!
Celebrating New Year's Eve in a developing country was definitely an interesting and different experience from your typical New Year's in downtown Calgary or what not. We attended a New Year's dinner at one of our resort's "higher end" restaurants. Surprisingly we did end up having a pretty delicious dinner - we had the New Year's lobster and crab specials! From there we enjoyed cappuccino's and rum shots (the Cubans' drinks of choice) at the hotel bar. They had a Cuban band setup in the hotel lobby and we salsa danced with hotel staff until the resort's New Year's show commenced. We then went and watched an outside performance near the pools, with singers, dancers, and finally a magic show - which one of our friends ended up being a part of (being the lucky individual to be 'cut' in half - haha).
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| Image by: christmasstockimages.com Retrieved from: http://christmasstockimages.com/free/new_year/slides/happy_new_year_color.htm |
The time was getting close to midnight and we eventually got ready to take part in the countdown. The hotel guests were invited to the stage with all the performers and we counted down together - with people from all over the world! Once we got to "1", champagne bottles shot off, and the music and dancing commenced! The party eventually spread to the beach with a bunch of the resorts guests, some of the hotel staff and even locals.
Needless to say, it was a great experience, extremely fun, and completely different from any other New Year's I had taken part of prior to that! I definitely recommend a tropical New Year's getaway!
Needless to say, it was a great experience, extremely fun, and completely different from any other New Year's I had taken part of prior to that! I definitely recommend a tropical New Year's getaway!
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| Whitefish New Years 2010-2011 Photo by: Heather G |
My ideal New Year's vacation is heading to Whitefish, Montana. It's a pretty reasonable drive (approx. 5.5 hours from Calgary), and it feels like you're there in no time! Not to mention the drive is beautiful! My friends and I went to Whitefish for New Year's in 2010 and 2011. Both times being just as fun as the other!
The benefits of staying in the states include: cheap accommodation, cheap food, cheap drinks, awesome shopping, reasonably priced activities (and lots of them), and cheap gas! All these items are cheaper in comparison to prices here in Calgary! Such good deals... You will constantly ask: "What? Wait! How much? Sorry, how much? Are you sure?!?!"
For a group of 10 people to rent a place on the ski hill, we paid approx. $300 each for accommodation, food, and drinks for 4 nights. We had an an awesome condo with all the amenities we needed. Our place had the ski-in and ski-out access, a communal hot tub, and was walking distance to the ski village! A steal of a deal I think!
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| Whitefish New Years 2011-2012 Photo by: Heather G |
Whitefish is an absolutely beautiful place and nothing beats shredding the mountain, being out in nature, and enjoying the beauty of Montana's winter wonderland! The small town of Whitefish is really cute and 'Christmasy' at this time of year. With lots of shops, restaurants, and saloons to visit.
For both New Year's celebrations we bought tickets to the ski hill bar on the mountain. Every year they hire a live band and both times it was packed with people from all over the place (surprisingly a majority of the people are from Calgary though!).
We danced all night to the live music, mingled, and eventually did the big countdown! People were standing on tables and chairs, champagne was again exploding at every corner of the bar, and everyone was throwing party favors in the air! This celebration was great and lots of fun! We eventually called it a night and finished off with a hot tub and some laughs!
All in all, Whitefish was an absolute blast and I suggest you book for next year if you aren't down with a tropical getaway! If you do book - make sure you book at least 4 months in advance so you can get one of the better accommodations on the hill - it books up fast!
... New Years is just around the corner!!
What are your plans for this year?!
What are your plans for this year?!
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