Canadian hotel honours...and a PEI motel gets MAJOR Trip Advisor loving

Nice to see some Canadian properties getting some loving on Trip Advisor.

I was scanning their list of top properties in their annual awards (doesn't everyone have them these days?) and noticed that Auberge Le Vincent, a small property in Quebec City, came in 22nd overall, and that's pretty good. Folks singled the hotel out for its personal service, cleanliness and...French Toast. Gotta try it sometime!

The top 3 properties around the world, said trip advisor voters, were the Golden Well (U Zlate Studne) in Prague, followed by the Anastasis Apartments in Imerovigli, Greece, the Riad Le Calife in Fez, Morocco, Al Ponte Antico in Venice and La Villa Marbella in Marbella, Spain.

Even more impressive, I think, is that a motel in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, was voted the #4 bargain hotel IN THE WORLD.

It's a small place called the Cairns Motel, and the comments left by readers make it sound like the sort of place that made PEI famous for hospitality. Click on the link for some glowing samples!

Just FYI, Trip Advisor folks voted Cedarbrook Lodge in Seattle as the top hotel overall in the U.S., followed by Henderson's Wharf Inn in Baltimore (nice town) and the French Quarter Inn in Charleston, South Carolina.

Trip Advisor also voted The Ace Hotel, a personal fave of mine, as one of its trendiest hotels in the world.

On a related note, I see that msnbc.com voted The Drake, here in good old Toronto, as one of the top 10 bargain boutique hotels of the world. The Drake came in an admirable #5 on the list for its "inner-city style."

Good stuff.

But apparently the be all and end all of hotels is the new Pangu in Beijing. Located up in the Olympic Park north of downtown, the web site calls it a "Seven Star" property. I read somewhere that what they really mean is the hotel is like the Big Dipper and has seven stars, which I don't buy for a minute.

It's ridiculous, really. Seven stars? Does every room come with free Dom Perignon and a virtual date with Scarlett Johansson? Or a real date? Come on, folks. It's China. You can't even properly sign on to Google, can you?

There was a time that the sail-like Burj Al Arab in Dubai was talked about as having seven stars, but that's just as silly. It's terrific, but not better than a lot of five-star properties I've been lucky enough to visit.