Lodging

The conference hotel is the Victoria Airport Travelodge in Sidney.  A block of rooms will be held until July 1 (or until they're all booked) for conference participants, with a special conference rate.  The rate is $115 CAD (about $80 USD) plus taxes (about $17 CAD), for a double room (king-size bed, queen-size bed, or two double beds).  It's the same rate for up to four people in the room.  This rate will also apply if you want to arrive a few days early or stay a few days after the finish.

The hotel is across the street from the conference center.

The hotel is recently renovated, and features air-conditioning, heated outdoor pool, free in-room coffee and tea, hairdryers, free local calls and faxes, free daily newspapers, free parking, and a Thrifty Car Rental office in the lobby.  Most rooms have a small frig and microwave; check when you call if that's important.

For toll-free reservations, call 1-866-656-1176.  When booking a room, say you're part of the "Esperanto" group.  Call as soon as you can if you have special requests (e.g. non-smoking room).

Other hotels nearby are:

Best Western, 1-800-315-3377, also within a block of the conference center.

Sidney Waterfront Hotel and Suites, 1-888-656-1131, about six blocks from the conference center.

There are other hotels and bed-and-breakfasts in town.

The GST part of the hotel tax (about half the tax collected) is refundable to visitors who live outside Canada, by sending in the hotel receipt along with a form available at www.ccra-adrc.gc.ca/tax/nonresidents/visitors/tax-e.html; don't use the forms widely available in paper form, because usually they're from third parties who take a cut of the refund ? if you read the fine print, you'll see that you end up with almost no refund.

If you want to be matched with a roommate to share the cost of a room, tell Arlyn, arlynkerr@earthlink.net.  Every two weeks she sends the list of searchers to all desiring roommates, so they can arrange it among themselves.