Love Hits in City Centre

In a typical week, Civic Hotel sees a lot of hard-working guests and business travellers. Keyboards clicking, smart devices whirring, they’re focused on client presentations, business negotiations and executive retreats in our event and meeting spaces or catching up with colleagues in the lobby-level business lounge. For a brief period two weeks from now, however, it will be time for them to put down their laptops, mute their devices and make some time and space with the people they love and cherish for that all important celebration of romance, St. Valentine’s Day.

Named after a couple of early Christian saints, the day was first associated with romantic love in the late 14th Century by the English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer. Over the next few centuries, references to the day appeared in works by writers no less than Shakespeare, John Donne and Edmund Spenser. Card manufacturers began printing Valentine’s messages in cards and, by the mid-19th Century, the English mailed 400,000 of these each year. The gifting of chocolates and other tokens soon followed. Now, with close to a billion cards exchanged annually (second only in volume to Christmas cards), Valentine’s Day is a celebration that clearly speaks to people.

We want to take all the work out of the festivities by making it easy for guests to put down their work and share a wonderful night with the person they love. Our “Couples Night Out” package includes a night in one of our contemporary rooms with stunning views that range from snow-capped mountain peaks to the modern architectural gems in the surrounding City Centre. In your room, you’ll find a delicious bottle of BC bubbly to enjoy before you head out for dinner. Or you may want to save it for later, to toast a love worth celebrating.

Your package includes $100 to spend in Dominion Bar + Kitchen, a fashionable bar and restaurant located downstairs off the lobby. There you’ll enjoy plates of its distinctive New Canadian cuisine, Dominion’s imaginative take on the foods and flavours that reflect local cultural diversity, all served in a friendly, lively space. If you’re not in the mood for company, we’ll be happy to send your meal upstairs to enjoy in the privacy of your room. And come next morning, you’re welcome to snuggle just a little bit longer in the comfort of our luxury beds as you enjoy a special late check-out.

To find out more about our “Couples Night Out” package or to reserve your room, call 1 855 255 8933 or contact the Civic Hotel and use the promotional code ROM.

A Few Final Notes

Although words may not play much of a role in your celebration of love and romance, here are some fun and interesting facts about Valentine’s Day, should you seek additional ways to dazzle your beloved.

• King Henry VII designated February 14th as St. Valentine’s Day in 1537.
• In the Middle Ages, the names of their “Valentine” were drawn from a bowl and pinned on young people’s sleeves, giving rise to the expression “wearing your heart on your sleeve.”
• 189 million red roses are sold each Valentines Day in the US.
• 73% of flowers sold on this day are bought by men.
• 87% of Valentine’s gifts are bought by women.