Insider tips and tricks to maximize your F1 experience at the Monaco and Canadian Grand Prix races.
Insider tips and tricks to maximize your F1 experience at the Monaco and Canadian Grand Prix races.
AdamR46: Founder of Grand Prix Travel, the #1 community on Reddit and FanAmp for Formula 1 fans enjoying races around the world
Join_FanAmp: Greg is the Founder of FanAmp, the app connecting Formula 1 fans to the communities, live conversations, news, and more that maximize their F1 experiences
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[00:00:00] AdamR46: Hey guys, what's going on? This is AdamR46. I am the founder of the subreddit r/GrandPrixTravel, and today we're going to be talking about the Monaco GP and the Montreal or Canadian GP. This is the latest episode of Know Before You Go. Joining me today, we've got Greg with FanAmp.
[00:00:23] Join_FanAmp: Hey guys, everyone knows what we're doing. Happy Holidays if you're celebrating this weekend.
[00:00:27] AdamR46: Yeah, happy Easter all.
[00:00:29] Join_FanAmp: Yeah.
[00:00:30] AdamR46: Let's see. So today for the Monaco GP, I ended up… so my wife and I, we had a long plan for our big anniversary scheduled. It was supposed to happen in 2020 and we bought the tickets in 2019 and planned for a couple years, this year we're gonna go to Monaco. And so we bought the tickets 2019, we had everything booked, flights, hotel or Airbnb. Everything planned and then Covid happened. So I still have unused tickets from a race that never happened. It's the only time the Monaco GP is not taking place since 1950 or so.
[00:01:15] Join_FanAmp: [correction: 1955], yeah.
[00:10:16] AdamR46: Yeah. So I have tickets for that race sitting in a drawer somewhere. It's a souvenir at this point. But so I didn't wanna reschedule everything for 2021, because at the time everything was still up in the air as far as tourism and restrictions on entering the country. So I ended up… everything was so last minute for the 2021 Grand Prix. I pushed everything to 2022 and I was able to use some of the, I guess some of the bookings I had were non-refundable, and so I just kept rolling over and rolling over to 2022. So we went last year and we had just an incredible experience. The Monaco GP, it's not the greatest racing. It seems like most of it is qualifying. That's the big day.
Really, I got there on Tuesday and it's mind blowing how they just cram this circuit into this city that it just, it doesn't make sense. And seeing it in person is just mind blowing, that this is actually happening, this is real. This is the thing and has been a thing forever. We lucked out and we're able to plan ahead and we stayed about a five minute walk from the casino square. Overall, it's just a great experience and it's something that, it takes a little bit of planning, but it can be done pretty reasonably. Because it was a big trip for us we did splurge a bit. We did some hospitality one day type of thing and got tickets for the grandstands and different sections each day too, which was pretty cool. Let's see.
[00:03:03] Join_FanAmp: And I think it's worth just setting the stage of the place itself. Because I've never been to that specific race, but having been to Monaco a couple times, it's just such a unique environment. Like we've talked before about the city races or park races, but this is sort of this weird anomaly almost, because you have this harbor that you're set with everything against. The view is just insane, and I just think the spectacle, the opulence is such a key characteristic of what this race is. One other thing that I find really interesting about it is the number of laps actually could work to your advantage as a fan, even if it's not overtakes, but you get more opportunities to see a car for every seat that you're in, which is kind of cool.
[00:03:51] AdamR46: And then you never know if it's gonna rain.
[laughter]
[00:03:55] Join_FanAmp: Although I feel like Canada is probably gonna be the one that's a bigger variable for than this one.
[00:04:00] AdamR46: Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I lucked out. The year that I won, it rained and it caused a really interesting race. It was still a bit of a precession as far as overtaking, but the race itself was awesome. I had a blast. Let's see. The overall vibe at the race is pretty… the circuit itself is laid out along the harbor, so you have grandstands in some key areas. The biggest one is probably gonna be Grandstand K, which is facing the harbor away from the city. So you don't get a lot of that backdrop because most of the view is behind you, but you can see the car is coming out of the tunnel and through the… I forget what that chicane is called, coming into the harbor.
And then you get to see that whole short straight as they go to back corner and into the swimming pool. It's probably one of the more expensive seats which is surprising, because you can get a ticket for pit lane and where you get the garage views for a similar price. I don't think it's very much different. But Grandstand K has probably the most accessible as far as being able to find tickets for. Then right after that is probably the, well, I guess what's the next favorite is Grandstand O, which is at the center of the swimming pool.
Right there it's, you have N, O and P. N and P are pretty short. You don't get much elevated views, but Grandstand O, I was able to get the top row on that and I could see everything from Tabac Corner through the exit of swimming pool onto the Grandstand T area. I sat there for qualifying and that's where you can really see the cars push under… both of, the first chicane into the swimming pool and then hard breaks where Danny Ric crashed out, and then Mick Schumacher crashed out right in that section on the race. It’s pretty cool to see and it’s got a fun vibe.
You have to take a couple bridges and it's a bit of a zigzag pattern to get to that section, and that's where… Monaco as a circuit, you can't really… when the track is closed and the streets are closed, you can only access your section or your grandstand area. You aren't able to just walk around the circuit and watch the cars. Even walking to your circuit when you get to Grandstand O, you walk behind T, or underneath T and you walk along the edge of the harbor and the marshals are directing you not to stop and take photos. They yell at you to keep moving because they don't want people standing right along the fence. They want you away from where there could be potential accident because everything is just so compact on how they fit everything.
[00:07:22] Join_FanAmp: What does that mean for the atmosphere of the city? Because I remember walking through the streets and there really is no space because everything's sort of set within this cliff or, well, not a cliff but a very steep hill. And so it feels very tight. What does that mean in terms of getting around in general?
[00:07:40] AdamR46: Getting around is pretty easy. You just need to be prepared to walk uphill constantly. That's what it feels like. There's that saying of uphill both ways. Well, it's like it is because it just… I mean, there's public escalators, there's public elevators around town, but it's just when the track is closed, it's hard to get near the circuit. You can't really see anything without a ticket because they use a lot of the nearby roads or service roads. So they all get fenced off, closed off, and there's advertisements all over everything.
So without a ticket, there's maybe one spot that I stumbled across that you can see from super elevated view, and you can only see one tiny section of the circuit, which right in front of K. But it's really hard to get near the circuit because of the, all the service roads required to move Formula 1’s infrastructure and marshals around during track closure. But as far as walking around Monaco, it’s pretty easy. There's a lot of foot traffic leaving the train station at the base of it because the train station itself is in the middle of a mountain. And so when you get out, you have to take an elevator up like six levels, or you can take a couple of escalators and go down and it dumps you out right there by the turn one area.
But that's where some of the paths get congested and blocked and you can't just exit as you would a normal train, because it's all lines to get out of the train station through the bag checks and then into what is the track when it’s just kind of like public streets, but they check your bags and they check your tickets to make sure you're an attendee. So getting closer to the circuit is where you really need to show your ticket. It helps to have a lanyard because you're gonna have to show your ticket several times just to get to whatever section you want.
[00:09:48] Join_FanAmp: It feels like for this race, it’s one of those where you're not really gonna be wandering around outside or even when you're in there. It's not like a campus vibe, it's much more, go to your seat, sit down, enjoy the race. But you're not gonna be moving around.
[00:10:04] AdamR46: Yeah, exactly. And there's amenities around where if you're at K there's this whole… all right, sorry. If you're at T or K, there's a lot of bridges to get to that section that you have to cross. You cross over the start straight and to get to your section you have to walk through Monaco neighborhoods. But there's a lot of restaurants, bars, street vendors. The streets are just filled with all kinds of booths as well as the merch. And so you can just hang out at a restaurant right before you go to your seat. And to get to that area, you have to show your ticket a couple of times.
But then walking around, it's just like any other busy day in Monaco where the restaurants are open, the little shops are open. You can find some branded stuff to hang out near your section. So taking food and stuff is a good idea, but it's pretty easy to be able to get a meal or at least something that you can eat standing up if there's lines and stuff, like pizza or sandwich. Things like that are pretty easy to get around the around the circuit area.
[00:11:19] Join_FanAmp: And can you, you can bring in a water bottle, for example, metal water bottle or plastic?
[00:11:24] AdamR46: I usually just take plastic water bottles. Security wasn't too heavy as for, or I guess invasive is a better word for their bag checks. It was more so just looking for alcohol and glass. So I think as long as you don't have any glass, they're not really gonna, I don't know… They won't dig any further, I don't think. And you can take food. I usually carry a cooler in my backpack and I freeze some plastic water bottles and I use them as ice. And so I keep, I don't know, like meat, cheese, fruit, some basic stuff that I can just carry through the day.
And then in between sessions is when you go down and get something a little bit more substantial like a sandwich, or things like that. But you're not gonna get turned away at the gate for bringing food in, it's allowed.
[00:12:17] Join_FanAmp: Actually, depending on some of the seats you have, I know GA will talk about it in a minute, but general admission's not a big part of the circuit. But for that you can bring cushions or chairs depending on where you're sitting.
[00:12:28] AdamR46: Yeah, which most of the seats are bleacher style, or they have… It’s like Grandstand T is, it's like a bleacher base, but it's got like a seat where it's plastic and it's a little bit more comfortable compared to just the metal bench. But it does help to have a cushion.
[00:12:49] Join_FanAmp: We actually had a clarification from Andy who's watching, who was saying, did you say that we should be laminating your tickets or putting them in a lanyard or you said something else?
[00:13:00] AdamR46: I think the lanyard holder, they sell at all the ticket booths. It's just a basic insert, like a plastic insert that you can put your ticket in, that way you can ticket in and out. Especially if you have a different ticket for each day, it just helps to ticket in and out. I don't think you need to necessarily laminate it, but yeah, one of those ticket holders, they're usually like three or four euros. They can help quite a bit.
[00:13:28] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. Maybe don't buy it immediately outside the venue, because I'm sure you'll get something a little bit more than you have to pay.
[00:13:33] AdamR46: Well, so what's cool about Monaco is that they have popup ticket booths from the actual ACM and they can… basically what they sell at the souvenir shops or is an option when you buy your tickets, you can get that lanyard for just a few dollars or euros, but the prices usually aren't too bad.
[00:14:00] Join_FanAmp: Cool. So this might be a good segue into the piece on tickets in general. Where were you sitting when you were at the race?
[00:14:10] AdamR46: I had different sections each day. I got to Monaco on Wednesday and I walked around, scoped it out, and just explored the circuit because it's public streets whenever the track action isn't happening. And on Thursday they did Formula 2, the Porsche Super Cup free practice and stuff like that. I actually sat at, I was able to get a ticket at Grandstand B for I think it was like 25 euros. It was fairly cheap. And it's only an afternoon, it's not a full day that they close the circuit because it's not Formula 1 on track that day, it's only the support race is getting some practice in.
On Thursday I sat at Grandstand B, which is right next to the casino. That has a pretty good view. You see the car is at high speed coming up, making their way up the hill and going around the casino area. And they go, they hang a right and then go down towards the Fairmont hairpin. And then because you could buy a different ticket each day, on Friday, one of the big things that my wife and I had planned was to do a yacht hospitality ticket for free practice because the price is way less than watching from a yacht for qualifying or the race.
So we paid about 900 euros per person and we got to hang out on a yacht at Tabac Corner, which is in between, if you're looking at the circuit map, it would be between K and the section Z general admission. And so that yacht itself had, I mean, it had a private or a personal chef lived and worked on the boat. So we had a full catering meal on the boat. It was pretty awesome. As soon as we get there, they're greeting us with champagne and beer and everything was open bar. And the staff, everybody was really friendly and they let you just hang out, enjoy the boat and just eat and drink whatever you want all day. And they just constantly offer you food.
There was both hot and cold food throughout the day. They had like a dedicated lunch that was hot and then they left some cold food out throughout the day to kind of help keep you from getting too drunk [laughs].
[00:16:36] Join_FanAmp: Which is probably important because also it's very hot, very sunny usually.
[00:16:38] AdamR46: Yeah.
[00:16:42] Join_FanAmp: In terms of the experience, so the thing that's unique about it is we were saying before there's limited GA, the Rocher, what you can see on the top left there in the image, the hill, first come first serve, very steep. Basically, you wanna be camping out or there incredibly early in the morning to be able to get space once it opens up. And I think a lot of people I've seen have locked their chairs against trees overnight to hold their spots. So if you are able to get it, great, and the tickets are usually what, like 70 euro maybe for the first day and then they can make up to like 200 euro towards the end.
But then the experience sort of scales up from there and I think there's a lot of unique experiences. Like you said, a lot of the packages are like a multi-day where you have a different grandstand each day, or you have a grandstand ticket on Friday and then qualifying and the race are on a rooftop, for example. And so there's a lot of really cool experiences and then obviously the yachts which typically got the harbor and you're probably not going on to, but this time you actually get to buy a spot on that, which is really exciting.
[00:17:50] AdamR46: Yeah. And so there's some hospitality companies out there like Senate Grand Prix, I was able to buy a single day. That's what's cool about Monaco, is you can really piece together whatever experience you want because they sell tickets per day, per section, and you do get a discount when you buy from the circuit if you buy two days or more. Or if you buy a Saturday, Sunday, they give you 10 percent off. So like you said, the next tier up from general admission would be the grandstands. At this point, I believe they might all be sold out for Sunday, but there's still some tickets available for Thursday F2, Friday and Saturday. The prices range quite a bit, but they're between around 800 to 1400 for some of the high-end stuff.
[00:18:37] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. And that's in euro, right?
[00:18:38] AdamR46: Yes.
[00:18:39] Join_FanAmp: And then the yachts I think were around 2,200 to 2,500 or somewhere… Oh sorry. Well, they obviously scale well beyond that, but starting price is around two to two and a half thousand dollars for a what, for a two day package usually?
[00:18:53] AdamR46: That might be per day.
[00:18:55] Join_FanAmp: Okay.
[00:18:56] AdamR46: Yeah. For a full weekend on a yacht, you're looking at several thousand dollars. Around two to three is probably about the going rate for Saturday, and you're looking at probably three to four minimal for Sunday. And then there's a lot of the hospitality companies that also sell, they host events inside some of the hotels and things like that with balcony access. That's where you can get like what we've got categories as the rooftops.
[00:19:29] Join_FanAmp: So worth looking in advance if you know you're gonna go and buying one of the packages early on and just securing that while it's the cheapest it'll be.
[00:19:36] AdamR46: Yeah, I've also had a friend in the Missed Apex Podcast Slack group, who told me that he went to Monaco without tickets a few years ago, and he ended up speaking to somebody with clipboards who had some open availability to get into some of the hospitality. And so he was able to hang out for a day on one of the balconies overlooking the race. But yeah, some of that stuff, it might be hard to come by now with all the hype and following that Formula 1 gets now.
[00:20:14] Join_FanAmp: Well, to that, so we had a question from Greg about can you go in and out of the track between sessions? Do you have that flexibility? Could you poke your head out from a grandstand from time to time and check in?
[00:20:25] AdamR46: It depends on your section whether you actually need to do that or want to do that, but I believe you can. Because depending how far you get, sometimes the… I'm gonna say traffic, but it's just people, it can get a little hard to move around, where you can leave and go to a restaurant and get lunch. But at the same time, you might not get very far before you have to turn around and get back and wait in line to get back into the circuit. But I believe that you can leave, but I didn't have to do so just because I had food on me in my bag, and then we were able to just take advantage of the food vendors underneath our grandstands in each section where we're at.
[00:21:13] Join_FanAmp: What about the disability access, given the whole setup of the city and some of the inconveniences of things like those grandstand seats. Were there a lot of accessibility options that you saw?
[00:21:25] AdamR46: I didn't really see any, but I know that there are some specific platforms within some of the bigger grandstands that do have accessibility limited areas. I believe the circuit has specific tickets that you can buy along with the accompanying person to have access to these sections.
[00:21:48] Join_FanAmp: Cool. All right. Should we jump to how do you actually get to the circuit?
[00:21:55] AdamR46: Yeah.
[00:21:57] Join_FanAmp: Let me do this. So where is Monaco [laughs]?
[00:22:03] AdamR46: [laughs] Monaco is the little hidden gem. The nearest airport is gonna be the airport in Nice, which is actually in France, but it's pretty well connected. There's a ton of international flights to the area or to that airport that you can get to Monaco from pretty easily. The Nice airport itself has a tram connection that'll get you into Nice proper, even though the airport feels like it's right in the middle of the city. But it's easy to get from the airport to Nice where you can then connect to one of the regional train stations and you can catch a train to Monaco, which is probably about a 25 to 30 minute ride. In total, you can probably get to Monaco by public transport in about an hour, maybe a little more, depending on connection times.
[00:23:01] Join_FanAmp: Yeah, but I think the fact that you are so close to Nice is actually a big bonus because the cost is one of the things that you mentioned a bit with the seating options. Having access to a city like that, something that is only 25 minutes away by train, you can balance some of the affordability.
[00:23:17] AdamR46: Oh, definitely.
[00:23:18] Join_FanAmp: There’s a lot more plethora of hotels or Airbnbs or anything else.
[00:23:22] AdamR46: Yeah. So because the train ride is actually not too bad from Monaco to Nice and back and forth, it only costs about four euros, and the time isn't bad. The only thing you have to worry about is the crowds, and so it's very reasonable to stay in Nice. You can probably find a hotel or Airbnb for around a hundred euros a night on Race Week. Whenever we went, we stayed in Nice for I think four days before we went to Monaco, and I had a two-bedroom, two bath Airbnb for 90 euros. It was in the the historic city center of Nice, and it was well connected by trams and we were able to take a train.
France also has Uber, so we were able to get around to pretty much anywhere pretty reasonably. But staying in Nice would be a really good option to find something a little bit cheaper compared to staying in Monaco for the Grand Prix.
[00:24:22] Join_FanAmp: And then there was one thing that you and I talked about in the past, which was the helicopter. And I know that I thought it was a kind of a cool way or cool experience that you can have here. You mind sharing a bit more about that one?
[00:24:38] AdamR46: Yeah. There's the Monaco heliport, which is pretty… if you watch any social media videos or a day in the life of Charles Leclerc style stuff, a lot of these guys, you see them kind of get in a helicopter and get to the airport flying a private plane and get to the next race. Well, the heliport offers public flights that you can either get a shared helicopter or private helicopter and you can get from the Monaco heliport to the Nice airport in about seven or eight minutes. They range in price from about 200 to 250 euros per person. You can get a private helicopter for about 600 one way.
So you can fit, depending on the weight, there's weight limits for both bags and people, you know, passengers. But we actually flew from Monaco to the airport when we were trying to catch our plane because moving around Monaco with bags can be, not hectic, but it can be just tiring and mentally exhausting because it's constant hills everywhere. Your bags wanna roll this way, then you got to roll your bag through brick road or brick sidewalk, and it just, it's Europe at the same time. So a lot of the walking paths just feel kind of, I don't know, brick and cobblestone.
And so we ended up like I said, our anniversary stuff, we splurged on a private helicopter, and we took it from Monaco Heliport, yeah, from the Monaco heliport to the Nice airport, just so we can catch our flight without having to deal with lugging our bags around. We had four bags. We were in Europe for about 10 or 15 days. I don't know.
[00:26:26] AdamR46: That'd be a lot.
[00:26:29] Join_FanAmp: Yeah.
[00:26:29] AdamR46: And the trains were pretty hectic, especially after the races.
[00:26:33] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. And so luckily the company I booked the helicopter through, they actually picked up our bags in the morning and drove them to us, and they were waiting for us at the at the airport.
[00:26:43] AdamR46: So you saved on the wait too?
[00:26:46] Join_FanAmp: Yeah, it was just, it's just pretty easy to do. You're paying more convenience, but also the views on the helicopter are just incredible. I mean, you're flying over Monaco [laughs]. You're right along the beach coast the whole way, and it's just mountains. That's an experience of its own.
[00:27:03] Join_FanAmp: Yeah, that's awesome. Should we talk a bit about then the ambience, the environment, what you can do outside of the race itself in the city?
[00:27:13] AdamR46: Yeah. In the evening after the circuit or after the track action ends, the circuit actually opens and it's a full on public street with traffic and people walking everywhere because everybody wants to walk the track. So you get to get up close and see some of these iconic corners, there's still rubber bits laying around. It's pretty cool. You don't get too much opportunity to actually walk an F1 track, let alone at Monaco. The street over by the harbor, by Rascasse, as you see in the picture turns into a club in the evening and they're just blaring loud music and it's just a fun vibe.
You will have to pay a cover to get in. I don't remember how much it was. It was probably only like 10 or 15 euros to get in. The beers are reasonably priced, drinks aren't too bad. But yeah, you'll notice a lot of orange around and it's a lot of the marshals having a few beers after work.
[00:28:15] Join_FanAmp: Hopefully they didn't pay the cover. It would've been a bad work perk [laughs].
[00:28:19] AdamR46: Yeah, I don't know what they do… sorry, go ahead.
[00:28:23] Join_FanAmp: No, I was just gonna say that the casino was another one, because I remember having gone there. It's such a beautiful building and being able to go inside is a really cool experience. I don't remember losing a lot of money, but it was definitely, no matter what, it's worth it, I think even if you can go or maybe take a trip on your way out. But I think it's a cool spot to go to, and then there was a set of restaurants in the area, like a neighborhood that you had been to.
[00:28:50] AdamR46: Yeah, well actually we went to the casino also. One thing I wanted to talk about on there, is I was worried that I was gonna be underdressed whenever I went there because they're pretty strict on dress code enforcement. And so I had a bit of hesitancy or, I didn't know if my shoes were going to, if they were gonna turn me away. I have just like some on cloud running shoes, but they're all black, so it's kind of like a, they don't really stand out, they're not flashy, but you need something comfortable walking around Monaco.
I was worried that they were gonna turn me away. I just had normal pants and a buttoned up shirt, and my own shoes and they let me in. And yeah, you don't have to dress super fancy. I think as long as you are presentable, kind of smart casual, they should let you write in. Don't be too intimidated on having to drop a bunch of money. You don't have to buy a drink, there's no pressure. The bars are cool and they make some really great cocktails and I think you can probably expect to pay around 20 euros per drink. And for gambling, I think I exchanged like a hundred euros and we… I stretched that out for probably about an hour and a half, or just played some slots, played a little bit of roulette and some… what's the other game?
No, I think it was mostly just roulette. We just, we won a little bit. We weren't gambling heavily, but we were just kind of enjoying that it's about a hundred euros of admission, so felt like it was worth it. But there was a guy in front of me who exchanged like 20,000 euros. It was like, whoa.
[00:30:32] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. I think that's how I've always looked at gambling [laughs], because I think I've always walked away in the red and you just look at it like the entertainment tax. It's like you're gonna go for the hour, have a drink or two on the house and play a couple hands. And I think, and then if you go on with that attitude, you're not gonna have a bad time.
[00:30:46] AdamR46: Yeah. Also just walking in there, they had a Ferrari on display. One is Charles Leclerc's car from the previous year just sitting in the lobby, perfectly lit for a photo. And so that is really cool. And it's just an old, iconic building. It's been used to film a ton of movies. And hanging out outside, I saw three Bugattis driving around, tons of Lamborghinis, Ferraris. It just, it's a car show outside that week. It's just ridiculous. There was a Batmobile parked outside and it was moving because the next day it was parked somewhere else, so somebody was driving that thing. But it was like the old Michael Keaton full on Batmobile that somebody drives, apparently in Monaco.
[00:31:31] Join_FanAmp: They're showing off their toys. That's what it's for.
[00:31:32] AdamR46: [laughs] Yeah. And the street that you mentioned, I can't remember the name of the street, but the restaurant, I had seen Charles Leclerc mention in an interview that one of his favorite restaurants in Monaco was Mozza. So I was able to look it up and made a reservation. We had dinner there I think on Wednesday before the GP. And then on… we went back to the restaurant across the street, which I believe is the same owners. It's called Izakaya Cozza. But we were hanging out there on a GP week and then we realized that all these cars pulling up are crazy fancy.
Like Bugattis and Rolls Royce, I mean, you see random little Fiats that were historic cars. It wasn't just a regular Fiat 500, it was a 1955 Fiat, mint condition. And it's just, that alone is also a car show. And then some of the people that you're probably gonna encounter like I saw, we were having dinner at Izakaya Cozza and Sean White showed up. He got dropped off, his whole entourage with his wife and his whole crew, and they're just dressed in fancy bright suits. They just had this aura around him and I was like, “Who are these people? Didn't realize, oh, that's Sean White. And he was sitting like four tables over from me having dinner.
[00:33:00] Join_FanAmp: That's pretty cool.
[00:33:01] AdamR46: Yeah, it just, it’s kind of cool to just hang out and the food was reasonably priced, it wasn't bad. I think we only paid like a hundred euros for two people to have a three-course dinner with drinks. So it wasn't bad at all. Some of those restaurants do have prix fixe menus on race weekends, so you just need to keep an eye out for that. But a lot of those restaurants you can make reservations for, and as long as you give yourself a little bit of time, you can plan your evening around it and get out there and just people watch, have some good food because the food was great.
[00:33:33] Join_FanAmp: That's also another option. It's a good point because even for the race as an alternative to tickets, I know there's some restaurants that are doing like a lunch where you have a fixed menu, some alcohol, and you can sit and watch the race or whatever's happening at that time of day. And so that could be another option if you're not looking to buy or go all in on a grandstand ticket. You could do that as well. Cool. Should we touch on Canada and how that might differ from a race in the Southern France region?
[00:34:03] AdamR46: Well, let's talk about Nice a little bit, or just the area of Monaco before we transition over to Canada.
[00:34:10] Join_FanAmp: Sure.
[00:34:11] AdamR46: Nice itself can be really affordable. You don't have to spend a ton of money. Same in Monaco, it's only specific areas on that exact weekend that can really get high in the price. But consider some Airbnbs or staying in France, because France is right down the street. There's no immigration, no passport checks or anything you have to go through. And so you can literally walk from Monaco to France and have a drastic drop in your price of accommodation. And so it's something they consider and something that you can… the prices are very reasonable.
And then Nice itself, you can… let's see. There's plenty of hotels. It's kind of a beach city, so it has a pretty laid back vibe. Overall, it's just, it's not as expensive as it's made out to be. Parts of it are, but it's really not. I spent more money attending Miami than I did attending the Monaco, for example. Monaco is just not a very expensive city in the grand scheme of it all. As far as just visiting we stayed at an Airbnb near, it was a five-minute walk from the casino square. I think we paid, it was like 450 a night, so it was on the higher end, but it was a special trip for us, so we splurged a bit.
And it minimized the amount of time it took to get around to the circuit and just walk around the restaurants and things like that. We were just a five to 10-minute walk from everywhere really. And so it was just paying for some of the convenience.
[00:35:51] Join_FanAmp: That's a good point. Plus the way you said it, and even when I've been in the area too, it was part of a longer trip, and so it almost is worth, you can already plan ahead. You go to Europe for the summer or for part of the like a long vacation and then you just stop off there. And Nice is very accessible.
[00:36:09] AdamR46: Yeah. Italy too, because you can take a train in the opposite direction from Nice and be in Italy in like 20 minutes. And there's some of the bigger cities where even if you have an hour commute by train, it's really not that bad.
[00:36:21] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. And you just plan out around the crowds. Or like you did, you have dinner, and then you're just be willing to leave later in the evening and that could just be relaxing.
[00:36:30] AdamR46: Yeah. You just need to be mindful of the trains leaving and not have… If you're depending on the train, don't have too late of a night because they do stop at a certain time. I want to say it's hard to catch a train after 10:00 PM. It's a little bit early in the evening, and so that's where you will probably have to take a taxi because they don't have Uber in Monaco. If you want an Uber, you have to walk to France and request it from there. Monaco has a private taxi like service that they have. I think it's a government funded one. Government owned.
But yeah, and then a ride by taxi to Nice is probably gonna be around 70 to a hundred euros and it wouldn't be surprised if it surges because of the race weekend and because they know that people are going back and forth. That's something that you need to keep an eye on, is train schedules. Just be mindful of it.
[00:37:29] Join_FanAmp: All right. So then with that, if you fly to the other end of the world and you end up in Canada, how does this race in your mind, differ from what Monaco is? From what I know about it, it's in a park. It's near a major city, so those are somewhat similar, but it's not right in the heart of it. And Montreal's a very different feel than what Monaco is just in terms of the general ambiance. So what's it like for you or how you think about it?
[00:38:01] AdamR46: Montreal, it’s all French too, which is kind of funny that we're doing both together. But yeah, so the vibe itself, it's just like a modern urban city. Everything is pretty accessible with the metro, and overall, the vibe at the circuit, it feels like a proper circuit. I know it's technically a street circuit, but it's, I don't think it's really used for anything other than Formula 1 as far as the circuit goes, because it's just the circuit is in a park and so the park is open to the public whenever Formula 1 isn't there. And you can walk around or bike the circuit pretty much at any time as long as the weather's right.
But Montreal itself is, it can be, lately they've been, a lot of people are kind of, or businesses in hotels are capitalizing on the success of Drive to Survive and Formula 1 where there’s right now surging prices on a lot of things. And so if you book a hotel or your Airbnb or wherever you plan on staying, you need to try to book that as soon as the provisional calendar’s announced because that week is when everything just fills up. If you wait on that, the prices just surge like crazy. I know a lot of places now they're upwards, that were around two to three hundred dollars per night are in over a thousand per night if you try to look for something now, because there's not much available.
[00:39:35] Join_FanAmp: Which is funny because Monaco, you're saying, even now you could book spots in Nice for a lot less money, and it just shows you the contrast, that too.
[00:39:43] AdamR46: Yeah. And so one thing about the tickets for Canada, is there probably, I think general admission starts at around 250 [CAD] for a three day, but you can actually get a grandstand for I think 270 or 290 [CAD] for some of the cheaper grandstand, which is definitely worth it, especially for a circuit like Canada, because it's all flat. There's no elevation. And so if you're not right up to the fence, you're not gonna see anything other than a car flying by if the person in front of you is not taller than you. So I don't really recommend general admission for Canada.
If you wanna go, it's more so about, or if you wanna go as general admission, it's more so about the vibe, or you need to get there just really early and wait outside the gate to get to a spot. And then you pretty much need to hold down your Ford with your group or partner because it can, yeah, it gets really packed.
[00:40:40] Join_FanAmp: In terms of the experience before we do the race map, I guess these were the… if you put GA aside like you said, there are three tiers to the experience. So you have the grandstand seats and there's a lot of really pretty stunning views at various different points in the track. And then you have these interesting middle ground terraces where you can sit and have a seated lunch and drinks while you're watching the action and it is on a raised platform but lower to the ground. And then you have these suites, which are starting to get into that Paddock Club territory in terms of the experience.
But like you said, the grandstand start at a price that's very close to, if not at parity with the GA tickets. And so it's actually a really interesting place to go and everything's in the Canadian dollar. So if you're coming from America or from other countries where the currency's strong, it's actually an even cheaper experience.
[00:41:35] AdamR46: Yeah, I think I paid around 650 US dollars for two tickets at the turn 11 grandstand, which is right at pit exit by turn three. Yeah, you can see it on the map right there. It's by the Senna “S’s”. The view that you have from that area is really cool. You could see down the pits trade, you can see the garages a bit. You're kind of looking at pit lane and so you can't really see where the garages or which teams they are. You could just see the pit lane, you could see the cars coming out and you see pit exit. Yuki Tsunoda crashed right in front of me during a race, a clumsy cold tire incident.
But the view itself, there's a couple of sections that are sold a little bit more within turn 11. I believe it's sections one, two, and three. Because there's a massive tree that blocks a lot of the view if you're in sections four through eight or whatever. The section going away from pit lane, I don't know what direction it is. But going towards turn four. The more you sit towards that side of turn 11, you're probably gonna have a tree obstructing your view and you can only see when the cars are kind of along turn two and three in front of you.
Then Grandstand 12 is also just a great view as you… the higher that you sit, the better. The way that the seat numbers are at Montreal is they're double letters at the bottom. They start at AA, go up to ZZ, and then they switch to single letters. And so ZZ and row A are kind of at the center of the grandstand, and then it's A to Z to the top, and so the top row will be Z. It's a bit confusing and there's not really a lot of explanation for that anywhere, but that's just something that we've found as a community to try to help share the info.
[00:43:37] AdamR46: Yeah, if you have a double letter road, it's gonna be on the bottom half of the grandstand, closer to the track. And the best thing to do is just to be far enough back where you're above the fence line because the fence can kind of obstruct your view when you're looking that way, or looking that way, you pretty much only see what's in front of you if you got the fence blocking you. But the only downside to that section of turn 1, 2, 3, is that it can be a good walk. It's probably about a 40 minute walk from the Concorde entrance from the Concorde Bridge, which is situated near the metro.
But there is a shuttle that can take you from the metro station over to the casino, and then from there it'll shave about 20 minutes of walking, but it's still far and you need to be prepared to walk and probably at least an hour and a half total per day just within the circuit of the solid walking. That's on top of a lot of the paths are narrow just because it’s, they cram from the one into this park. And so a lot of the paths are gravel or dirt, so if it rains it's gonna get muddy and everybody's crowded. The paths are probably no wider than 10 or 15 feet at some of the wider parts.
There's a few spots that open up, but then that's where they place a lot of the vendors, and so you're kind of walking in between all this stuff. And it just takes time, you just need to be patient and understand that it's gonna take time to get from the gate to your section and plan for that.
[00:45:15] Join_FanAmp: What about maybe the getting to the actual track itself because this is located on an island to the east of the city and you'd think that it's really close very easy, and in part it is. But once you're… so basically, I guess to set the stage is, once you leave downtown and the best way to get to the circuit would definitely be the metro. Once you end up on the island, so that Jean-Drapeau stop, then you have to walk, like you said. So there's two foot bridges, Cosmos or Concorde. And then from there you still have to figure out which gate you're going to and then find your way to your seat. So it does end up being a little bit of a track, even though it is so close to the city and you just wanna be mindful of that in the crowds.
[00:46:01] AdamR46: Yeah. And if you're kind of limited mobility or if you're with a group of people, you know that it's not feasible to walk for an hour to get to your seat tickets at the hairpin. Any grandstand there has a really great view. There's some, a couple sections that they added recently maybe last year, and I think they just started selling with some more tickets. I think 46, 47, you can see on the map. They don't have as much of a view compared to the Lance Stroll Grandstand or 15, but those are not too far of a walk from the metro. And it’s probably an easy section to sit at as far as accessibility and to get to the circuit, sorry.
To get to the circuit, the best way is probably the, or it is the metro. You pretty much have to take the metro to get out there. The other option that has to be planned and typically booked in advance is the ferry. You have specific times from the old port of Montreal. It's a nice little ride, and it's like 10 minutes. But you're on a two ferry with two levels, so you can sit on the upper deck and just get a breeze and it’s a unique experience. I did that on Sunday and it was, I think I paid 12 Canadian dollars each way per person. But it's nice to not have to wait in line to get crammed into a crowded train to catch the metro back to Montreal downtown area.
[00:47:32] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. And it runs on a special weekend schedule, so it's every half hour. So just be mindful of that as well. Whereas like the metro, the nice thing at least is it's only one stop. And so I think the experience is generally rather pleasant. It's just, like you're saying, it’s gonna be crowded because that is the way that people get on and off the island. There really is no option for car drop offs or anything like that, so it’s really not advised to try that.
[00:47:57] AdamR46: Yes. And the ferry, they sell the tickets a couple months in advance, and the peak hour is post-qualifying or post-race. They're gonna be sold out pretty quickly. So that's something that you, if you do want to try to take the ferry, you need to plan for that. Whenever the tickets do go on sale, I'll get them as soon as possible because they do sell out. And it's not something that the circuit really advertises, I think it's more of a local tip thing. So hopefully I'm not sharing too much info from the locals, but I found it at some point and it was a really good experience and it's just something different and it's not, I'd rather do that and have it take longer than being crowded in a train for, even if it's just five minutes. I'd rather be on a boat, I guess.
[00:48:46] Join_FanAmp: Especially if it's a nice day and you're going to basically the same place because it's taking you right to Old Town.
[00:48:51] AdamR46: Yeah, exactly. And then from there is probably, you can catch the metro within a few minutes walk and get wherever you need to go. But there's a bunch of restaurants around that area too, so there's plenty to do on the walk tour from the old port area.
[00:49:09] Join_FanAmp: Yeah, so what about that experience? You're obviously being in a city, there's a lot of different programming that's gonna be going on that weekend. What were some of the things that you were doing?
[00:49:19] AdamR46: The Canadian GP's kind of a kickoff to summer for the city where that's kind of, they know that the weather's going to be good going forward. And so it's the city’s like opening party for summer. And so they always host a bunch of street festivals. The streets close off and a lot of the… they don't allow vehicle traffic through, and so it's all pedestrians. A lot of bars and restaurants in the downtown area and the university areas nearby too. And so there's a lot of just nightlife, everyday nightlife that's in the area.
They also have a lot of music festivals that coincide with that week because it's the start of summer. And so there's stuff being around Formula 1, and then there was a music festival nearby where I was staying that I don't think it had anything to do with Formula 1, it's just a music festival happening the same week. So I could just hear loud music walking around the downtown area. Yeah, just a good party vibe. Just a lot of really good food. The prices for food and just going out and having drinks and stuff like that. It's not crazy priced, it's kind of the normal city, and so expect to pay around 20, 25 [Canadian dollars] for a meal per person.
Drinks are not as expensive as what I'm used to in Austin. I think I would probably estimate around six or seven dollars for a beer compared to here. I went to a party the other day and I got a, it was like $9 for a beer here in Austin. And so I'm just used to the higher end of things, I guess.
[00:51:02] Join_FanAmp: Come to New York and we'll drain your bank account [laughs].
[00:51:03] AdamR46: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so Montreal is pretty reasonably priced. The things that surge the most are gonna be your hotels. But the food and things like that going out at night, I feel like it's completely reasonable for a major city.
[00:51:18] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. So the top two photos are from that street festival, the Crescent Street Festival that goes on in that same weekend, and that's sort of just opened. It's really cool to wander around for. And then one of the ones that I thought was really interesting and fun when I've been to Montreal before would be the brewery tours. There's 40 some odd craft breweries that are all around that city. And we went with a group, we booked a tour and it wasn't like one of those bar crawls.
It was truly you go and you'd learn about the specific beer that they're known for, you do a couple tastings and then you'd move onto a different location. And so if you're there and you have some time, even if it's after the race, it could be something really cool to try out and just see a different side of the culture there.
[00:52:02] AdamR46: Yeah, that's exactly what I like to do whenever I travel somewhere new, is I like to find a local brewery and they probably have some really good food. And if they don't, the other one does.
[laughter]
[00:52:13] Join_FanAmp: Or gets better as you go. The food’s better and every time.
[00:52:17] AdamR46: Yeah. It's just a good starting point for the way I like to travel, is I like to have a good beer and some good food and then it… they're usually located in some pretty decent areas. And so that's usually something that I, before I travel, I search breweries in the area and save them so that if I'm in this area I know that I have these options. And then I'll cruise by and see if it's not too busy to get a table and just hang out for a bit. But the brewery tour sounds awesome too. I used to work at a brewery and that's my jam.
[00:52:47] Join_FanAmp: Yeah, it was awesome. And then we also ended up going to the New City Gas, which is one of the big nightlife club areas, or clubs in the area in the warehouse district on the southern end of the city. And there's a ton of really big name acts that come through there, so that's definitely worth checking out. And like we've talked about with Miami before, buy those tickets in advance because it's definitely gonna sell out. It'll definitely become very expensive, but you could probably clip a ticket for a reasonable price if you look early enough out.
[00:53:18] AdamR46: And there's a lot of free stuff that's happening around the city too, like they usually have a Formula 1 themed… it's where they host watch parties and things like that. It’s like a fan fest. Usually around the Crescent area or Peel Street, I believe is the other street where they have some of the stuff. The circuit itself has the fan fest area. It's kind of underneath the bridge, the Concorde Bridge, I believe. Near the entrance, they have a stage set up where they usually do some of the driver appearances and they have a lot of vendors and like the Pit Stop challenge.
The normal Formula 1 fan fest stuff along with beer vendors and things like that. But you'll see some post-race concerts there to wait out the crowds for the metro where you can go hang out and it was just a big vibe after the race, kind of just a giant party in the park. It was pretty cool. If I didn't have my ferry scheduled, I would've checked it out, but I had to walk back to the ferry because I had pre-bought that ticket, or else I was gonna miss it. But also just needed a, I had a bunch of beers that day and so I needed to get some food and get away from the crowds a bit [laughs].
[00:54:28] Join_FanAmp: That's why it could be good to ride the metro.
[00:54:30] AdamR46: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. There's pros and cons to both. The metro definitely offers the flexibility to just go whenever you want.
[00:54:36] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. And especially because it all connects one stop into the center of the whole metro system, you could be staying in any of the neighborhoods. It’s all very accessible.
[00:54:47] AdamR46: Yeah. So where have you stayed in Montreal?
[00:54:52] Join_FanAmp: We were Plateau-Mont-Royal when we were there, and then we ended up going downtown a lot or down to old Montreal a lot and kind of jumped around. And there was that picture of the sandwich on the prior slide which has my heart, but it's like a deli called Schwartz's that's up in Mont Royal. I don’t know if you've watched the Somebody Feed Phil Netflix show, but he goes in there and gets a sandwich because they've been around for I wanna say a hundred some odd years. Don't quote me on that, but it’s like a long time. There's so much historic food in the area.
[00:55:27] AdamR46: Yeah, I had that place saved but didn't make it. The things that I kept eating is the poutine, because they were just everywhere and it was just easy. But I also stayed in Plateau-Mont-Royal. It was probably about a 15 minute walk to the old port from where we stayed. We were close to I wanna say the university area. But yeah, overall it was a cool area to stay. It was a bit loud at night with clubs and bars and stuff, but staying close to one of the metro stops is a good idea no matter where you stay. Especially if you're trying to find accommodation now, as long as you're near a metro and check the schedules to make sure that it's fairly reasonable.
I think that there's some areas you can stay a little bit further that you can still take the metro in. Or if you have a car, they do have some park and rides around the city where you can drive, park somewhere and then take the metro that will get you to and from of the circuit. So that's another option.
[00:56:32] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. Although it's a very safe and accessible city, and Monaco obviously is very safe as well, but like here, Uber was very easy to get. We'd hop in and hop out if we had to go from A to point B. And so that's another option too if you don't wanna worry about a car.
[00:56:48] AdamR46: Yeah, and I guess that's something I didn't really touch on Monaco, is that Monaco is really safe. I would feel completely comfortable traveling solo to attend a GP. And I feel like if you're a solo woman, I feel like I didn't really see anybody acting weird or creepy. Everybody's really friendly. There's a lot of English, it is very international with French, Spanish and Italian as well, and so I think communicating with people would be really easy. But using either the trains or if you have to take a taxi, I feel like there was small, like I did, I wanna say go into the casino and stuff, but there were solo people who looked like they were going somewhere to meet people.
So I think that it’s pretty reasonable to plan on attending Monaco solo. And for Montreal, I felt safe walking around at night it seems. It's kind of a North American city grid, just urban area. But overall, I felt like it was pretty safe. It didn't have any weird vibes. There's plenty of people about at all hours, early or late. I felt like it was completely reasonable to also attend solo. It just depends on where you stay is how the path can be. But I think if you're in the downtown area, you're going to have a lot of the university people in that area, so they're just used to people walking around at all hours.
[00:58:25] Join_FanAmp: How did you get to Montreal?
[00:58:30] AdamR46: We were supposed to, we were flying out of Boston, but there was a ton of weather that week. All the flights were canceled for several airports on the east coast. We’re supposed to land in Boston Thursday night, and we're gonna drive up with the intention on stopping at a brewery, Hill Farmstead Brewery in Vermont. It's a bucket list place I've always wanted to go. I made this reservation a couple months in advance because it was reservation only at the time. And so our flight got canceled the night before, they put us on another flight Friday morning instead of Thursday afternoon.
We get to the airport, we're about to board our flight, and then our connection got canceled. So we didn't board the flight and we ended up catching a… they got us out of Boston, we got to Detroit, and then we ended up catching a flight to Hartford, Connecticut. I was able to change the rental car and drive from there to Montreal, but we didn't get to Connecticut until Friday night at midnight or 1:00 AM. So picked up the rental car, drove for about an hour and found a random hotel in New Hampshire. And so all our plans were just out the window.
[00:59:41] Join_FanAmp: Yeah, that sounds horrible.
[00:59:42] AdamR46: Yeah, it sucked. And so our trip that we had packed some stuff in, some bucket list things, we didn't get to do. We woke up early, drove from New Hampshire to Montreal Saturday morning, a few hours of sleep and it was just pouring the entire time. I was listening to free practice three while I was driving. And then we get to Montreal and we got checked into the Airbnb, dropped off the bags, and my wife was like, “I'm not going, I'm exhausted.”
She just hung out at the apartment and I ran to the metro basically and caught the metro to the circuit, got into the circuit, got to my seat right as the cars were coming up, qualifying. So my journey was supposed to start Thursday, but it didn't. Yeah, I didn't get to the circuit until Saturday afternoon and it was just like rain the entire time.
[01:00:42] Join_FanAmp: So no one should take your advice for how to get there, and the right answer would've been just fly to the Montreal Airport.
[01:00:47] AdamR46: Yeah. That's the more reasonable thing to do. But I have a friend, Lucas from F1 Houston, who spent a lot of money on a flight to Montreal, because that's another thing that surges aside from hotels, is flights. And so that is expensive. That's where we… we have global entry and so we can use the century lines to cross the border pretty easily. That was the plan and the brewery we wanted to go to in Vermont, it's kind of remote and so it was something that we wanted to do. We're doing that again this year, but we have a week instead of a long weekend.
[01:01:30] Join_FanAmp: Always smarter with the northeast weather in the summer.
[01:01:32] AdamR46: Yeah. I haven't been up there a lot and I'm just unfamiliar with it.
[01:01:37] Join_FanAmp: Yeah, no, there's like Plattsburgh, I know is another airport you could technically fly into. Burlington, Vermont is not too far. So those are all options. But yeah, flying to Montreal, when it's working, it's a super easy airport because it's only 25 minutes from downtown. You can take a car or you can take a bus and they're relatively affordable. Maybe 20, 25 CAD to get from the airport downtown. It's a good option, but like you said, the prices surge and I've heard horror stories of Air Canada costs and just travel times and all of that for anyone who's a local or a Canadian flying in and then from the US, if you get a good flight, you just to make sure it's on time.
[01:02:18] AdamR46: I think it was about a six-hour drive from Boston to Montreal total. Burlington is, I don't remember exactly, but I wanna say it's like two hours. That is probably some of the close, probably the closest airport on the American side of the border that you can probably fly to for a reasonably priced, if the flights to Montreal are just ridiculous. Because it all depends on where you're flying from too.
[01:02:42] Join_FanAmp: Right. And you might be hard pressed if you're flying from really far to get a connect, or to get a direct right into Montreal.
[01:02:50] AdamR46: Yeah, exactly. That's where it can, it helps to shop around and consider the price of rental car time and then another hotel if you need it, compared to just spending a little bit to just get the flight and be done with it.
[01:03:05] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. Anything else on the Montreal race that you think we should cover, or any questions from anyone who's watching other than the Canadian who's saying, Ali’s saying Air Canada's horrible, avoid it at all costs.
[laughter]
[01:03:21] AdamR46: I used air Canada to go to Italy a couple years ago.
[01:03:25] Join_FanAmp: Who's their airline partner?
[01:03:28] AdamR46: It was Air Canada. We connected in Montreal and then flew from there to Rome.
[01:03:36] Join_FanAmp: No, but what airline do they partner with?
[01:03:40] AdamR46: I'm not sure off the top of my head, but that's why, it was an Air Canada plane that we used.
[01:03:47] Join_FanAmp: Yeah, I've heard horror stories so avoided.
[01:03:52] AdamR46: Yeah. That's why I'm not sure who they're partnered with, but overall that flight was good and we had a good trip. Because I ended up booking a flight from New York to Rome for really cheap with Air Canada. I think I paid like 400, 430 round trip, and then we used points to get from here to New York. But yeah, it was funny though, because I used those points that we got to JFK, but the Air Canada flight was from LaGuardia.
[01:04:24] Join_FanAmp: To Rome?
[01:04:25] AdamR46: From LaGuardia, Montreal, Rome.
[01:04:29] Join_FanAmp: Oh, sorry, the connection. Yeah, that makes sense.
[01:04:30] AdamR46: Yeah. I piece together some stuff like that sometimes just to use points for one thing, but to save a ton of money [laughs].
[01:04:39] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. LaGuardia-JFK is not the most convenient.
[01:04:41] AdamR46: Yeah, exactly. And I think it was just, they just got done with a bunch of construction, didn't they?
[01:04:48] Join_FanAmp: Yeah, they just renovated the whole Delta terminal. It's actually really nice.
[01:04:51] AdamR46: Yeah, all that stuff was being built while we were there, so it was just chaos [laughs].
[01:04:53] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. It’s coming together, which is surprising for that airport, but it's nice. I'm doing a flight back from Berlin and then go down to the Miami race. I'm doing JFK connection and staying in the airport, because if I had to do a connection that would've been a nightmare.
[01:05:08] AdamR46: Yeah. Well, overall, I think the Canadian GP is pretty, it can be reasonably priced, you just need to plan for it. And you need to plan for it like now, if you want to go next year. Start scouting places and try to get on the ticket email list as well as like, as soon as the provisional calendar comes out, which is usually late summer, book a hotel, book Airbnb, which I know Airbnb's not really recommended for Canada, especially after some recent incidents they've had.
But book something that's either cancelable or refundable just in case your plans fall through. But if you're considering going at all, reserve something ahead of time because the prices just jump. And while you're booking something, it's likely other people are going to be booking it too, so they'll be surprised if it's gone by the time you confirm. It's pretty crazy.
[01:06:04] Join_FanAmp: Yeah, and if you don't see hotel inventory, one thing to do is to call and ask when they put it, like how far in advance. Because I know with Vegas as an example, they, I think the Cosmopolitan was 10 months out. And so they had already announced the calendar, but that hotel in particular did not have any availability for quite a bit longer than their peers. That worked to your disadvantage because the prices would ultimately just be higher no matter what. But if you know in advance you can at least try to get it the day it comes online.
[01:06:34] AdamR46: Yeah. And that's really the best thing to do.
[01:06:37] Join_FanAmp: What of these two, if you had to pick one, maybe to close us out. Which one would you do?
[01:06:44] AdamR46: It really depends on where you're coming from, but they're both good staples on the calendar. The Canadian GP is more known for some really good racing. There's been a couple dull ones in the last 10 years, but there's some rain out ones like 2011, which is whenever Jenson Button came from last and one on the last lap, but that was like a four hour race in the rain, which just sounds… It was fun to watch on TV, but being there for four hours in the rain does not sound fun [laughs].
[01:07:14] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. I would have joined your wife, just hung out.
[01:07:18] AdamR46: Exactly. Exactly. You just need to be prepared for it. But if I could pick one or the other, I would probably go with Canada just for better racing. It's not so far for me just because I'm in Austin, but the Monaco GP is awesome. I mean that is, it's just an experience. The racing itself isn't incredible, but being there is, and it's one of those things where maybe it's better being there because you're not watching it on TV and the TV production is Lance Stroll making the single overtake on the race [laughs]. Yeah. They both have their pros and cons. If I was European based, there's ways to do the Monaco GP for pretty easy or reasonable amount of money.
[01:08:09] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. I think I'd pick Monaco. I just think the whole Euro Trip style ambience to it, plus the fact that what that city is and how absolutely stunning it is just being there in the harbor, even if it's not a race day, it's just so cool.
[01:08:27] AdamR46: Yeah, my wife def, she wants to go back to Monaco just to hang out for a week on a non-race week, because one day we hung out on the beach, just had opened… we got a bottle of wine from this one little restaurant and just hung out on the beach, got in the water and just enjoyed the sun for day. It's pretty cool, and that same beach that we were on, it's one of the places where you're gonna see if one driver is using a running trail that's right behind it. You're bound to bump into people at Monaco or see people that you see on TV or social media.
I was at Izakaya Cozza at the restaurant across from Mozza on the Monday after the GP, and Charles Leclerc just walked right up to me or behind me. My wife was like, “Charles Leclerc's right behind you.” And I look and it was him, and it turns out he was picking up his car. They were out there drinking with his friends after the race and having dinner, and he just left his car and went to go pick it up the next day. And it’s just, you’re gonna bump into people like that. It’s pretty cool.
[01:09:36] Join_FanAmp: I'm surprised you weren't gonna say you were at his apartment. Like all those people who were showing up [laughs].
[01:09:40] AdamR46: That sounds terrible. He had to live around there, and especially if it's his favorite restaurant and stuff that he had mentioned in those other videos, but yeah, that sounds terrible. I feel bad for that dude sometimes [laughs].
[01:09:53] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. It's not funny.
[01:09:56] AdamR46: Yeah. All right. Well, I think we're gonna start wrapping this up. Is there any other questions that you've seen on socials or FanAmp?
[01:10:03] Join_FanAmp: I think that's it. They’re all answered.
[01:10:07] AdamR46: All right, guys. Well, I guess that's it for today. We'll catch you on the next one.
[01:10:12] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. And feel free to join us in the community for follow ups to this. We'll do another session over the coming weeks for more races and then for questions and group chats for the various races as they're coming up. We'll have one from Miami and for Enola and many more.
[01:10:27] AdamR46: Yeah, feel free to message us with any feedback or anything as well.
[01:10:31] Join_FanAmp: Yeah. Awesome. All right, we'll see you around.
[01:10:34] AdamR46: All right, thanks guys. Bye.
[01:10:36] Join_FanAmp: Bye all.
