Don't EVER go to Montreal to Party

I just have a quick rant / advice for people considering going to Montreal to party

So i just finished my 4th year at U of T and some close buddies (4 guys in all) and I decide to go to Montreal for a couple of days because we've heard that it's a party town.

Day 1: Thursday
We booked our hotel room with 4 beds in one room and find out at check in that the room was intended for 2 people. If we wanted to have 4 ppl in the room, we have to pay $40 more a night. Fine. We paid.

After catching the habs game at the 3 brewers and getting hammered, we visit a strip club. The girls in the club are disgusting (late 20s/ early 30s, mostly chubby, dirty strippers). We paid for a "lesbian show" with 2 strippers that was agreed on to be $40. After going to the private booth with them and watching them eat eachother out for 30s seconds and yapping with the bouncer for another 30 seconds. They tell us that it's going to be $50 more per person including the 40 we paid them. We were scared of getting our ass kicked so after a breif argument, we obliged.
Went back to the hotel feeling like shit (we're students, have a tight budget)

Day 2: Friday
Walked around the city during the day. Nothing to see. Toronto has everything montreal has except better. The streets of montreal are dirty. Graffiti everywhere. Run down houses every other block. Homeless drunk harassing you at every intersection. The metro system smells like burnt rubber.
Had a sandwich at Schwartz's - highlight of the day.

That night - Went to the 2 "hottest" clubs in MTL.
First - La Mouche - all guys and a few chubby girls. 4 gogo dancers on stage who were the only ones dancing. Place was empty at 1:30am. We quickly leave and head to the other "hot spot".
Tonic - Nicer venue, all guys. Dancefloor was empty. Ginos with their shirts unbuttoned halfway everywhere jumping around.
We head back to our hotel, passing by dirty hookers on every block - some without any bottoms on.
Disgusted, go back to bed.

Day 3: Saturday
Visit the lakeshore. Nothing to see. Walked by a lot of beautiful churches, but can't go in because they charge an entrance fee (wtf)...
Eat at Frite Alors - poutine was WAAAAYYY overhyped.
Ended up playing cards at a second cup.
Went home.

Worst trip ever. If you're considering Montreal, don't go. Just come to Toronto instead. It's an English version of Montreal except everything is 100 times better.

/rant

Well, let me rephrase. Montreal was not a good party spot for fresh college grads on a budget (we spent ~800 for the 3 days including hotel). I think the lounges are for an older crowd and although they might have been nice, we wouldnt have fit in (we're all ~22). We were on both st.laurante and cresent on our nights out. The streets were not as full as toronto's except for the night the habs won. The cab drivers told us St.laurent used to be a lot more lively, but many bars and strip joints have closed down within the last few months (there were at least 6-7 spots with freshly boarded up windows and doors when we walked around).

The people in Montreal were a lot nicer than ppl in toronto. The food was good. But the city was just very dirty and the night life was dissappointing. Maybe there was too much hype going into it, but I was expecting a lot more...

Have you visited recently? I think maybe it's gone down hill the past couple of years (with the recession and all the banks leaving). Some other friends who have gone recently have said they felt it was really run down also.

Not very informed about this. Just relaying info from what the cab driver told us when we asked him why our nights sucked. He's been driving cabs there for 15 years.


I agree the covers were much cheaper. $9 at La Mouche and $10 at Tonic (might be the other way around). I just thought there weren't enough people who wanted to party there. There were only a handful of clubs in MTL whereas Toronto has 20+ in the entertainment district alone, yet there weren't enough people to fill the MTL joints. Half of the people that we talked to in the clubs were from out of town (mostly Toronto) anyway. We walked around the Eaton Center (in MTL) and asked the girls that worked in the stores and they all had said La Mouche and Tonic were the 2 hottest places to go out on a friday night... Maybe they lied to us and kept the nicer clubs to themselves...