Chris' World

Fairfield Inn & Suites New York Manhattan Fifth Avenue Video Review

Over Memorial Day weekend, we visited the big apple, New York City and stayed at the Fairfield Inn & Suites New York Manhattan Fifth Avenue. We picked the Fairfield Inn because it had the cheapest rate of any Marriott Property in the general vicinity of Times Square ($227/night with AAA discount) and yet was still centrally located.

Although the name of the hotel is “Fifth Avenue”, it is actually located on 37th street, between 5th and 6th Avenue. It’s about 4 blocks from Macy’s, and 6 blocks from Times Square (about a 10 minute walk). The hotel is a new hotel that just opened this year, in 2010. It has 18 floors, and 92 rooms — and is actually a nice alternative to the huge hotels in Times Square, like the Marriott Marquis that has 2,000 rooms. Each floor of the hotel has only 6 rooms, except the top floor which has 2 rooms.

The hotel doesn’t have any onsite parking, but they do provide discounted parking at an off-site parking facility one block away on 36th Street. Make sure to get your parking ticket validated by the hotel’s front desk to get the discounted rate of $30/night. The off-site parking garage is “valet” parking and does NOT include in-out privileges. But you’re in Manhattan, so you really won’t need a car anyway. Park it and forget it!

As a platinum member I called to request an upgrade the morning of arrival, and we were given the suite on the 18th floor, room 1801. The room was quite big for a Manhattan hotel room… it has a sofa that could seat 3 people and a desk in the main entry part of the room. The desk has a flat panel TV mounted on the wall above that can be viewed from the sofa. The king size bed is off the right, and also has another flat panel TV on the wall across from the bed. The closet in the room is a very odd long noodle shape located behind the desk. The balcony is huge and has a wonderful view of the empire state building. It was also a great place to enjoy breakfast, as the hotel just recently purchased some outdoor furniture for the balcony two weeks prior to our stay. Although I’m not sure whether the cleaning staff has realized the furniture was outside yet… because it looked like it hadn’t received any cleaning in those two weeks. The final part of the room, the bathroom, is also a pretty good size. The shower is very intriguing because one side is frosted glass, with a thin clear glass section at the top that we could see the Empire State building from while showering.

Unfortunately the hotel was experiencing some water pressure issues during our stay and the water pressure available in our shower was very very low. On the second night we spent in the suite, no water would come out of the shower at all. This was due to a defective water pump in the hotel, so the hotel transfered us to a “standard” king room on the 7th floor that actually had water pressure.

Our newly transfered room was room 703. A very small, but nicely appointed room. There isn’t much “extra” space in the room, but it didn’t feel particularly cramped as other reviewers on tripadvisor have described it. I’ve stayed in many hotels in Japan that had waaaaayy smaller rooms.

I’m a pretty light sleeper, and found both of our rooms to be quiet and free of room neighbor noise. Having only a few rooms per floor I think helps in this regard.

The hotel provides the standard complimentary Fairfield breakfast, pastries, bread, cereal, bananas, coffee. The breakfast area was pretty small, but had a nice glass ceiling to let the morning sunlight in. The staff at the hotel was great, check-in/check-out was a breeze, and they were very accommodating and apologetic when to moving us to the different room to actually get some water pressure.

I highly recommend this hotel to singles, and couples visiting the big apple. It’s centrally located, and reasonably priced. The rooms may be a bit on the small side, but how much time are you spending in your hotel room anyway? You should be out enjoying New York City and not hanging around your hotel room!

Hotel New Yokosuka Video Review

On my last trip to Japan I stayed at the Hotel New Yokosuka, in Yokosuka Japan. The Hotel New Yokosuka is conveniently located just one block away from the main gate of Yokosuka Naval Base.

While this hotel caters mostly to American’s on business in Yokosuka, it still retains a very distinctive Japanese flair. Upon check-in, I was asked for your passport, but not a credit card. No payment is rendered until check-out. During check-in the staff informs me of my selected room rate, and how it compared to the current US Per Diem rate based on the current Yen exchange rate. I was then informed that my room included free “Breakfast, ADSL Internet, Drink Tickets, and Pay TV.” I was given the option of daily maid service in my room, or weekly maid service but daily laundry service. I took the daily laundry service as clean clothes are pretty nice, and I’m okay making my own bed. They do still come in to the room to bring new towels for the bathroom, they just don’t change the sheets.

My room on this stay was on the 6th floor of the “West Wing” of the hotel — a new building that is connected to the main building. The rooms in the West Wing are much bigger than the standard rooms, and include a little Kitchenette. Having stayed in the very small rooms in the main hotel, I’d definitely reccomend one of the West Wing rooms.

The room included a queen size bed, a flat screen television, two desks, and a balcony. The bathroom is a very typical tiny Japanese bathroom, with a heated/bidet toilet seat, and with an unusual feature of a television that you can watch from the bathtub. There was also a kitchenette with a mini-fridge, sink, dishwasher, stove, and microwave. I found the room to be very quiet — which is a plus for me since I’m a pretty light sleeper. The rooms in the main part of the hotel are not very quiet due to their small size, and proximity to each other.

Although you’d think Japan is pretty modern, many hotels in Japan still use actual metal keys, and this hotel is no exception. The key also has a big plastic thing attached to it that you insert in to a slot when you enter the room to turn the power on. The key needs to be returned to the front desk when you leave the hotel, and picked up when you come back to the hotel. They ensure you return the key, because breakfast coupons are tied to picking up your key in the evening.

The hotel provides breakfast every morning in the downstairs bar/restaurant. The breakfast is this bizarre combination of Japanese and American breakfasts… something in between. They serve eggs, cooked to order, cereal, toast, bacon that is waaaaay undercooked, miso soup, fried fish, and steamed rice. Fairly decent overall.

Every evening the hotel bar is open for the drink tickets to be redeemed. You can redeem the drink tickets for alcoholic, or non-alcoholic beverages. So if you’re a soda drinker like me, you can indeed get a coke . There is a pretty good American bar scene at the hotel every night with many of the Americans working on the base go to unwind. There’s also a 7-11 right cross the street in case you need a quick snack, or beverage the hotel doesn’t provide.

As far as transportation to the hotel goes — there are two main ways to get to Yokosuka by train, the JR Line, and the Keikyu Line. The hotel is located about a mile from the JR Yokosuka station, about a half mile from the Shiori Station on the Keikyu Line, and 3/4 of a mile from the Yokosuka Chuo station also on Keikyu line. My preference is to take the Keikyu line, as it is much faster than the JR. You can pick up the Keikyu line in Tokyo at Shinagawa, or at the main Yokohama station. From Yokohama it’s about 30 minutes if you take the express Keikyu to Yokosuka Chuo.

Courtyard by Marriott Tokyo Ginza Review

When I was in Tokyo last December I stayed at the Marriott Courtyard Tokyo Ginza.

I booked a standard queen size room, and checked in to room 1008 on the 10th floor. I asked at the front desk about the possibility of an upgraded room and was told that all of the rooms on the executive floor were already booked. As a platinum member I chose the welcome gift, of “Orange Juice, Fruit, and Japanese cake.”

The room itself was small by typical American standards, but huge by Tokyo standards . Some of the interesting touches included the two Japanese style robes on top of the bed, and a cool lighting control panel next to the bed that can be used to turn on and off all of the lights in the room. Many Japanese hotels still use metal “keys” for the room — the courtyard does one better, and has RFID key-cards that you simply touch to the door to unlock it.

The room also had a medium size work desk, flat panel television, sofa/chair thing, and a mini-bar refrigerator. I found the room to be nice and quiet — very important for me!

The bathroom, like most Japanese hotels, had a toilet with a Japanese bidet seat. The bathroom was well stocked with toiletries including toothbrushes, toothpaste, hair brushes, and two *individually wrapped* cotton swabs.

The only real negative for the Courtyard is that the air conditioning and heat is either on or off for the whole hotel. When I was there in December, it was a pretty warm day, and the room was a bit too warm for my tastes — but no air conditioning was available because the hotel was seat for “heat” and not A/C. At least the window in room opened so I could get some fresh air that way.

Getting from the Courtyard to the airport is a snap, as there is a Limousine bus that picks up in front of the Courtyard every hour bound for Narita. 3000 Yen, and well worth it! Location wise the Courtyard is a pretty central area in Ginza — just a few blocks from the Higashi-Ginza metro stop, and right across the street from an AM/PM and a Denny’s.

Overall I highly recommend the Courtyard, it’s quiet, centrally located, and relatively inexpensive for an American chain hotel in Tokyo.

Hilton Los Cabos Video Review

Last month, me and the new wifey went to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for our honeymoon.  We stayed at the Hilton Los Cabos, in Los Cabos Mexico.

We booked the hotel using Hilton points for 5 nights using an American Express AXON6 award for 145,000 Hilton Points.

Although the directions from the hotel seemed easy enough from the website, basicly drive on the transpeninsular highway from the airport until you see the Hilton, we managed to miss the driveway for the Hilton and had to drive for another 4 miles before being able to turn-around again.  Once we arrived at the hotel property, we were stopped at a little guard booth, and asked for our name before being able to drive on to the hotel grounds.  We then drove up to the lobby/check-in area, were greeted by complimentary valet service, and also complimentary margaritas.  Note that there is the option for self-parking as well, just drive past the lobby to the parking lot on the side of the hotel.  There was a 2nd guard booth at the self-parking lot, but it never seemed to be staffed.

During check-in, we were informed that as a Gold member, we would receive complimentary continental breakfast at the “El Meson” restaurant, but that a $2 “service charge” will be applied to our bill at check-out for each free breakfast.  That’s sort of an interesting twist on complimentary, but $2 is still pretty cheap .  The restaurant also has a hot breakfast that we could “upgrade” to for another $7-8, but the continental was good enough for us.  Really the best part of the breakfast was the view from the restaurant — definitely try to get a seat out-side if you can!  The second best part of the breakfast selection was the juices each morning, orange juice, watermelon juice, papaya juice, cantaloupe juice, and cactus/orange juice.

The room itself had a southwestern theme, lots of orange and yellow — definitely very Mexican.  All of the rooms in the hotel have an ocean view with a balcony.  The floor was tiled as opposed to carpetted — this seems typical of beachfront hotels.  I assume carpet is too hard to clean with all of the sand.  The bathroom had a “window” that you could open in to the main part of the room, so that you could see the ocean while taking a bath.  That’s definitely a unique twist.  Other than those exceptions, it was a typical Hilton room.

The hotel has two very impressive “infinity” pools, four restaurants, and a beautiful beach.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so go watch the video already and see what those look like for yourself!

Paris Marriott Rive Gauche

When I was in Paris for a weekend I stayed at the Paris Marriott Rive Gauche. The hotel is located in the “south bank” of the river, in a fairly residential area. Although it is not located directly near any tourist sites, it is convienently located 2 blocks from the Saint-Jaques stop of the number 6 metro line and about 5 blocks from the Denfert-Rocherau stop of the RER B line. The RER B line runs from the airport… so no transfers required.

As a Platinum member I was upgraded to a suite — which is essentially 2 rooms converted to be a single room. It looks as if the hotel originally didn’t have any suites, but at some point they decided to provide some upgraded rooms and the only way to do it was to combine two existing rooms. Therefore the room has two bathrooms, although only one bedroom.

The concierge lounge was definitely one of the better Marriott lounges that I’ve been too. For dessert time every evening they always had delicious French pastries, and even provided breakfasts on weekends.

Would definitely recommend this hotel to other travelers to Paris. Check out the video for all the details.

Hotel de Crillon Review – Paris France

A video review of the Hotel Crillion in Paris France. This is the hotel that Madonna and Lady Gaga stayed at when they went to Paris. The room rates are cheap — only like 800 euro!

Renaissance Portsmouth Hotel Review (Norfolk, VA area)

In early April I took a business trip to Norfolk, VA and stayed 2 nights at the Renaissance Portsmouth Hotel & Waterfront Conference Center in Portsmouth, VA.  The Renaissance Portsmouth  is located on the Elizabeth River, directly across from downtown Norfolk.

For those people that are going to downtown Norfolk for business or pleasure, there is a ferry that leaves adjacent to the hotel every 30 minutes, and will take you to downtown Norfolk for $1.50.  Pretty convienent, and a nice ride — much better than trying to drive over the bridges or through the tunnels of Norfolk during rush hour.

The hotel itself would appear to be relatively new, has 16 stories, 244 rooms, and a fairly large conference center.

Arriving at the hotel is a somewhat odd experience, because the valet and parking garage is on the “land” side of the hotel, while the lobby and check-in desk is on the “water” side of the hotel, which means you have to walk down a pretty lengthy hallway before arriving in the lobby to check-in.  Although once arriving in the lobby it is pretty nice.  The lobby is decorated in a modern style, lot’s of intriguing sofa’s and lounge chairs, and a long table with 6 free computers (running Windows Vista interestingly enough).  Adjacent to the lobby is also the hotel’s restaurant and bar.  The bar was pretty packed both nights that I was there, but the restaurant was mostly empty.

I was given room 1415 — which seemed to be a normal room.  As a platinum member I would have expected to be at least on the Concierge floors (15, and 16) but I guess 14 is close.  The room itself was small, but functional and well appointed.  There was a king-size bed with soft white sheets.  A flat screen television with the Marriott video inputs.  A desk, and a psyhiatrists office style sofa near the window.  The view out of the window was quite nice with views of downtown Norfolk and the Elizabeth river. Based on the positioning and design of the hotel a majority of the rooms have a view of the river.

A nice touch from the housekeeping staff was a note that the write when coming in for the evening turn-down service that said “Please continue to enjoy your stay” and had 2 chocolates placed next to the note.

The concierge lounge was open weekdays for breakfast 6am-10am, and for evening snacks and desert from 5pm-10pm.  The breakfast was pretty good, they had one or two hot items each morning.  The first morning there were breakfast sandwiches with egg and bacon on a crossaint, and the second morning there was scrambled eggs with cheese.  For the dinner snack there was one hot item, it was mini pizza slices the evening I was there.  They also had asparagus spears, and assorted cheeses.  The evening desert seemed to be cookies and brownies — and although the cookies were baked in the lounge, still would have been nice to have something a little more.

Amsterdam Marriott Review

In early March I stayed at the Amsterdam Marriott on a business trip.

I arrived in Amsterdam on an early flight at 7:30 am. I took a taxi to the hotel which cost 30 euros and arrived at the hotel at 8:30am. I had called ahead to ask for an early check-in, and indeed my room was ready. As a platinum member, I was upgraded to one of the hotels “Corner Executive Suites” room 423 — overlooking the Leidseplein. The staff at the front desk was very pleasant, they asked if this was my first time in Amsterdam, when I said yes, they pulled out a map, and circled a bunch of interesting touristy places that I might want to visit including the Ann Frank House, and the Van Gogh Museum.

The bell-boy showed me to my room and brought my luggage up. The room itself is quite large, with a king size bed. The room has a desk that faces the window so you can see the view while working on your laptop. The window opens so that you can get some fresh dutch air in the room. The desk also has Europoean 220V plugs and a US 120V outlet which is a nice touch. The US outlet is behind a plastic cover, so it took me a little while to find it. There was also an arm chair, and a small table.

The room has two closets that have lights inside when the doors are opened. There is also a well stocked mini-bar refrigerator that also has some room for your own beverages. I don’t typically partake of the mini-bar, but I do like space to store my own beverages so that they stay cool. Above the mini-bar was a pretty neat electric tea-kettle that would heat a cup of water in what seemed like an astonishing 15 seconds.

The bathroom is one of those “two room” bathrooms that has a room with the sink, and a separate room with the toilet and bathtub/shower. The bathtub’s water faucet is one of those that you’ll typically see in European hotels that has separate controls for the temperature and the water flow which is nice so that once you set your temperature, you can just turn the water on and off without fiddling with the temperature. The sink in the bathroom had two light switches, one for the main light, and another for a dim light underneath the sink which makes for a good night light.

The concierge lounge in the hotel is open 6am-midnight every day, with breakfast being served Mon-Fri 6:30am-10:30am, Hourderves Sun-Thurs 5:30pm-7:30pm and Desert Sun-Thurs 7:30pm-9:30pm. When meals aren’t being served, the lounge is open for “snacks” and beverages. In snacks were oranges, apples, kiwis, pretzels, and cookies. The beverages are a fairly wide selection of soft-drinks and coffee/tea.

The breakfast served was fairly good, although no hot items. Mainly pastries, breads, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, cold breakfast meats, cheeses, and fruit.

The dinner Hourderves were quite good, with a different selection every night. One night I had a pretty tasty beef stew with potatoes. Other nights included shrimp cocktails, chicken wings, and meatballs. Desert was typically Dutch apple pie and another pie or cake selection depending upon the day.

Marriott Crystal Gateway Review

On a recent business trip to the Washington DC area I spent one night at the Marriott Crystal Gateway hotel. The Marriott Crystal Gateway is located in Arlington, VA — in the neighborhood known as Crystal City. The hotel itself has a great location as it is connected to the Crystal City underground tunnels and only about a 3 minute walk to the Crystal City metro station. The hotel is also located about 1 mile from the Reagan National Airport to which the hotel provides complimentary shuttle service to and from the airport. Note: There are 2 Marriott’s in Crystal City — the “Crystal City Marriott” — and this one, the “Marriott Crystal Gateway.” They are located directly across the highway from each other — and they share the same airport shuttle, so make sure you get off the shuttle at the right hotel.

I flew in to Dulles, so I was driving in to the city. Parking at the hotel for self parking is $22 — there is also a valet parking option.

Upon checking in to the hotel I was given the usual spiel about “The gym is here.. the restaurants are there…”. I then inquired about the Concierge Lounge — the front desk attendant looked down at his computer, and said “I see your Marriott Rewards number is on file, but it doesn’t say what level you are”. When I told him that I was a platinum, he then said “Well in that case, I’ll upgrade you to a suite on the concierge level.”. I’m not really sure what the malfunction was that my rewards level wasn’t shown in their system, but I was pleased with the resulting suite upgrade.

The suite that I was given was room 1101 on the concierge level. The suite is made up of three rooms, a living room, a bedroom, and of course a bathroom. The room is on the side of the hotel, and as such as excellent views from the living room with windows facing to the west, and the bedroom with windows facing to the east. The Crystal Gateway Marriott recently renovated their rooms at the end of 2008, and it shows. The living had a sofa for two, an armchair with footrest, flat panel television, and a coffee machine.

The bedroom had a king size bed, that had a robe laid out on it. Also upon the bed was a bag of white chocolate covered pretzels, and two chocolate chip cookies — nice touch. The bed had the new Marriott LED reading lights. The alarm-clock on the nightstand had an ipod jack. The bedroom also had another armchair like in the living room, along with the desk, and another flat-panel television. The television in bedroom had the audio/video inputs, while the living room television did not.

The final room, the bathroom, was rather spacious and had the standard Marriott amenities.

The concierge lounge is located on the 11th floor, and is open Mon-Thurs 6:30am – 10:00pm, Fri 6:30am – 12:00pm, and Sunday 5:30pm – 10:00pm. The evening snack options during my visit were pretty poor — apples, bananas, and cookies. No hot snack or real deserts. The lounge cutbacks have obviously struck at the Crystal Gateway. Breakfast was a little better as they did have one hot item, scrambled eggs.

Around the rest of the hotel, there are 3 restaurants, a Starbucks in the lobby, a business center, a jungle themed indoor swimming pool (see the video), and a smallish fitness center overlooking the pool.

Fullerton Marriott Review

On a recent business trip I spent one night at the Fullerton Marriott at California State University Fullerton at a rate of $120/night. The hotel itself is located directly on the CSU Fullerton Campus, and is also adjacent to the 57 freeway at the Nutwood Avenue exit.

From the outside of the hotel this would appear to be an older Marriott, but don’t let the outside disappoint you as the inside is very well maintained. Parking is free at this Marriott which is pretty nice since most of the other Los Angeles and Orange County Marriott’s charge for parking.

I was given a room on the top floor (6) which is also the same level as the concierge lounge. The hallways of the hotel are showing a bit of age as the tint of the paint is getting slightly yellowish. The paint and ceilings of the rooms show similar age, but the furnishings of the room have been replaced recently.

Starting with the bed, the sheets were clean and comfortable, as well as the mattress. The bed had some nifty LED reading lights built in to it as well. There was a small desk in the room with 2 power plugs, and wired internet access. The television was an LCD flatscreen with inputs to plug in your laptop/dvd player or other potential media player. The bathroom was a standard bathroom, bathtub, shower, coffeemaker.

The highlight of the hotel though for me was the Concierge lounge. In a time of Marriott lounge downgrades, the Fullerton Marriott get’s extra kudos for their lounge for not cutting out the good stuff like many other Marriotts. For the dinnertime snack there was a very tasty pasta with shrimp and Alfredo sauce and shrimp, along with Caesar salad. For breakfast there were three (3!) hot items, scrambled eggs, bacon/sausages, and oatmeal.