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!
Posted 4 days, 2 hours ago at 3:38 pm. Add a comment
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.
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago at 7:23 pm. 2 comments
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!
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.
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.
Posted 11 months, 3 weeks ago at 9:53 pm. Add a comment
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.
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.
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 6:06 pm. Add a comment
On my recent trip to Key West, Florida in January 2009 I stayed at the Reach Resort, which recently became a Hilton Property under the Waldorf Astoria Collection.
The Reach appears to have been recently renovated before becoming a Hilton Property as everything appeared to be sparkly and new. The Casa Marina — The Reach’s sister property 2 blocks away also became a Hilton property as well.
The check-in experience was good– I walked up to the counter fairly late in to the night, 10pm perhaps on a Thursday, told them my name and was greeted with a “We’ve been expecting you!’ — I’m thinking that I was the last person to check in that evening. It appeared the hotel had a pretty low occupancy during my visit as the parking garage was near empty. Parking is $12.
The Reach Resort has a pretty good location, one block off of Duval St and is located on Key West’s only natural sand beach. Some might say that the Reach is on the “wrong” end of Duval — but I would say it is the quiet end of Duval where you can actually get some sleep away from the bars . Being a resort property, there is a $20 a day “resort fee” which doesn’t really include anything that I would consider a perk, but the front desk will tell you that the resort fee covers the “Pool towels, fruit in the lobby, newpapers, and beach chairs.” Being a resort property that also means no concierge lounge. The hotel also has water sports rentals and rents Jet Skis, kayaks, snorkeling equipment, etc.
I booked the 1 bedroom boutique sweet with ocean view, and it was sweet indeed! My room was on the Fifth floor — which is the top floor — and was very airy/light with perhaps 12 foot ceilings. The room included a refrigerator, and a Nespresso coffee machine (the one that has the little coffee cartridges). There was a bar area with two bar stools for eating, a love-seat sofa, and an arm chair. The bed was a king size bed with very comfortable bedding and mattress.
The bathroom was clean — had a large shower, no bathtub. It sort of disturbed me that the bathroom also included a set of ear plugs. Turns out the hotel was very quiet and I didn’t need to ear plugs (thank goodness!). Perhaps during times of higher occupancy the hotel is noisier?
My favorite spot at the hotel was definitely the hammocks strung up on the beach — there is just something really cool about lying on a hammock that is suspended between two palm trees!
I’d definitely recommend the Reach Resort to anyone traveling to Key West Florida!
The Reach Resort is located at: 1435 Simonton St, Key West, FL
http://www.reachresort.com/
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 5:14 pm. Add a comment
On a recent business trip to Newport, Rhode Island, I had the pleasure of staying at the Newport Marriott. The Newport Marriott is located right in the middle of old town Newport on the harbor.
The design of the hotel is a bit strange, as some of the rooms face outside, and other rooms face the “inside” atrium of the hotel — which is covered. The rooms on the inside of the hotel don’t get any fresh air — some of the windows of rooms actually face in to the hallway. If you have a preference, an outside facing room is definitely preferable.
I was staying in January, which is the snowy season in Newport, therefore occupancy is super low. I paid $120/night for a harbor view room, which can go for up to $400/night in the summer time. The concierge lounge was closed “for the season” — so as a Platinum I was given complimentary breakfast in their restaurant. I’ve had the breakfast buffet in the restaurant before, so I was pretty stoked about that — but again, because it was the slow season, they didn’t have the buffet, but allowed guests to order up to $16 of food off of their breakfast menu instead. The food was good, but I really prefer the buffet so that my breakfast will be quick. It just takes awhile to order breakfast, have it be prepared, get a check, etc.
The hotel was a nice gym in their “Spa at Long Wharf”. The machines are new, and many of the aerobic machines such as the elliptical trainers have televisions on them. There is also an indoor heated swimming pool and jacuzzi. It’s pretty neat to go for a swim in the pool when it’s snowing outside!
The room itself was a decent size — not huge, but not too small. The bedding was clean and comfortable. The television was a flat panel TV, perhaps 32″ in size, a bit smaller than typical Marriott’s. It also had the inputs for external video. The desk had four (4) power plugs which is really nice. I personally carry a power strip with me on travel because one or two power plugs are never enough for the true geek on travel, so having four is a nice touch. The bathroom was a bathroom, nothing particularly special, sink, toilet, and tub with shower.
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 10:11 pm. Add a comment
The Renaissance Esmerelda Resort and Spa is located near Palm Springs, CA in the “resort hotel” district of Indian Wells. It is about a 20 minute drive to “downtown” Palm Springs. This is considered a “resort” property so there is no concierge lounge, and a $20 resort fee is added. The $20 resort fee includes a few things such as bottled water, high speed internet access, and resort bicycles. The resort fee also includes “free self parking” — but I don’t really consider that to be a benefit.
It has been reported by flyertalkers that the hotel gives free breakfast buffets to platinum members… well not anymore. The front desk staff said that they stopped giving out free breakfasts to plats in December, and that they were pretty bummed about it too. The breakfast buffet really is quite excellent — omelet bar, juice bar with watermelon/cantaloupe juice, etc — but I’m not sure that it’s worth the $22 price tag.
The hotel is quite a large property and is situated on a golf course. The fitness center looks to be recently renovated and has all new machines with some spiffy workout software installed on them. The outside common areas have fireplaces at night that one can lounge around at. Being a resort hotel it’s definitely a place that you could spend all day and never have to leave. The rooms are nicely appointed — flat panel televisions with laptop/video hookups.
Unfortunately our first room wasn’t cleaned all that well, or there was a really “hairy” person in there before us, as the bathroom was full of hair. We asked the front desk staff for a new room, and they put us in to a different room without any fuss. The new room was actually bigger than the first so that was a bonus. Check out the video for more details.
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 11:15 pm. 3 comments
. 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.