I probably like the cooked to order menu service at the Park Hyatt Maldives and room service at the Andaz 5th Avenue more. The highest quality ingredients I’ve had for breakfast were probably at the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris. And the buffet (which I understand is no longer as good) that I had at the Le Meridien Chiang Rai several years ago was probably better as well — it wasn’t more extensive, but there were more and more interesting things that would be brought around by servers for you to try over the course of a meal that weren’t on the menu. (The most extensive buffet title probably belongs to one of the many top end hotels in Kuala Lumpur.) But I imagine that the breakfast buffet at the St. Regis Bali is the…
Trip Reports
Category Archives for Trip Reports.
Review: Singapore Airlines “The Private Room” First Class Lounge
My pictures of this lounge aren’t going to be very good, but that’s actually the crux of the review. I got off a regional flight from Denpasar and when I arrived at the train which moves passengers between terminals I realized that I left my camera on the flight. I froze. What should I do to get it back? I hadn’t even paid attention to which gate I had gotten off at, but I could have figured that out. Should I return to the gate? While Singapore flight attendants provide outstasnding service, I find that their ground staff do not always and out of the box thinking isn’t usually a strong suit. I was flying business class for the short hop but connecting to Singapore Airlines first class on an award ticket. The lounge I’d…
Review of the Hyatt Regency Coral Gables, My Current Pick Near the Miami Airport
About a month ago I had to be in South Florida for business and stayed for the first time at the Hyatt Regency Coral Gables. It served my needs perfectly on a one-night stay near the Miami airport and near my morning meetings, and I’ll be staying there again in a few weeks. This wouldn’t be my choice for an airport overnight. It’s not close enough to the airport and there’s no shuttle. But it’s the perfect hotel for me if I need to be in the area of the airport, in and around Coral Gables, the next day. And it’s the perfect hotel for me if I’m coming into Miami late, renting a car, and and have business in South Florida the next day. It’s close enough to the airport, but it’s a hotel…
Embassy Suites Portland: How My Hilton HHonors Redemptions Changed After the March 28 Massacre
It used to be possible to get nearly 2 cents per point at places like the Conrad Koh Samui. This was my best redemption of Hilton HHonors points. Every room is a standalone villa with an ocean view and private pool, so even a general member of the program (no status) gets a good room on points. No upgrades needed. When I first made my booking, pre-opening, it was a category 6 hotel — 40,000 points per night, but with elite redemption discounts just 32,000 points per night for my 5 night stay. The hotel was bumped up to category 7 and I wound up re-booking my award when they were letting redemptions book into a two-bedroom villa. That upped my cost, with the elite discount, to 40,000 points per night (200,000 points for a…
Elephant Jumps Thai in Northern Virginia Getting Even Better With New Dishes
About two and a half years ago I first wrote about my favorite Thai restaurant in the DC suburbs, Elephant Jumps in Merrifield. Regular readers know this place and word has certainly spread. I understand that some of the bloggers from First2Board organized a lunch there before the start of Frequent Traveler University at the end of April. There aren’t a ton of places that age well, and admittedly after it first got popular it had a few ups and downs especially with service (they were learning to staff properly and handle getting busy). They worked through the bumps well, and I kept going back. And going back. I had pretty much everything on the menu except for their Thai-Western fusion dishes which just didn’t appeal to me. This is a hole in the wall…
Why the Hyatt Regency Pier 66 is My Most Vexing Hotel
I have family in South Florida and I visit often, and those trips are very much all about spending time with them and not where I’m staying. If there’s ever a time on “leisure” (pretend those are ‘air quotes’) that I don’t spend much time in the room, it’s when I’ve with family. So it doesn’t matter much that the hotel options in my prince point tend to be entirely pedestrian. I really like the Hyatt Place in Delray Beach as an alternative to my usual Marriott or Renaissance in Boca Raton. And yet I seem to keep going back to the Hyatt Regency Pier 66… and not because I need Gold Passport stay and night credit, either (I’d just stay in Delray Beach). Other family tends to stay there for other proximity reasons, and…
The Best Hand Pulled Chinese Noodles in New York (or Anywhere)
About 10 months back I wrote about some of my favorite food spots in Lower Manhattan. One of those was Lam Zhou Homemade Noodle. The link above is to the restaurant’s Yelp page, they don’t have a website. They don’t have metal utensils. Or air conditioning. Or a credit card machine. Or an A rating from the health department, for that matter. What they do have is the absolute best hand pulled noodles and delicious soup, in expensively. They don’t speak much if any English, you order by number off of the big sign on the wall with pricing and you pay at the end by cash (it seems like they could care less if you tip or not, and the man taking my money recently looked at me funny when I overpaid by about…
The Hyatt Regency Austin’s View of the River from a Confirmed Suite
One of my favorite things is a great hotel suite. I recognize that’s not everyone’s preference, many of my readers will say “I don’t need a suite, I don’t spend time in the room anyway, get out and see a great city!” And I don’t disagree with that. But I also enjoy a resort that I can spend time at and relax, a vacation where I’m not running around the whole time. My normal life is at warp speed so being able to take time where I’m sedentary means a lot. Even in a city, and when not on vacation, I love a sanctuary. By my nature I’m an introvert. So if I’m attending a conference, or a bunch of meetings, or even just doing sightseeing it’s nice to have a great space to return…
Airline Arrivals Lounges, and American’s Offering at London Heathrow
Most airport lounges are places to wait before getting on a flight. Some are even designated as departure lounges only, which is to say that you need to show a departing boarding pass to get in (either a business class or above boarding pass, or a coach boarding pass and something else to demonstrate you’re entitled to access like an eligible elite frequent flyer card). But there are also designated arrivals lounges, usually places to shower up after a long flight. This is especially important in some markets where many long haul flights arrive in the early morning — business travelers turning up and needing to go straight to the office, a place to clean up and even have a suit pressed, leisure travelers who get into the city too early to check into their…
Republicans Woke Me Up in the Middle of the Night — at the Hyatt Regency Sacramento
The Hyatt Regency Sacramento is a perfectly serviceable hotel with a nice lobby, generally good staff, and good rooms that gets very expensive and sells out when the legislature is in session in California’s state capitol, given its proximity. I stayed there recently at the tail end of my UAE and Maldives trip because a friend was getting married nearby. The hotel was expensive when I looked into it, showing sold out months in advance, but another friend decided not to use his booking at the Hyatt and stay at the nearby Sheraton instead — and transferred his cheapie reservation to me. I should have known that showing sold out (only “Diamond Guaranteed Availability” open) months out must mean a conference taking up the bulk of the hotel. In those situations rooms often become available…
