Over the summer, Ford and I spent a weekend at the Four Seasons Surf Club in Surfside, Miami, for our five year anniversary. While we live in Miami, we've never actually done a "staycation" anywhere, and this is a hotel both of us have been quite interested…
Hotel Reviews
I know many people are missing trip reports on the blog, so I wanted to post a review of a hotel I stayed at in Austria over the summer, which I haven't gotten around to writing about until now. For context on this trip, on the way back from Turkey we…
Over the summer we spent one night at the Andaz Munich. I never got around to reviewing it, but better late than never, right? I've had nothing but phenomenal experiences at Hyatt's full service properties in Germany (like the Hyatt Regency Dusseldorf…
We recently spent four nights in Dusseldorf (yes, I know it's "Düsseldorf," but for simplicity, let's just call it Dusseldorf in this post). ;) In a previous post I reviewed Deutsche Bahn's Intercity Express (ICE) first class, and in this post I wanted…
Over the weekend we decided to do a quick trip from Berlin to Dresden, which is about two hours from Berlin (either by car or train). We decided to stay at the 94-room Gewandhaus Dresden, which is a Marriott Autograph Collection property, and generally…
After spending a night at Jumeirah Frankfurt (following our coronavirus test at Frankfurt Airport), our next stop was Hamburg. That's because my mom had been in Hamburg for a couple of weeks, so our plan was to spend a few nights there, before finally…
While Frankfurt wasn't our final destination in Germany, we spent a night there for a couple of reasons: Winston hates flying, so we wanted to fly nonstop from Miami to Frankfurt to minimize Winston's flying time (and then we'd drive to Hamburg, and…
We redeemed points for our entire stay in Bodrum, with the exception of our four night stay at Amanruya (since Aman doesn't have a loyalty program). The hotel was both delightful and disappointing. As an Amanjunkie (or perhaps former Amanjunkie, because…
The EDITION wasn't the only Marriott property we stayed at in Bodrum, as we also checked out Caresse, the Marriott Luxury Collection property. The hotels have similar pricing (especially when redeeming points), so how do they compare? Let's take a look...…
Not only did I love Bodrum, but I also particularly enjoyed the Bodrum EDITION, which is now easily one of my favorite Marriott-family properties in the world. This was on balance our favorite hotel we stayed at in Bodrum, and yes, that even includes…
We spent the third and fourth nights of our trip in Moab, Utah. We decided to spend more time here because we knew there was a lot to do in the area, and we were very happy with our decision in the end. Moab has virtually every limited service hotel…
We spent the second night of our road trip in Page, Arizona, primarily so we could visit Horseshoe Bend. As we quickly learned, the real treat was just being able to drive around this part of the country, as the scenery is breathtaking. Page has virtually…
We spent the first night of our road trip in Springdale, Utah, so that we could visit Zion National Park. Springdale has a variety of limited service hotel options, though nothing terribly exciting beyond that. My loyalty belongs to Hyatt, Marriott,…
I didn't know this ahead of time, but many of the upper-end hotels, resorts, and country clubs in Marrakech offer day passes for those wanting to use the pools and other facilities. This is a great compromise for those who want to stay in the medina…
We wanted to stay in the thick of the medina on this trip, but that does come with some safety considerations. We also liked the idea of staying in a small independent riad. I'd had numerous people tell me that in Marrakech, your riad host is essentially…
At last it's time for my review of Calala Island. I never thought I'd travel to a private island off the coast of Nicaragua for vacation, but when World of Hyatt points became redeemable here, I couldn't say no. In the previous installment I shared the…
It's time to review my recent stay at Calala Island, though I first want to write a separate installment about getting to Calala Island. Why? Because as Ford described it to me while we were on our way there, "this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever…
I'll keep this review relatively short, because our stay was short. Friday night we had a quick overnight in Managua, as we were arriving at around 9PM, and had to be back at the airport by 5:30AM for our flight, as we were enroute to Calala Island.…
Last weekend Ford and I decided we wanted to get out of town. I started looking at options on Friday morning, and a few hours later we were on a flight to Cancun for our three night stay at the Andaz Mayakoba. This is a Hyatt property I had heard a lot…
A bit over a week ago I stayed at The Ben, a brand new Marriott Autograph Collection property in West Palm Beach, Florida. For those of you not familiar with Autograph Collection, it's supposed to be Marriott's collection of luxury, independent hotels.…
Here's an instance of a hotel that I found to be absolutely lovely, but that I wouldn't stay at again, because it just isn't for me. I had about 24 hours in Penang, so I needed a hotel for one night. Based on feedback from readers and my own research,…
I arrived at Gatwick Airport shortly after 1PM, though my flight wasn't until 9PM. Since I was doing two back-to-back redeyes, I figured it would be nice to get some rest in a "real" bed during my layover. Fortunately that was easy thanks to the Yotel…
For my second visit to Tokyo I had just over 24 hours on the ground, as I was arriving in the afternoon from London, and departing the following afternoon to Seattle. I was flying into Haneda and out of Narita, so I decided to book a hotel in the city.…
I had a roughly 24 hour layover at Heathrow, as I was arriving from Munich in the evening, and was flying to Tokyo the following evening. In a post shortly before the trip I talked about my thought process when it came to booking a hotel for this layover:…
