I recently had to be in Chicago for a couple of nights (and before anyone asks, I both got tested and was traveling for a reason exempt from the quarantine requirement), and decided to book the Thompson Chicago. Why? Well, I've really come to love the…
Hotel Reviews
I recently took my mom to California, and the highlight of our trip was a three night stay at the Alila Ventana Big Sur. I reviewed this hotel in great detail back in 2019, so this time around am only reviewing two specific aspects of the experience…
The whole reason my mom and I recently traveled to California was to stay at the Alila Ventana Big Sur, which is probably my favorite Hyatt property in the US. I wrote a detailed review of this hotel just over a year ago, so this time around I'm going…
Oh, the Hyatt Carmel Highlands. Come for the views, stay for the... well, maybe don't stay. I recently spent five nights in California with my mom -- we spent the first night at the incredible Grand Hyatt SFO, then we spent three nights at the Alila…
During my recent trip with my mom to California, I had the pleasure of spending a night at the Grand Hyatt SFO. We were arriving late at night on United, and planned to drive the next morning to Big Sur. The Grand Hyatt SFO opened in 2019, and it isn't…
We’re living in hotels full-time at the moment. In this post I wanted to review the Thompson Nashville. This is the second Thompson we stayed at, after the Thompson Dallas. How does this one stack up? Why did we decide to stay at the Thompson Nashville?…
We’re living in hotels full-time at the moment. In this post I wanted to review the Thompson Dallas, where we stayed shortly after opening in late 2020. This hotel is special to me for a few reasons -- it was my first Thompson stay (and caused me to…
We’re living in hotels full-time at the moment. We've primarily been staying at Hyatts, and in a previous post I reviewed the Hyatt Centric Miami Brickell. For a slight change of pace from the typical Hyatt reviews, in this post I wanted to review the…
We’re living in hotels full-time at the moment. In a previous post I reviewed the Hyatt Centric Miami Brickell, and in this post I wanted to review the Hyatt Centric Fort Lauderdale Las Olas. Our rate at the Hyatt Centric Fort Lauderdale was a very reasonable…
We're living in hotels full-time at the moment. We've mostly been intentionally basing ourselves out of very empty hotels, but recently we had to return to Miami, so we decided to stay at the Hyatt Centric Miami Brickell, which I'll be reviewing in this…
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…
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…
