I've recently shared my impressions of United Airlines first class and Alaska Airlines first class flights in the coronavirus era, so figured I'd also share my experience on a recent Delta Air Lines Airbus A220 first class flight from Chicago to Salt…
Trip Reports
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…
After an amazing five days in California, it was time for my mom and me to fly back to Tampa. While we flew United Airlines first class on the outbound (with a connection), we returned nonstop on Alaska Airlines. It's pretty simple -- at the time we…
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…
As I explained in the introduction post to the trip report, I decided to book us on United Airlines from Tampa to San Francisco. In this post I wanted to share some general thoughts on our experience flying with United, both in terms of the hard and…
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…
I recently reviewed the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport, and in this post wanted to review the Lufthansa Lounge, which opened just a few weeks ago. The Lufthansa Lounge is one of two lounges currently open at Brandenburg Airport, with the other being…
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…
To get back to Miami we flew SWISS business class. SWISS was one of the few European airlines offering service to Miami in August, and the airline even operated the route with its A340-300. SWISS recently refurbished the interiors of all A340s, so I…
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...…
