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…
Trip Reports
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...…
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 were scheduled to have a roughly 80 minute connection in Munich, as we were arriving from Montreal and departing for Bodrum. I figured I'd provide a brief rundown of our experience at Munich Airport, as well as the Lufthansa Lounge, given how much…
Our transatlantic flight to get to Turkey was from Montreal to Munich in Lufthansa business class, and boy was it an interesting one (see this post for a summary of how we booked our ticket). I've reviewed Lufthansa's A350 business class before during…
Our first flight enroute to Bodrum was from Fort Lauderdale to Montreal on Air Canada. Let me share the itinerary that we booked to get to Bodrum, and then I'll get into my review of Air Canada's updated business class service. Understandably airlines…
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,…
While we were in Marrakech, I had a work call, and when I disclosed my location one of the other meeting participants blurted out "Man. I effing hated that medina." And I didn't hate it, but parts of the experience were decidedly unpleasant. Other aspects…
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…
This lounge review will be short and sweet, and not to put too fine a point on it, but hopefully your stay here will be as well. Bottom line up front: this lounge has little to recommend it, but it's not like the rest of the terminal is super glam either.…
On Wednesday I flew American Airlines first class from Miami to Las Vegas, which was a roughly five hour flight. I've been curious to see firsthand how onboard service has been adjusted as a result of the current pandemic, and wanted to report back on…
I've been sitting on this trip report for three months now (where have three months gone?) because it just hasn't felt like the right time to talk about travel details, and this particular trip was odd from the start. This trip took place in early March,…
Yesterday I took a five hour American Airlines flight from Miami to Las Vegas, which was my first flight in 99 days. I have so many thoughts about the current state of the air travel experience, but first wanted to dedicate a post specifically to some…
