A Tale of Two Resorts Part II Fort Lauderdale, FL. 7/7/11-7/11/11

The Grand Pelican Resort

Fort Lauderdale, FL.

       Just as the Ocean Sky Resort resembled a nightmare, the Grand Pelican Resort became our paradise on the Atlantic Coast.  Despite being several stories tall, the architecture had a cottagy feel with its pale yellow exterior and hallways with white painted trim and molding. The balconies and verandas featured earthy-red ceramic tiles that felt simple, inviting, and cozy. The grounds were landscaped well with palm trees, shrubs, and tropical foliage. All this with a small, but quaint beach staring out into the aquamarine backdrop of a calm and picturesque sea. The amenities were tastefully construed and not haphazardly flung together like some low-rent airport business hotel.  As mentioned, the veranda with the earthy-red ceramic tiles and white-painted fence and trim, provided the perfect scene for al fresco dining. There was just the right amount of shade with a consistent gentle breeze from the sea keeping its patrons cool and refreshed even during the hottest times of the day. The food and drink were good, particularly the sweet potato fries and the oh-so delicious mojitos that went down quickly like a pelican diving into the sea for a seafood snack.                                                                                                                                                                                       

The beach directly in front of the resort had an ample supply of umbrellas, beach chairs, and towels, provided free of charge by the hotel. There were a couple attendants on site, gladly ready and able to place chairs and an umbrella any where you like within the confines of the resort. For those individuals who like to divide their time between the beach and hotel pool, have no fear because there was one, in fact not only a pool but a lazy river that encapsulated the pool area complete with personal inter tubes that clearly piqued every kid's interest and some adults too! Positioned to the south of the pool area was the hotel bar, from which came poolside waitresses prepared to take and deliver one's preferred food and beverage orders. Finally worth noting in terms of amenities, was the on-site ice cream parlor dishing out  a respectable selection of tasty cool treats.
     There were no complaints with the design and function of our room. Again the colors of pale yellow and white kept the ambiance airy and fresh. The room featured beautiful crown molding which tends to provide such a finished look. I also really enjoyed the sheers over the glass door leading to the balcony. They had an
intricate lace pattern delivering subtle detail to the room. The balcony outside was spacious enough for three or four people complete with simple patio furniture. Although we were not facing the ocean from our balcony, I found the city view to be just as charming and engaging. The bathroom was sectioned into two parts with the vanity and mirror in the front part and the shower in the back one. The bathroom presented a white and navy blue tile that complimented the motif of the room in general. The shower maintained ample room complete with an overhead shower meaning one didn't need to duck under it in order to get wet. Of course the most important aspect to any hotel room is the bed, and the plush mattress allowed for several hours of uninterrupted sleep. Although it was not a memory foam bed (I don't think I have slept on one in a hotel to this date) I noticed upon waking that I had initiated very little movement through out the night, suggesting a peaceful rest.

Overall in terms of service, comfortableness, and amenities (particularly access to a quality beach), I rank the Grand Pelican Resort in my top five hotels of all time. The hotel attendants were always attentive to our needs and maintained a pleasant demeanor. The only downside to staying at this hotel is the cost of parking. It is all valet, and one is charged $24.00 a day. In addition, I felt compelled to tip the valet every time I requested my car or returned from an outing. Needless to say I spent a little chunk of change on that operation. That being my only concern, I can without reservation recommend this hotel to anyone looking for quiet repose, a romantic getaway, or a summer family trip.

A Tale of Two Resorts Part I Fort Lauderdale, FL. 7/7/11-7/11/11

"I won't be gone again, in this manner. I am as rickety as a hackney-coach, I'm as sleepy as laudanum, my lines is strained to that degree that I shouldn't know, if it wasn't for the pain in 'em, which was me and which was somebody else, yet I'm none the better for it in pocket; and it's my suspicion that you've been at it from morning to night to prevent me from being better for it in the pocket, and I won't put up with it, Aggerawayter, and what do you say now!"
- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Book 2, Chapter 1

     I learned two things from my hotwire booking of the Ocean Sky Resort in Fort Lauderdale. The first is to not trust the hotel's assigned star rating when hotwire says they are still gathering customer reviews for the hotel. The second being that three stars does not guarantee the comfort I am looking for, especially in terms of a stay lasting four or more days. We arrived at the Ocean Sky Resort around 9:30 p.m. on the night of July 7th. First impressions were very positive. the hotel lobby was ornately designed and the front office attendant was pleasant, answering all my questions calmly and confidently. She advised us that a late check-out would be possible and how to use the self-parking versus valet parking option (both were the same price so we clearly elected for the valet parking). However, upon ascending from the lobby to the second floor via the elevator, we quickly entered a world untouched since the 1980s. The decor of the hallway and room were shabby, outdated at best. This would end up being the least of our concerns. Our room contained two full beds, at no point were we given an option of a king. Later on when confronting the front office attendant about this situation, he advised me to "move away the night-stand in the middle and push the two full beds together." The bathroom was a piece of work in itself. The vanity prominently displayed a broken shelf front and center. 

The shower seemed to have a perpetual leak and some sort of hideous growth on the overflow cap, that I only hope was nothing more than rust. My wife later even complained that taking a drink of water from the sink made her throat sore.

      The worst part of the room above all was the condition of the beds. Now I have stayed in my fair share of 1 star establishments and slept on some pretty weak mattresses, and I'm here to tell you that the mattresses at the Ocean Sky Resort will give them a run for their money any day of the week. The mattresses clearly had not been changed like the decor of the room for multiple decades. Neither bed was better than the other. After a drink on the beach at the next door hotel's tiki bar, I asked the front office attendant to change rooms for a firmer mattress. He told me there was nothing available at this time and to check back in the morning. Furthermore he admitted that the quality of mattresses would be the same in each and every room. Feeling somewhat defeated, I headed back to my room. After a bit of tossing and turning by my wife and I, we made the decision to cut our losses and look for a better hotel. This meant forfeiting the cost of the hotel, as hotwire does not give refunds what so ever. Regardless of that fact we didn't care, there was no way were going to ruin our vacation because our hotwire accommodation was a total flop. 
     So at 2 a.m. we started searching for a better place to stay. My wife located a couple of good options close to our current location on yelp that had good reviews. The first hotel we drove to was called Il Lugano, but it was situated a few blocks away from the beach. It was very modern looking from the outside and based on the reviews and price was a real viable option. However, I had my heart set on beach front property so we proceeded to the next hotel called the Grand Pelican Resort. It also had great reviews and was priced well, with the additional feature of being right on the beach. We parked at a meter in front of the hotel, walked inside to the front desk, and were able to secure lodging that night and for the duration of the trip.  Upon completion of that transaction we quickly returned to our first hotel, packed everything up, and checked-out in record time. I must admit when we finally laid down in our new room shortly after 3:00 A.M. I started to feel a sense of relief for the first time that night. We had overcome a major obstacle in the beginning of our trip and felt that nothing but clear skies would greet us the rest of the way. Stayed tuned for part II, where I provide in depth analysis regarding our stay at the Grand Pelican Resort.

Do you Travelzoo?

    
     March 30, 2011 at 9:28 A.M: while enjoying my leisurely Spring Break Wednesday, I stumble upon another This Week's Top 20 for Travelzoo VIPs email. The deals are popping off the page as far as I am concerned; mountain/beach resorts at 65% off, $69 California: Charming B&B in Downtown Carmel, $319 5-Star Wynn Getaway including Airfare from Denver. This is not an atypical week for the Top 20 but rather the norm. This Week's Top 20 for Travelzoo VIPs  is just one of the features the travel website Travelzoo.com provides for novice and experienced travellers alike.
The Top 20 is nice when you want to find hotels at great values but are not really sure where to go. After you sign up for the weekly email, which I can tell you is easy and the least bit intrusive, Travelzoo will fashion your Top 20 notification  to reflect local and regional deals along with the national and international ones. Case in point my weekly Top 20 notifications present at least a couple of Denver (my metropolitan area of residence) or Colorado hotels, along with flight/vacation packages from my home airport of Denver International Airport to other highly sought destinations such as New Orleans in the United States, and Paris and Rome in continental Europe. The information about the deals is clear and provides accurate links and promo codes.
     Besides the Top 20 weekly email, another aspect I truly enjoy using when searching for lodging accomodations is the Travelzoo Supersearch. Here I can input a hotel search based on  a destination with travel dates, an almost instantaneously be presented with results from such tried and true travel search engines as Hotwire, Expedia, Travelocity, etc. It is effective because each time you click on the icon for another travel site you don't have to input the initial travel inquiry information. Each travel site already has what you are looking for and after a click on the icon, it's only a matter of seconds to start comparing their deals from the last travel site you clicked on. The Supersearch feature at Travelzoo also provides the same time efficient search means for flights and car rentals.
     Today I just wanted to discuss why I value Travelzoo when searching out my next traveling adventure. The Supersearch feature is easy, effective, and time efficient when looking for the best deals for a pre-determined locale. The Top 20 provides a variety of options when one wants to get out of dodge but doesn't exactly know where. Furthermore, they tailor your weekly email of deals to reflect your current area of residence for the most relevant travel options. Travelzoo has been an indispensable travel partner over the years and I hope you find that to be the case too. 

Stars vs. Customer Reviews: How does one choose a search engine hotel?

     The longer one searches for the ideal hotel for his/her upcoming leisurely expedition to say Cleveland, the quicker he or she realizes that the star rating system employed by the travel search engines is less than an exact science. Where as Expedia may give a particular locale  2 1/2 stars for comfort and amenities approaching but not quite the level of a three star establishment, another search engine such as Travelocity may generate a rating of 1 to 1 1/2 stars in either direction for the same place. How can this be? shouldn't the criteria employed by the experts in the field by very similar if not nearly identical across the travel search engines? Throw into this mess the variability of customer reviews, thus contributing to a labyrinth worthy of the great Theseus from ancient Greek mythology.

    Prior to the advent of the information superhighway a.k.a. the internet, Mobil Travelguides, AAA, and Michelin internationally published stars for all the hotels. Nowadays every hotel travel search engine employs its own star rating system. However, that doesn't mean that they rate every hotel listed on their sites. Rather, there is a large amount of borrowing ratings from sister travel search engine sites as well as competitors. So exactly who are these "experts" that are rating the hotels for the various sites? According to a spokesperson for AAA, they employ a  groups of 65 full-time evaluators, who do nothing but visit hotels periodically rating them over and over again and the same is true for all AAA sister companies and competitors. Most if not all hotel travel websites utilize customer ratings side-by-side with the star ratings. For example, if you try to book a hotel on Hotwire.com, among the top choices list will be a percentage of customers that like their stay (Recommended in 80% of Hotwire customer reviews). One can consider customer reviews even more variable than the customer ratings. This is attributed to the myriad of personalities that review a particular hotel experience. Some people may be enamored by factors outside of the hotel such as being next to the ocean or in a great downtown location of a major metropolis. In addition, who know what kind of day the reviewer had and how that is affecting his or her review. I always check the customer review side by side with the ratings on the travel websites but I do keep in mind that what makes me think something is nice or special may be another person's absolute disgust.
     In my opinion the best way to determine the optimal hotel is to determine what it is you are looking for in a trip. If you are looking to spend a lot of time outside of the hotel than I would choose a lower rated hotel with a good location then a higher rated one out in the boonies. If you will not be venturing out so much than the higher the amenities, and thus a higher rating, the better. Value 3 star hotels in a good location are typically my Mecca and Medina as they provide relative comfort and amenities at a good price as well as providing minimal travel time to various destinations. I find this to typically be better than 4 stars as they tend to find ways to insert additional fees into the stay such as parking and resort ones.

12/25/10 Rocky Mountain Park Inn (Holiday Inn) Estes Park, CO

    

     After a sunny and warm Christmas day of touring the historic Stanley Hotel (inspiration for the movie The Shining and later on The Shining Mini-Series) in Estes Park, CO we adjourned to our hotel of actual residence, The Rocky Mountain Park Inn. This particular hotel was a  franchised Holiday Inn most likely built in the 70's as the popcorn ceilings provided an uncanny time stamp for that era in construction. Upon check-in at the front desk I requested a late check-out to see how they would respond. The front desk attendant advised me that we could have a late check out of 2:00 p.m. (as opposed to their normal check-out time of 11:00) if we signed up for their "free" Priority Club Rewards program. Being ever leery of singing up for anything in order to receive additional benefits or compensation, I said I would think about it and proceeded to my room.
     Walking down the hallway to our room, which of course was all the way down on the other side, I thought I was instantly teleported into a live taping of an HGTV renovation show. There was tape on the hallway moulding to protect them from the freshly painted walls. Dust and paint chips aligned the floor as we made our way to the room. At the very least I thought they could have run a vacuum to get rid of the dust and paint chips on the floor other than the obligatory "excuse our mess" signs posted strategically in the entryways. To top things off the keys just handed to us minutes before were not working on the hotel room door. Needless to say, I was left with some rather squimish first impressions of the hotel.

The room itself maintained similarities to the Holiday Inn we stayed at in Grand Junction, CO during Labor Day weekend. The shower/bath tub was of proper size with caddies for soap and shampoo along with a mobile shower head placed at just the right height. The bed and room furniture were comfortable although we had to request two additional "firm" pillows of which only one truly matched that description. The television was a bit antiquated and along with the previously mentioned popcorn ceilings, the recessed light fixture in the bathroom was loose. In terms of hotel amenities the hotel had a cozy bar that only operated till 9:00 p.m. The fitness areas had outdated equipment that included a pair of treadmills and a nautilus. The indoor pool was spacious but due to lighting was extremely dark, all be it open  to 11:00 p.m. Finally the staff was very attentive and friendly despite working on Christmas.

     Hotwire rated the Rocky Mountain Park Inn in Estes Park, CO as a 3 star establishment. Although the potential may be there in terms of service and offering of amenities, due to the rundown feel of the hotel as a whole  I cannot agree with this assessment. It is above a two in terms of providing a variety of amenities but falls short of a three because those amenities and the hotel as a whole are in need of serious renovation. I feel comfortable placing it at 2 1/2 stars. Stay tuned as we look into the wonderful world of stars, bars, and diamond rating systems for hotels.

     

What's The Deal With Check Out Times?

  

Although I can't confirm it, there once was a time when the regular check out time for hotels was 1:00 p.m. At the very least hotels did not dare ask for their guests to part before noon. However these days it seems that finding check out times of 11:00 A.M. and even 10:00 A.M. in some popular mountain ski towns are becoming as widespread as the stars in the sky. So why are these fluctuations occurring more often than not? And how does one curtail these earlier encroaching times to acquiesce a few more hours of beauty sleep after say a night of rough partying?
     It used to be relatively easy to extend check out times an hour or two. A simple call down to the front desk and more times than not the hotel would be more than accommodating to approve your request. But now it seems that hotels are less likely to do so in the name of having to get the rooms ready quickly for the arrival of a new set of travelers. This is their primary excuse when denying a delayed check out of an hour or more. The best time to ask for a late check-out is when checking-in as a newly arrived guest. At this time the front desk attendant will be more inclined to grant additional requests as opposed to the morning attendant who will  just be looking to clear your room as quickly as possible in order to get it ready for the new round of guests that day.

     Now a days it seems the only way to guarantee a late check out is by being a member of a points system such as Priority Club Rewards or Choice Privileges. These are cards in which one can build up points by staying at  member hotels. When staying at a member hotel of a points system card, one can typically request a check out of 2 p.m. Similar to airline miles, after so many stays one earns a free hotel stay. This is fine and dandy for the business traveler who lives in and out of his/her suitcase but for the less frequent traveler it may not be beneficial to sign up for one more card they may or may not use again. I think it also ties the hands of the front desk attendant who wants to help the traveler but cannot unless he/she signs up for the points system card  to which the hotel is a member affiliate.

12/21/10 Las Vegas Resort Fees

    In an era of online discounted travel via air, cruises, hotels, and cars, Las Vegas is no exception. Considering the amount of competition on the strip alone, casino hotels have had to get creative in order to present bottom-line prices so as not to be buried several pages in any given travel search engine. Thus has arisen the "resort fee", an additional cost paid upon check-in with any major credit card that is accumulated based of the number of days one stays. So what is exactly a "resort fee"? It is a fee ranging from $4.95 to $25.00 a day that covers the guest's use of hotel amenities.
      What are considered hotel amenities covered by resort fees vary from hotel to hotel. They can be things such as having newspapers available in the lobby to "complimentary" bottled water in the rooms. Other popular resort fee items include spa and business center access, free internet, and free local telephone calls from the room. As I am looking at my "complimentary" Monte Carlo Key holder and welcoming info card, I am struck by a fine print paragraph above where the key would be placed. It says, "For your convenience, a resort fee is added each night to your room account and includes the following hotel services: in-room wired internet, fitness center access, daily newspaper, complimentary copying and faxing, boarding pass printing, and free local and toll-free calls. I can honestly say that I did not use any of those amenities on my trip other than picking up a newspaper one day to peruse the headlines. None-the-less, I incured the $9.95 fee.

It is useless to ask for the resort fee to be waived as they will never do this as far as my research has concluded. The only way one can fight this is by staying at hotels in Vegas that don't charge the fees. Three casino hotels to this day that do not charge a resort fee include Planet Hollywood, Paris, and Cesar's Palace. However, when it all said and done, one must do a cost-benefit analysis to determine if the savings from booking a Las Vegas casino hotel with a resort fee on an online search engine negates the costs incurred from the daily resort fees. I guess if one is willing to drop a few $100 on a game of chance per day then what really is a resort fee? My only concern is that when products are "marketed" as being great values, only to be realized that the final price does not agree with what was originally offered, we should take a step back and see if we really want to provide that particular company with our business. If we accept these nuances more and more, than I fear for the way business will look 5, 10, or 20 years from now.

Along with Planet Hollywood and Paris, Cesar's Palace does not pass on resort fees to its customers.