Just about every time we are about to check-in to a hotel, Kim and I cross our fingers that the room will be ready for us when we arrive. After a flight the last thing we want to do is have to wait for our room!
I know that many times there is nothing that the hotels can do, especially when arriving early in the morning, hours before check-in.
Over the years a couple of early arrivals stand out: Continue reading Every Hotel Should Offer This
Fodor’s is looking for help in selecting their 100 Hotel Awards 2014.
Each year to select winner, they evaluate thousands of hotels to determine the winners. If you have a favorite hotel that really stood out and made your trip really special, make sure to nominate it for consideration on their list.
Here is the info Fodor’s is looking for: Continue reading Nominate Your Favorite Hotel For Fodor’s 100 Hotel Awards 2014
For our most recent trip, we decided to cash in some SPG points for a stay at the 5 star Le Meridien St Julians Hotel & Spa in Malta.
While I highly value my SPG points, I think we made a good decision in using them for this redemption. Hotels on Malta tend to be pretty expensive so using some points seemed to be a good decision.
We spent 6 nights at the Le Meridien but only had to pay for 5. A room goes for 7,000 SPG points per night but thanks to the stay 5, pay 4 offer, our total came to 35,000 points. If we decided to pay for our stay with cash, the cost would’ve been $921.75.
(Due to the 5th night free offer, I wondered if it would’ve been better to stay elsewhere for our 6th night. Check out my post about this here.)
The Le Meridien St Julians is located about 15-20 minutes from the airport by taxi and costs 20€. You could take the public bus but that requires a transfer and could take a minimum of one hour. Getting around the island is relatively easy but you pretty much always need to head into Valletta, 25-30 minutes away to catch the other buses.
Continue reading Hotel Review: Le Meridien St Julians, Malta
A couple of days back I wrote about an offer to earn double or triple Club Carlson Gold Points in Asia Pacific.
With Kim and I planning a trip (or possibly two) in the U.S., I was hoping to see a generous bonus offer for this neck of the woods come up.
Now Club Carlson has another offer. In the Triple the Fun promotion you can earn Triple Gold Points at Country Inns & Suites properties in the United States, Canada and Latin America.
Continue reading Earn Triple Points At Country Inns- US, Canada & Latin America
Club Carlson is offering you the chance to earn lots of bonus points for stays in Asia Pacific until August 31, 2014.
To earn bonus points in the Blockbuster Bonus you must register to earn double or triple Club Carlson Gold Points.
The Bonus: Continue reading Club Carlson Earn Double, Triple, Up To 100,000 Bonus Gold Points In Asia
Earlier in the month I wrote about a Conde Naste Travel article: Odd Hotel Assistant Jobs That Really Exist.
The article mentioned some pretty strange jobs which were definitely interesting to hear about as well as a good laugh!
I just came across another article with a very similar topic. The article, from Forbes Travel Guide is about Five Hotels With Unique Concierges.
I am writing this post as we enjoy our last night at the Le Meridien St Julians Hotel & Spa in beautiful Malta.
More than anything, my mind is always focused on finding the best deal. And even after I have made my decision/purchase I continue to wonder if my choice was the best one. So now that our time in Malta has come to an end I’ve been thinking about the value of our hotel stay. We’ve had a great trip and we thought that we got a very nice deal on our accommodations but now I am wondering if it could’ve been an even better value.
While looking for a hotel on Malta not too many places caught our attention. Budget hotels didn’t seem to be much of a bargain and a few places that we did consider probably wouldn’t have been good for a 2 year old.
I decided to look into options using points.
Continue reading SPG 5th Night Free, What To Do For 6th Night?
When it comes to our accommodations we’re usually not too picky. We’ve stayed in all kinds of rooms from fancy hotels, to simple guest houses, motels, airbnb and our usual favorite- hostels.
My main goal, when picking where to stay is to not waste too much money but still find a place in a convenient location (with decent wifi). For us, a hotel is just a place to catch some sleep and take a shower (and write a blog post). The hotel experience is not the focus of our trip and we usually spend very little time in the room. This philosophy did change a bit once we had Lucas. Some simple things we now appreciate include a decent amount of space to move around, a bathtub (Lucas hates showers) and a refrigerator.
We’re all used to seeing the concierge desk at hotels but how about the fish valet? Yes, there really is a fish valet at one hotel in Vancouver.
Conde Naste Traveler put together an entertaining slideshow featuring some of the most interesting (bizarre) hotel assistant jobs that exist around the world.
Here are the jobs:
Continue reading Odd Hotel Assistant Jobs That Really Do Exist 
While traveling, the most important factors related to where we stay are price and location (and wifi). The room itself isn’t really so important since all it really is for us is a place to sleep and shower. Since Lucas has been born we definitely like to mix in nicer places to stay too (if possible) using hotel points.
However, there are some unique and interesting places to stay that could be well worth checking out.
For the longest time, I’ve been wanted to stay at a couple of unique places- an ice hotel and a treehouse hotel. Hopefully, one of these days we’ll get to check them out.
