Where to stay when traveling

Posted on August 21, 2018August 21, 2018 by dave schroeder

When you travel, be it to another city in your state, or another country, you have many options on where to stay. The choice can have a rather large effect on your budget for the trip. For us no matter where we go we look for the accommodations that have a kitchen. I know that might sound strange to a lot of people so let me explain why.

The biggest expenses when you travel is usually food and lodging. But with the ability to cook you might be surprised on how much you can cut your food bill down. Not to mention, that apartments are usually about the same price as a hotel room, but in many cases, they can be a lot cheaper than hotel rooms.

We really enjoy eating local food and specialties when we travel. Usually we have an apartment and there is a local market nearby. Everything is so fresh and you can take advantage of products that are very expensive where you live but are reasonable were you are traveling.

For example, when we stay in Barcelona we try to rent an apartment within a couple blocks or so from the La Boqueria market. If you aren’t familiar with that market, let me tell you it is a totally amazing place loaded with all fresh seasonal products at not bad prices either.

For dinner one night when we were there, I made Carbonara for us instead of going out to a restaurant. What I did was purchase two paper cones of Serrano ham for a Euro each. They sell these in the market as teasers to get you to buy the ham. I then picked up some fresh pasta, eggs, cheese, and a bit of cream and went back to the apartment to fix dinner. It was a great dinner and I believe it cost us a little more than 5 Euros for the two of us. That is very good when you consider a typical plate of Carbonara is about 12 Euros, so for the two of us it would have been 24 Euros at a restaurant, just for Carbonara. Generally, when we travel we try to eat Breakfast and Dinner in our apartment and lunch at a restaurant when we are out.

On another trip we had an Apartment in the Rialto area of Venice. It was a charming fully furnished apartment and gave us a small taste of what it was like to live like local Venations and go about daily tasks that most anyone would do that lived there. There were a couple grocery store / markets not far from us and even the Seafood Market was amazing and everything so fresh the market smelled like the Sea, not Seafood.

For us we enjoy experience what it is like to experience the daily culture and renting an Apartment instead of paying for an hotel room, really adds to that experience.

Pan Pacific Mountainside – Whistler BC

Posted on July 18, 2011July 18, 2011 by admin

As the name implies, you walk out of the back door and there are ski lifts right there. It is in a beautiful setting and it is very well kept too. The staff couldn’t have been nicer either. We stayed in a Studio and had great kitchen facilities.

We really felt at home and enjoyed the friendly atmosphere during our stay. The only thing that seems out of line was parking was on top of the room and was expensive! At most places you end up paying for parking but usually there is a discount, at least for guests. I know it is a minor thing but it is just annoying to me. Why not just add it to the price of the room and let me think it is free. It always rubs me when you find out there is add ins. Don’t even get me started with paying for Internet at Hotels.

Aside from the price for parking we thoroughly enjoyed our stay. We went up on the lifts one day and took what they call “Peak to Peak”. Peak to Peak is the longest unsupported span in the world. The weather was just gorgeous while we were there also.

We look forward to staying there again next time we are in Whistler.

Hanoi Hotel Review – Hanoi Lake View Hotel

Posted on December 23, 2010June 25, 2011 by patrice

Link: Hanoi Lake View Hotel

The first thing that comes to mind about this place is…Five Star Service!

We stayed at this hotel for several days and then took a side trip and came back for a few more days and so enjoyed our stay there. The staff is absolutely fantastic and ready to help you with anything you need.

Rooms are clean and the food at the breakfast is good too. But the great staff, everyone of them, is what really makes this place great. We could bore you with details of what they did to help us and take care of us but why waste the space with details you can find out for yourself if you stay there. I know we will be staying there the next time we go to Hanoi.

Thailand – Bangkok Waking up…

Posted on November 25, 2010July 28, 2017 by patrice

Bangkok morning

The sun is almost ready to rise the morning we leave Bangkok. We are heading up to Dads place today and should be at his place in Non Song early evening. It has been a great visit to Bangkok the past few days. But now we are headed to the country and way away from the big city. Things in Non Song are at a totally different pace compared to Bangkok. Sometimes it seems as if time stands still – seemingly forever! Don’t get me wrong, it is a great place to relax and enjoy what REAL Thailand is all about. Just don’t expect to be entertained or have a long list of things to do like you have in Bangkok. It is what it is in rural Thailand.

Hope we can convey what it is like while we are there.

Thailand – Welcome to Bangkok

Posted on November 25, 2010July 28, 2017 by patrice

Bangkok at night

We have gotten a bit behind in bloging about this trip. We had some issues with our laptop and it has taken me a few days to get it back together and working. Happily we are a rockin’ now though.

This was the view our first night in Bangkok at the Lebau Hotel. I think we are going to put a review up soon so watch for that. What a great hotel and so attentive too.

So we are here now and can continue on with our checking out Bangkok again. We have been to most of the usual places on previous trips so we think this time we will check out more local color and activities sense we played tourists previously.

hotel review is here

Hope you will enjoy the blogs.

Bangkok Hotel Review – Lebau

Posted on November 23, 2010June 25, 2011 by patrice

Link: Lebau

Not sure how to describe our stay…and I so do mean that in the best of ways too. Let me give you a quick sketch of our experience…

Lebau employees met us at the airport and took our bags to a waiting car. The car was a new Mercedes sedan, top of the line, and the driver gave us refrigerated towels to cool ourselves with and cold bottles of water. For those that have been to Bangkok, you know how much that was appreciated, for those that haven’t been yet, trust us, you will want it no matter what time of day it is after flying there.

When we arrived at the hotel a team of people opened the doors and by the time we got out of the car all of our bags had been removed and they handed us a receipt.

We were escorted into the lobby and provided a comfortable seat. We were asked for our passports and less than 90 seconds later a Thai lady was in front of us with the passports and kneeled down in front of us and checked us in. She then escorted us to our room, and by the way, they upgraded our room. She walked us around the room explaining things and letting us know how things worked.

We had a front room with table and couch; it was a large seating / dining area, a kitchen with a 2 burner stove and full fridge stocked with soft drinks and water, at no charge. We could have had a water party in the bathroom either with the walk in shower or the oversized tub. Then into the bedroom, king sized bed and what you would expect, that is until you walked out onto the balcony…We stayed on the 57th floor, with a river view. If you saw the picture on the main part of the blog from when we arrived you saw the view, if you didn’t, go look, it is amazing. While we were there we spent time out there looking and found ourselves smiling no matter what time of day it was.

Ok, so you are thinking, cool it was a great room but what about the dining…Since you asked…

The breakfast was buffet, but what a buffet! It consisted of European, Asian, American, sushi, eggs/ omelets to order, 5 or 6 kinds of juices. What more could you want? Don’t think it was the normal buffet, because it wasn’t. The food was excellent and far better than what you run into in a buffet. The staff was very attentive and there weren’t mountains of food on the buffet, it was small quantities that they refilled it very often.

Other meals were top notch too. We had dinner at the Breeze while we were there. We had a table with a view of half of Bangkok I think. The food, the service, the view, everything was wonderful. The only criticism was with one dish, and they made that right when we told them about it. The dish was my weakness, abalone, it was a whole one from Australia I believe, braised, and was over cooked. To be fair it was slightly over done when it arrived, so I enjoyed a bite, but turned to rubber shortly thereafter. Abalone is tricky to cook, I have cooked more than my fair share and know that a few seconds to long you can use it as a tire and get more miles out of it than you can a high end Goodyear tire. This was the case for what I was served. They apologized and took it off of our bill when I pointed it out. Having said that they should have taken more off as it really put a bad note on the whole meal and left me without a main course. But that was their call and I am letting you know what was done.

Except for that one dish, this was a wonderful stay at a hotel. Now remember it is a 5 star hotel and one should expect 5 star results. But don’t forget 5 star prices too. Compared to 5 star hotels in Europe and the states it was excellent overall, price wise, but none the less pricey. So shop around and look for deals to stay if you can find them, we did
Bottom line is I don’t think you would be disappointed staying at this hotel, based on our experience. Let us know what you think of your stay when you are there.