My Travels

I went to Chicago for a quick conference flying on United Airlines . Because it was a conference, my time was limited to the events. Fall is a great time to visit Chicago, the sun is still out and the humidity has left. Chicago skyline Chicago - River Interestingly, I'm beginning to come across a lot of 'integrated' hotels. In other words, hotels that are sharing the same building but are house on different floors of the same building. In this particular case, I was staying at the La Salle Hotel, Autograph Collection . I would later find out that the JW Marriott is also in the same building; however, both hotels have their own separate entrances. The LaSalle is on La Salle whereas the JW is on Adams. The rest of the building is occupied commercially with office space. The La Salle and the building lobby is the same entrance and the reception desk is on the top floor with the hotel lobby bar and restaurant. The JW entrance occupies most of the ground floor so you do have to

Went up the central coast in California and spent some time in Santa Maria. Checked into the Fairfield Inn & Suites Santa Maria.  I've been staying at this hotel for a few times now and I still think it is a difficult entrance to get to but easily visible from the freeway. Now that the pandemic is over, the breakfast served is satisfying with hot items offered. For such a quick trip, I didn't pull out the camera for much. One doesn't think of Santa Maria as a hotbed of culinary delights but I did find some interesting spots while in town. Klondike Pizza  - local pizza joint where kids grow up on and remember loving it to adulthood. The pizza is good if you want to avoid national chains. Main Street Donuts - located at 715 E Main St Santa Maria, CA 93454, local doughnut shop in the middle of town. It seems to cater to the working crews as they are only open from 4 am to noon. They also serve sandwiches but I wasn't in the mood for anything that hearty. The doughnuts

United offered an amazing deal on 2/22 to London and I jumped on it by throwing a dart on the calendar to choose my dates to come to London and it came up in Fall! Interestingly enough, United now allows you to upgrade award tickets and after taking the full flight to London, I did opt to pay the upgrade on the return flight home after having to deal with the overnight flight in economy plus. With age comes a lack of patience and also it helped that the points were really low for redemption.  London Checked into the Moxy London Stratford . Over the months before coming to London, I had debated about the location of all the hotels within the Marriott portfolio. In the end, the redemption points needed won out the location and I ended up being happy with the choice. Between the lowest/cheapest point redemption, the Moxy was next to the rail and tube station making it the best choice for me to get about London. On the plus side, the local neighborhood also had a variety of restaurants th

With airfares still low, I was able to find a very good fare to Vancouver to visit family. Hopped onto a United flight to YVR . I checked into the Vancouver Marriott Airport hotel. It's always a hit and miss for me about getting upgrades with Marriott. I usually find better luck with the former SPG properties. On this trip, I was given a corner suite which worked out well with my relatives who was staying at an Airbnb nearby. The hotel is within a plaza of other restaurants, so it is easy to get around and get food if you're in need of an airport hotel. Despite the vacation down time, I didn't take many pictures on this sojourn. Activities Billz Beez Berryz - Hung out on a farm picking blueberries at 14291 Triangle Rd, Richmond, BC V6W 1B2, Canada. It was early in the season so many u pick farms are not ready with fruit but this particular one was allowing folks in. Steveston Harbour - Visited this cute port town and walked around the area. There are a number of coffee sho

 I headed out for a work event to Washington DC via United Airlines . Another quick overnight itinerary didn't give me much time outside my work event and not much in the way of pictures. I took the opportunity on this trip to stay at the Ritz Carlton, Pentagon City . It is very rare when the company rates are the same across an area no matter the hotel level. So I went for the fanciest. I gave up location (near the capital versus Pentagon) for the hotel level (courtyard versus Ritz Carlton). Overall, the room was nice (nothing that stood out for a room) and the service was good. Since I was only staying overnight, I didn't spend much time inside the hotel. I did like that the hotel was easily walkable to the metro station which made traveling to and within DC easy. I don't know if it is because it is DC or the Ritz but there was an atmosphere of pretentiousness. Or maybe I'm just getting old enough to not care about such things. Eat Happy Eatery - A cute Vietnamese fu

On a lark, I went to New York to visit my friends and accompany my partner attending a meeting. My United itinerary was a quick overnight. Stayed at the Residence Inn Midtown East  on points for this stay. Given the quick turnaround, the hotel was in the right location and offered comfortable amenities. It was such a quick trip, I didn't even take any pictures! Eat After landing, went out to New Jersey to hang out for the day. For lunch, I tried the local hot dog place, Jimmy Buffs  in Orange, New Jersey. The dogs are large which I split with my friend as well as the potatoes. For dinner, went to Egan & Sons for Moules & Frites and Sticky Toffee Pudding. It was a good dinner and the patio was nice. While in New York, I hit a few bakeries and eateries in my food tour: Ess-A-Bagel  - In looking at other bagel shops in Manhattan, I wanted to see if it was worth trying other places besides David's. So on this trip, I bought a dozen to bring home. Overall, I would say that

 After spending time in Singapore, hopped onto my Singapore Airlines to Male. Upon landing into Male, my group had to wait a few hours for the interisland transfer on Trans Maldivian Airways. Our flight carried passengers to the Le Meridien Maldives and another hotel an island over. I think there was some important folks on the flight as the welcome party from the hotel was out in force and clearly welcoming these two individuals. It was nice to see a welcome party reminiscent of Fantasy Island. There was a front desk agent waiting with a cart to which my group to the lobby for check in. After a brief discussion of the facility and opting into the all-inclusive dining option, I was able to get a look at my overwater villa for the week. As standard in many overwater villas, you have the all-important deck leading into the ocean. In addition, the tub/shower room has direct access to the deck making it useful when you're coming in from the ocean and need to rinse. I did make it a poi

 Although I have transited through Singapore in the last few years, I haven't visited Singapore since 2011. So time to dust off some memories and see what's going on in this part of the world. United started flying directly from the US west coast to Singapore and I was able to hop onto that flight path and do a two part vacation in both Singapore and the Maldives. Due to the current pandemic, United changed my flight itinerary a few times and I ended up taking an extra two days to accommodate the flight changes. I didn't bother asking United to readjust their schedules when the email announcements came but I did find it odd they didn't call to ask about changing the flights by more than 24 hours. Since I was still 1K for some of these changes, I chalked it up to computer automation. The United Polaris chairs feel tighter in their latest configuration and I didn't realize that the middle seats had an "inward" and "outward" positions. The main dif

For a work conference, I flew on United into Dulles International Airport and took an Amtrak train into Baltimore Washington International Airport and a taxi (Uber) to the hotel. As crazy as it sounds, the routing was cheaper than flying into BWI directly. One good thing about the east coast is the ease of mass and public transit. I'm always a fan of supporting these systems. Checked into the Springhill Suites Baltimore Downtown/Inner Harbor as it was the cheapest hotel in the area. If it makes more sense to stay at an alternative hotel than the designated one, I will opt to suffer the inconvenience of walking. These days, walking is probably the best for me....Like any Springhill, you do get complimentary breakfast but often I chose not to get anything and find food in the city. On my last day, I checked into the Westin Arlington Gateway  hotel. This hotel was the first hotel I'd seen during the pandemic to offer buffet style breakfast. It is clear that this hotel has an in

 Hopped onto United Airlines for a long work trip to New York City. Since I was mostly occupied with work obligations, there was not much outside activity time to explore the city. No worries, I ended up returning a few months later and you can see that post. Didn't take any pictures on this trip! It was eerie to be in the city with active pandemic protocols in place. Restaurants required vaccination proof to come in and many places still wanted you to wear masks. Compliance was spotty as expected with everyone having their own opinions on the efficacy of masks. Overall, the city felt emptier. I was given a room at the Park South Hotel . It isn't often that I stay at Hyatt branded properties, so this was a little different. As typical of NYC hotel rooms, it wasn't a large room but functional enough. I only found out after checking out that I could have ordered coffee or tea as they don't have a coffeemaker inside the room. Dining Sarabeth's - I was treated to din

Originally, I planned on only visiting one island but ended up on three. Flew on United Airlines to Kahului Airport , Maui and met up with some friends. After grabbing the rental car from Avis , did a quick stock up trip at Costco before heading up to the Westin Nanea Ocean Villas . The Westin was a preview timeshare deal and so I had prepaid for a two-bedroom suite. I do find the Westin timeshare properties a little bit more luxurious than the Hilton or even Marriott hotels. But you also pay for that premium so I didn't feel compelled. With the Westin and Marriott merger, I feel that there is likely a higher level of competition within their membership but that's only speculation. Due to COVID, the Westin hotel versus timeshare facilities were kept separate. Meaning that you couldn't go to the pools at the hotel but you can spend money at the hotel (restaurants). I wasn't a fan of that either. The Hilton doesn't preclude timeshare guests from using the hotel facil