hotel – Page 2 – Wanderlist Vacations

Disney Dining – Round 2

With everything going on the past couple of months, I haven’t had time to cover our Thanksgiving trip to Disney World, so it’s time to fix that. First up, our experience with the Plus Dining Plan, which gives each person on the plan 1 table service meal, 1 quick service meal, and 1 snack for each night of your stay.

This is our second time using the dining plan, but the first using one that included table service. As mentioned in my June post, I was iffy on getting the dining plan again, as I felt that I ended up eating a lot more unhealthy food than I would have without the plan, but the decision was made to go with the higher level plan this time around to see what we could get out of the table service meals.

We did a lot of planning for this, and I mean a lot. Jen was on the dining site nightly for several weeks trying to get our table service schedule just right, and in the end it paid off. We ended up with several character meals, including one for Thanksgiving dinner! Here’s a quick look at where we used the table service credits:

Be Our Guest: This was actually done as a quick service meal, but it was so much better than the first time that I wanted to include it. We were scheduled for an 8:00am breakfast here on our first day, the same time the Magic Kingdom opened. The nice thing about making dining reservations for that early is that you end up in the park before everyone else. There’s a separate line for those with dining reservations, and if I recall, we got in to the park about 7:50am to make our way back to the restaurant. They do have cast members along the way keeping an eye to be sure no one’s headed in a direction they shouldn’t be, but getting in the park that early is awesome. Here are a few shots of the (mostly) empty park I took along the way to the restaurant:

Additionally, we were second in line at BoG, so we got through ordering pretty quick and were able to easily get a table in the West Wing near the rose. The food was decent, too. I had the croissant doughnut, which was very tasty.

Donald’s Dining Safari Thanksgiving Lunch at Tusker House Restaurant: This was (obviously) our Thanksgiving lunch, scheduled for 2:45pm. We’d had an awesome day already at Animal Kingdom, having done the Wild Africa Trek first thing that morning (I’ll cover that in my next post). We got to Tusker House around 2:30 and checked in, and maybe waited 5-10 minutes to be seated. The buffet itself did have some changes to it, with traditional Thanksgiving items laid out in addition to some of the normal menu items. One note here: the dessert table isn’t well placed, as it always seemed to have a line, and that line runs in front of the table that holds things like the South African preserves, Tabbouleh, and Hummus, which my wife was disappointed to discover only after she was full since she never saw those items until she went for dessert. Still, it was a fun Thanksgiving lunch, complete with Donald Duck and Friends!

Fairytale Dining Breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table: Yea we did, and you should too! This isn’t an easy reservation to get, but Jen’s perseverance with the Disney Dining site paid off. Also note that this counts as two table service credits per person. We had a 9:05am reservation, and checked in slightly before that. After a short wait outside, were taken in to the lower waiting area where you meet and have your picture taken with Cinderella. After another wait for your name to be called, you’re taken upstairs to your table. The entire place is well done, with attention to detail in every aspect of it. Just like every other character meal, as you eat, the various princesses make their way around the dining area and stop at each table for pictures and autographs.

Cinderella’s Happily Ever After Dinner at 1900 Park Fare: We did this the same day we did Cinderella’s Royal Table, so it was a princess-heavy day. We were second in line at 1900 Park Fare when it opened for dinner, and for those with little ones, I highly recommend being there for the dinner opening. The little girl in front of us got to help them open the doors. Here, that means saying the magic words, and having Cinderella and Prince Charming open the doors, welcome her in, and lead her and her family to their table. I can only imagine how much that meant to her, so for other parents who want a shot at this for their kids, opt for the 4pm reservation and be there early!

Food-wise, it was the best buffet we had. The meat on the carving station was perfectly cooked, and everything else I had, including the mashed potatoes, was excellent. As we ate, Cinderella, Prince Charming, the step sisters, and the wicked stepmother made their way around. The sisters and mother were hilarious, too, as they were perfectly sarcastic to everyone they talked to. Case in point: when the red-headed step sister came over, she took one look at Bayley’s red hair and said: “Look at your hair color, it’s like we’re better than everyone else!”. At one point, one of the step sisters passed a crying baby a couple of tables over and loudly said: “Stop crying, you’re fine!”. Really funny stuff, everyone we saw was eating it up!

Princess Storybook Dining Lunch at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall: Okay, maybe we went a bit overboard on the princess-themed character dining, but we really wanted to try Akershus. It’s similar to Cinderella’s Royal Table in that after you check in and have your name called, you have your picture taken with a princess, which in this case was Belle. After being seated, it’s the typical “eat while characters come by” setup. The food was pretty good, too. The appetizer portion of the menu is buffet style, with it being a “Taste of Norway” setup with meats, cheeses and seafood, among other items. There are two sides to the buffet table, with both sides being identical. This isn’t clear at first, and results in people walking the whole thing, slowing down the line as they cut in to see what’s on the opposite end. Somewhat annoying, but oh well. From the entree menu, I had the Traditional Kjøttkake, which is Norwegian meatballs on mashed potatoes. D-e-licious!

All of the table service meals were great, as was the Be Our Guest breakfast using quick service credits. Our other quick service meals were at places we ate last time, including Wolfgang Puck Express at Disney Springs (still the best value for quick service, imo), Pizza Planet, and Contempo Cafe. All good stuff, I just didn’t feel the need to cover them again. We were disappointed in the specialty cupcake selection this time, as Pizza Planet only had a Thanksgiving-themed pumpkin spice cupcake (left pic), which was just okay. Contempo did have a few more options, including the creme filled cupcake I got (the chocolate one below). Mmmmmm.

In the end, I felt the same way about this dining plan as I did in May with the Quick Service plan, that it’s not something I feel it necessary for us, but it may very well be a good option for a larger family. After everything was calculated, we’d saved close to $300 total by getting the dining plan (vs paying for each place we went outright), but then again, it’s highly unlikely we’d have done this many character and quick service meals, or even gotten as many snacks as the plan offers, so who knows if we would have even spent as much on food as the dining plan cost. I’d say that in both cases, the dining plans just “enabled” us to eat at more of the park options than we would have otherwise. I did enjoy it more this time, due in large part to the table service choices we made.

MSC Divina: Day 5 Recap

Before we get to day 5’s fun, I wanted to take a second to call out one of the highlights of our trip: The entertainment staff. The Divina’s entertainment team has easily been the best all around group we’ve had on a ship. From the Bingo Boys, to trivia, Scattergories, Foosball, arts and crafts, etc, the sea days have been an absolute blast. This group has a level of energy and enthusiasm I envy, and they’ve really been fun to watch.

Alrighty, on to day 5

We arrived in Old San Juan pretty early as far as I could tell, with debark scheduled to start at 8. The daily schedule indicated the gangway might be closed from 8:15 to 9:00 due to dock activity, so we set our alarms for 8:30, hoping to avoid the same debark lines we saw in St Thomas. I had actually been up since 7:30 and had never heard an announcement that we could get off, so shortly after 9 we decided to head down and see what was going on. Not sure if we’d missed the announcement, but the gangway was open with no lines, so we headed ashore.

Being that we waited way too long to plan this and all the stuff we wanted to do was full, we decided to just walk around. As we exited the security area, a tour guide approached asking if we wanted to join a 1+ hour tour of the area. For $15/pp, we figured why not, and hopped on. There were around 25 people including us on the bus, and it ended up being a pretty good tour. He took us over to the newer San Juan area, stopping at the Walkway of Presidents along the way to allow people to take some pictures. We stopped at a beach in the newer area of San Juan, along with one of the main government buildings, and then finally a 10 minute stop at one of the island’s forts that overlooks a cemetery. Along the way, he did a very thorough job of telling us about the area, and did so in both English and Spanish to ensure everyone on board had the chance to learn. Definitely worth the $45 for the three of us in our opinion.

He dropped us back in the main square in Old San Juan around 11am, and after walking around the little square area for a bit, we decided to stop and eat lunch at CB Cafe and Restaurant at the top of the square. While it was a little pricey, it was really good. My cheese tortellini was excellent, and frankly the sauce on all three of our meals was really, really good. In addition to my tortellini, I’ve included a shot of Jen’s chicken Mofongo, as it definitely won for best presentation.

We spent the next 2-3 hours walking around the area doing some shopping. Considering there were 3 ships in port (us, the Carnival Valor, and the HAL Nieuw Amsterdam), it never felt overcrowded in the shopping areas. The girls picked up a few things along the way, and once done, we headed back to the ship.

One thing about getting off and on in port we’ve noticed with MSC: There’s nothing at the end of the gangway, just the pier. On other lines, you’ll typically see photographers trying to take more pictures to sell you as you get off, and when you come back, others may offer water, juice, and maybe even a cold, wet towel to help you cool down. None of that here. I don’t care about the pictures, but it would certainly be nice to at least have some water there, especially after a hot day walking around the area. I admit we considered walking over to HAL’s gangway for a cold towel 🙂

Once aboard, we decided to give the water slide a try, since it was supposed to be open from 2-5. As we were walking up (somewhere around 3pm), one of the pool staff was walking away from the entrance, having just locked it. Some kid standing there said we had a wait a little longer, but after 10 minutes of seeing no one come back to re-open it, we gave up. We got tired of watching the Valor’s water slide fully functioning while the guy running ours inexplicably stood a deck up doing seemingly nothing. When you only have a three hour window for something like this, I really expect you to be open when you say you’ll be open, especially in port when the weather is perfect.

Next up was trivia, once again hosted by Jaime. We paired up with a really nice older couple from Canada that we’ve played with before, and lost by only one point. I gotta say, this trivia has set the bar for future trips, it’s really that good! Difficult, non-repetitive questions, and a great host!

At this point it was right around 4pm, so we headed up to deck 15 to see if there were any runners. Sure enough, a passenger was standing at the end of the gangway on her cellphone, and a short time later (maybe 4:10), her husband came running down the dock. That was a long run, too, as they had already closed the closer gangway, so he basically had to run the length of the dock.

After they closed up the gangway, we headed back to the wine bar where the girls made Christmas wreaths as part of another holiday themed arts and crafts event. The MSC staff has done a really good job of integrating holiday activities in to the schedule this week!

We’d checked out the MDR menu, and between the lack of things that sounded good and our overall exhaustion, we decided to skip it and eat later in the sports bar. After a snack (pizza :)) and a short rest, we headed to the theater for the early show. Tonight’s show was another one of the singing and dancing shows, and again, they’re all great singers, it’s just not my cup of tea. One little soapbox moment, though: If you’re going to come to the show, be quiet. Keep your kids quiet. Two rows behind us, some woman and her kids would not stop talking. They got plenty of angry looks and people telling them to shush, but to no avail. If you or your kids can’t keep quiet for 45 minutes, please do the rest of the people in the theater a favor and don’t show up. You’re just ruining it for those around you.

After the show, we stuck around for bingo, as the Bingo Boys are just that entertaining. Seriously. Even if you don’t like bingo, just go and watch, you won’t be disappointed!

With bingo over, we headed for the sports bar to grab dinner. The room was pretty empty the entire time we were there, since second dinner seating and the second show were both happening. The food itself was fine, but a couple of notes here: apparently all burgers automatically get mayonnaise. That’s fine by me, and I enjoyed my bacon burger, but even the pre-made burgers at the buffet have this, which we discovered on day 1. Not everyone likes mayo, so maybe just leave it off and put some on the side? Also, they have fish and chips on the menu in the sports bar, but when Jen asked if they had malt vinegar, she was told no. We know they do somewhere, since she had it on one of the early sea days, but oh well, she skipped the fish and chips this time. It’s pretty standard bar fare; burgers, sandwiches, fries, finger food, etc. The dessert menu also includes molten chocolate cake, as shown below.

After dinner, we walked around a bit, finally ending up at the Flower Glory Party (60’s/70’s/80’s) before calling it a night. We got our hour back tonight, so hopefully we’ll be all rested up for our final day at sea, where we’ve got a bunch of activities highlighted on the schedule!

One final note – cabin service has really been hit or miss. Mostly hit for Bayley in her cabin (12039) and miss for us (9164). One example: we woke up this morning to find that our steward didn’t empty the trash in the bathroom or leave any toilet paper yesterday, so we’re down to our last few sheets. Time to go rectify that…

Crons in the Capital – Day 1

As mentioned in an earlier post, we spent a few days in DC in late August so that Jen could attend some CruiseOne regional training on Friday and Saturday. We actually arrived on Thursday morning so Jen would have a little time to see the sights with us.

With our hotel in Arlington being right on the DC Metro orange line, we got the day started pretty quickly after arriving. This was easily the most packed day for us, since we wanted to be sure Jen got to see as much as she wanted to. She and Bayley had done some initial planning and had a list of things to see on day one, including the National Mall, a few museums, and Chinatown.

The Mall

We got off the metro at the Smithsonian stop and headed for the Washington Monument. It was a bit overcast out and a bit humid, but I don’t think it ever actually rained on us. We didn’t go up the monument, instead choosing to walk the mall towards the WWII memorial, and on to the Lincoln Memorial.

We then headed over to the Vietnam Memorial to walk the wall and reflect. While it wasn’t super busy here, it was good to see everyone here being respectful, something I won’t be able to say when I get to Arlington National Cemetery in my ‘Day 3’ post.

After which, it was pretty close to lunch, so we took a stroll a few blocks towards our next destinations, a couple of Smithsonian museums.

The Museums

We started with the Museum of Natural History, and had lunch in their cafeteria (nothing to write home about). After eating, we spent an hour or so walking different areas of the museum before heading over to the Museum of American History for a stroll. While I’m normally not much of a museum guy, it’s nice to have places like this to visit that don’t charge admission when you’re trying to not spend much on vacation.

After our museum walks, we headed towards the archives with the hope that even thought it was late in the afternoon, we’d still be able to get in. No such luck, we’d just missed the cutoff time for the day. We decided at that point to head for Chinatown before dinner. We were all pretty tired, and it was a bit of a hike, but we made it over there with just enough energy for them to do some quick shopping in a little store in the area.

After a few minutes in Chinatown, we decided to head back to the hotel and clean up before finding somewhere to eat. While in the hotel, we scanned the list of local restaurants the front desk had given us, and came across one that sounded good by the name of Grand Cru Wine Bar & Bistro. Neither of us are wine people, but the menu sounded pretty good. I certainly wasn’t disappointed, as the Filet was pretty tasty, as was the Skull Splitter Scottish ale I had with it

All in all a pretty successful day, and just the start of our trip. The next two days Bayley and I visited a few of the other touristy sites in the city, and had a blast!

Next up: Day 2!

Hotel Smackdown: Holiday Inn Express vs Country Inn & Suites

I enjoy travelling, but over the past two weeks we’ve done more driving than I care to do in such a short time having driven somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000mi in that time. Over the first week of that, we stayed in four different hotels, three of which I’m going to compare here.

Holiday Inn Express, Cambridge, OH

We stopped here for a single night on the way to our destination in Mansfield, OH, and in my opinion it was easily the best of the three hotels in this review. First, a few pictures of the room:

Good, clean room, complete with a fridge, microwave, and DirecTV, which is a nice change of pace from the standard hotel cable setups that have no interactive on-screen guide. Another big thing with this room (can’t say the same for the Country Inn rooms), there were plenty of outlets, including at least two on each nightstand. Lack of outlets in hotel rooms is why i carry two Belkin SurgePlus units with me, but neither were necessary in this room. For the type of hotel, the rooms have been done really well also, especially the beds. While none of the mattresses in the hotels I’m reviewing were bad, the pillows are what set the Holiday Inn Express apart from the other two, as it’s something few hotels get right in my experience. They included four pillows on the bed, as shown, with two being firm and two being soft. Nice labeling, too:

I had one of each, and was pretty happy with both. None appeared to be true down pillows either, something I’m allergic to that could have caused me to wake up with a nasty headache (I carry Flonase with me when travelling just in case). The other thing that set this hotel apart from the other two is the breakfast. Holiday Inn Express has really stepped up their game in this area, apparently. The usual choices were there, eggs, bacon, breads, etc, but the cinnamon rolls stood out. Wow those things were delicious. Additionally, the brand has what I can only describe as a 3D pancake printer:

The sign did not lie, 60 seconds after pressing the button it spit out two perfectly cooked pancakes on the right side of the unit. Wowza. Love it! No messing with batter or hoping that your waffle isn’t going to stick to the cooking plates, just magical pancakes that show up as if from nowhere.

The front desk staff was super friendly as well, even upon arrival sometime after 10pm. My only real complaint on the hotel would be the difficulty in finding it, which might not have been an issue during the day when we weren’t as tired. Both our GPS and our phones kept telling us where to go, but neither could really pinpoint the location, and the sign seemed a bit hidden to us, so my wife called the hotel and got clarification of where to turn. No biggie, though. Overall, a great hotel and a chain I wouldn’t hesitate to stay at again!

Country Inn & Suites, Mansfield, OH

We stayed here for four nights while visiting family. I recommended this while we were looking at hotels based on past experience with the chain, specifically multiple stays at the one in Bloomington, IL while on business in the past. I always liked that location, but was let down by the one in Mansfield. Again, let’s start with room pictures:

The hotel itself looked pretty similar to what I remember the one in IL looking like, although the room appeared slightly outdated. It was clean, however, and the mattress was fine, but I couldn’t stand the small square pillows. They seem to be popular these days, with the Hilton we stayed at a few days later in Arlington, VA having the same type. My other main disappointment was breakfast. I recall the one in IL having a decent sized layout, a good selection of warm items every day, and never having an issue with keeping things stocked. That was not the case here. The breakfast area was small, with few warm choices. They did have the standard do it yourself waffle maker, and a few cereal choices, but they only had three warm selections each day, and of the stuff I had (eggs and bacon one morning, that was it), they really weren’t that good. The bread station was an issue too, as it wasn’t stocked very well, to the point that on our last morning, there was only a single donut left (I never saw more than 3 in there any morning), two plain bagels, a few slices of wheat bread, and nothing else.

As I said, it was clean, and all of the staff members we encountered were very friendly, but I think next time we’ll check out the Holiday Inn Express in town.

Country Inn & Suites, Frederick, MD

After leaving Mansfield, we stopped here for one night on the way up to DC. We’d booked this at the same time as the one in Mansfield, again mostly based on how I remembered the one in Bloomington. This location was slightly better, and it looks like it’s undergone a small renovation the Mansfield location hasn’t seen yet. The room:

That last picture shows the welcome sign at the front desk for Club Carlson members, with my name second on the list. Not something that I look for or need in a hotel, but a nice touch. Again, a very friendly staff, so that piece was a wash for all three hotels. Also notice on the bed is a small plastic bag of goodies we were given on check-in with a couple bottles of water and bags of snack pretzels as another welcome for Club Carlson members. Again, nice touch.

The room was clean and comfortable, but they still have the square pillows that I don’t like. Other than that, no complaints on the room.

The breakfast area was bigger than the one in Mansfield, so I had my hopes up, but once I got down there in the morning, disappointment set in again. The same meager selection of warm items, plus a waffle maker, so I had myself another waffle. The bread selection was a little better than the previous location, at least. This was a better stay than the previous one, but still left me a bit disappointed vs the one I used to stay at in Bloomington.

Overall, you can probably guess where I’m going with this: The Holiday Inn Express was easily my favorite, and a chain I’ll look to in the future when traveling. You can’t go wrong with either brand in my opinion, but the pillows, breakfast buffet, and magical pancake dispenser easily push Holiday Inn Express over the top in my eyes.

Sleepless in Seattle

Last week I had the opportunity to hang out in downtown Seattle thanks to an internal tech convention my company holds every six months. The title of this post reflects the reality of flying from Charlotte to Seattle, as I never quite got used to the time change. I was up pretty late every night (11pm-12am), and somehow managed to wake up between 4am-5am every single morning.

Anyway, for those in the tech community, think of it like (what used to be) TechEd or the replacement conference, Ignite, but it’s internal-only for those ‘Softies in the Services division around the world. It gives us a chance to hear from our peers, the various product groups, and more importantly, a chance to network. It’s been a few years since I’ve been, and with some important releases coming up within my technology space, I figured it’d be a good time to go. I won’t bore anyone with the technical side, but it was worth it all around.

Outside of the technical sessions, what else do we do while we’re there? Well, a variety of things. I won’t bore anyone talking about the conference food, which really wasn’t all that good at any point in the week (which is true for any conference I’ve ever been to – I can’t imagine it’s easy to feed large numbers of people for 5 days), but in this post I’ll briefly discuss a few of the restaurants we ventured to over the week:

The Fisherman’s Restaurant – Pier 57

After arriving Sunday evening, three of us headed to the waterfront to get some food. We were all pretty hungry, and quickly settled on The Fisherman’s Restaurant. I’m not a seafood guy, but this wasn’t an issue as they had a perfectly good New York steak on the menu, which came with some delicious roasted potatoes. All in all it was really good, but didn’t even come close to being the best meat I had all week.

Mmmm, steak…

Elliot’s Oyster House

A couple days later, we ventured down to the waterfront again. Earlier in the day, I’d scouted out a place that looked awesome, Radiator Whiskey (a description of ‘Meat, Whiskey, Beer‘ will get me every time), but it wasn’t to be, as they were booked until after 9pm. Brushing our disappointment aside, we walked around a bit more until we ended up down in the same waterfront area where The Fisherman’s Restaurant is. This time, we stumbled on Elliot’s. In a word, excellent. Once again, I had the New York steak, and it was easily better than what I’d had Sunday night. This one came with some delicious garlic mashed potatoes, and as shown in the pic, I added a glass of Whistle Pig 10yr Rye, which I enjoyed as well. The place is a little pricey, but the food and service were excellent.

Loulay

Of the restaurants we visited, this was probably my only disappointment. I ate here for lunch on Wednesday to meet up with members of one of my account teams, as we’re scattered all over the east coast, and for the most part hadn’t had the chance to meet in person before.

I had the beef burger, and while it was fine (the fries and garlic aioli were the best thing on the plate, imo), it was the overall lunch menu options that left me a bit disappointed. That’s not on the chef, that’s on me. I’m fairly hard to please, and don’t really go for the more fancy fare. I’m very much a meat and potatoes kind of guy, so I was glad they at least had a burger on the menu. Regardless, it was nice to meet everyone face to face for a nice relaxing lunch that didn’t involve the conference food.

MOD Pizza

On the last day of the event, a couple of us had really had our fill of the conference food, and decided to step out and find some pizza. We’d noticed MOD while walking around over the course of the week, so we headed there, and were glad we did. I’m a fan of thin crust, and ordered a mini Mad Dog, adding black olives and mushrooms, and it was delicious. I went mini so I could order some garlic strips as well. I wasn’t a big of a fan of those, as I tend to like actual garlic bread better, but live and learn. They’re apparently opening an MOD in Charlotte, about 6mi from where I work, so I see more lunch trips to MOD in my future 🙂

Radiator Whiskey

After seeing the menu and visiting the place in person during our failed attempt to eat here a few days earlier, a couple of us decided we weren’t leaving Seattle without trying this. I was able to get reservations on Friday prior to heading to the airport, and our persistence was rewarded. The place is pretty small, hence the difficulty getting in, but it’s a cool atmosphere with some really good food, and of course, more whiskey. I had the fried pork shank, and after spending some time studying the rather large whiskey list, decided to go with the staff recommendation, which was pretty good:

The pork was some of the best I’ve had in a long time, being perfectly cooked and just melting in your mouth. The herb aioli sauce it sat on was an excellent compliment to it as well. On the other side of the table, the guy I was eating with ordered something off the specials menu, which was some sort of turkey dish (not the confit). I generally despise turkey, but tried his, as the sauce it was cooked in looked delicious, and looks were not deceiving. That was some really good turkey!

That about covers it for the food. Several of us also hit YardHouse one night, but it wasn’t really for the food, so I didn’t feel like including it here. All in all, our restaurant choices proved successful, and I’ll definitely be returning to a couple of those the next time I’m in Seattle.

Next up: I’ll cover our conference event at CenturyLink Field on Thursday night!

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