[Ed. Note: Welcome to our Good Rate/Bad Rate feature where we look at hotel prices in the same city and decide which one most deserves your hard-earned benjamins. Rates quoted here were captured on April 29, 2008 and are subject to change. Enjoy.]
We've said it many times in many ways: a package with a word like "romance," "honeymoon," or "lovers" in it is almost always going to be a bad deal. Like, oh, 99 times out of 100 in our experience. This week we're happy to report that we found the elusive number 100, in the "Passion Package" at the new Affinia Hotel Chicago.
We went looking at boutique hotels in Chicago to answer a question. How bad would the damage be if a husband wanted to take the mother of his children away for the weekend? We pulled up the nights of May 9 and 10 (with preferably a late check-out on Mother's Day) and didn't expect much.
But we quickly found a score at Affinia. As featured in the shot here, the Passion Package includes that late check-out, as well as plenty of goodies to spice up a weekend away from the kids. Best of all, this rate was better than the plain old room rate we found on seven of the eight third-party booking sites we checked, at $228 a night for a standard room before taxes.
We recommend upgrading to the Junior Suite though for $60 more a night. You might need some extra space for, umm, recreation.
So Easter weekend is upon us and if you are looking for a last-minute getaway, fake that you're Catholic and that you need to take off Good Friday for an Easter Vigil and head to San Francisco.
We looked at rates on Expedia.com for Friday to Monday and rates are looking very do-able. Unlike say Miami which is in the midst of a Spring Break/Holiday weekend double-whammy where beachfront hotels are starting at around $550 a night and airport hotels are hovering in the $200 a night range.
The Clift Hotel, which had a very scary incident earlier this month, is going for $150 a night. Since the place got so much bad press about guest safety, we're willing to bet that they are doing all that they can to turn this around. Still, we say women shouldn't travel alone here.
[Ed. Note: Welcome to our Good Rate/Bad Rate feature where we look at hotel prices in the same region and decide which one most deserves your hard-earned benjamins. Rates quoted here were captured on March 4, 2008 and are subject to change. Enjoy.]
A survey from the American Society of Travel Agents found that New York City will be a less popular destination for Americans this year, with the city dropping from number three to number seven on the list of desirable places to go. If the comments on the Budget Travel blog story linked above are any indication, it's the sky-high hotel prices that are turning people off.
As one person noted, "We are all savvy NYC hotel searchers. No one could come up with a room for less than $300. Even my favorite, cheap-o hotel Hotel 17, was $275."
[Ed. Note: Welcome to our Good Rate/Bad Rate feature where we look at hotel prices in the same region (or this time, around the same activity) and decide which one most deserves your hard-earned benjamins. Rates quoted here were captured on January 22, 2008 and are subject to change. Enjoy.]
Skiing is hard enough without having to sort through math problems ahead of time. That's why we like this one-page rundown of Northeast ski deals from Travelocity. Most are simple "ski and stay" packages at quality hotels and resorts around Stowe, Lake Placid, and Stratton.
To see how many restrictions we would run into, we ran a few searches from different cities in the southern U.S. and scored more often than not. We found a sub-$600 deal for four nights around Valentine's Day from both Nashville and Atlanta for the Green Mountain Inn at Stowe. We were getting prices around $900 for packages to New Hampshire's White Mountains from Dulles Airport and Charlotte, but the package did include a one-day lift ticket.
Naturally there is going to be a lot of fluctuation on these deals depending on flight prices from your airport, but you don't have to read any fine print or call a reservation agent to check the bottom line pricing.
[Ed. Note: Welcome to our Good Rate/Bad Rate feature where we look at hotel prices in the same region and decide which one most deserves your hard-earned benjamins. Rates quoted here were captured on January 15, 2008 and are subject to change. Enjoy.]
If you're looking for some room rate love around Valentine's Day, avoid the romance packages and just search for a good deal instead. As opposed to this week's Amour Package, the NH Krystal in Cancun offers up lots of goodies for a price that doesn't leave us bewildered.
Renovated this past summer, the NH Krystal gives you a refreshed room on the 7th or 8th floor and throws a lot into its $191 Club Room deal over Valentine's Day, including a biggie that you rarely see in large hotels here: complimentary wireless Internet access!
The club level includes upgraded amenities, access to an exclusive rooftop terrace, and a concierge-staffed lounge with Continental breakfast, coffee and pastries during the day, and "evening appetizers and house wine."
We're not sure if Mexican "house wine" and V-day romance mix very well together, but for only a $33 a night premium over the lowest standard room rate, this is an attractive deal. (If you want a few days of debauchery, you can double down and go all-inclusive.)
We found this $191 deal on Expedia and Travelocity, but not on the company's own site. Like your momma always said, shop around.
[Ed. Note: Welcome to our Good Rate/Bad Rate feature where we look at hotel prices in the same region and decide which one most deserves your hard-earned benjamins. Rates quoted here were captured on November 6, 2007 and are subject to change. Enjoy.]
To get to the roots of Thanksgiving, there's no better spot than where it all began, in Plymouth, Massachusetts. See the Plymouth Rock! See the Mayflower! See a replica of the original settlement! And hey, it's right on the water, with a nice beach panorama.
Staying in a cookie-cutter chain hotel just doesn't seem right in a place like this, so it's best to book at one of the dozen or so New England bed and breakfasts scattered around town. Rates run anywhere from $80 to $250, but most fall in the middle of that range.
The top two spots with TripAdvisor reviewers are A Beach House Oceanfront Plymouth (named by a search engine optimization specialist apparently)and By the Sea Bed & Breakfast - pictured here. In both cases you'll have a nice location, a quality breakfast, and attentive service for somewhere between $140 and $170 a night.
We couldn't automatically check availability over Thanksgiving weekend, so you'll have to nose around. Most Plymouth bed and breakfasts are not listed in the big corporate booking sites such as Expedia or Travelocity. You'll need to look in a specialized directory or book direct through the B&B's website.
Once again, HotelChatter contributing editor Tim Leffel is moving around. He's left Acapulco for Zihuatanejo, Mexico where's he scoping out the burgeoning hotel scene. If you have a question about where to stay in Acapulco or Zihuatanejo, hit us on the tipline, or just comment below, and we will do our best to get you some sort of answer. Enjoy.
If The Tides or Casa que Canta would require a lottery win to get into your vacation budget range, fret not. Zihuatanejo, Mexico is loaded with killer view hotels that give you plenty of bang for the buck. We spent a few nights at the impressive Brisas del Mar for an easy-to-stomach $102 a night. (Not including the local 17 percent hotel tax--grrrrrr.)
For that price we got a nice room with a view that emptied out onto a huge terrace with a whirlpool, two cushioned lounge chairs, a dinette set, and a hammock. (View from it pictured here.) There's free WiFi in the lobby, a large pool with a built-in slide for the kids, and a nice restaurant and bar right on La Madera beach. This beach is not as long as Playa La Ropa on the other side of the cliffs, but a walkway connects this one to the town, where there are dozens of restaurants serving fresh seafood and buck-fifty beers.
There's a a gym and game room on site, a great sunset bar with a panoramic view of the bay, and the bilingual staff is generous with fluffy beach towels and boogie boards to borrow. Rates go up by about 50 percent in the high season, but considering what beachfront room prices are like in many Mexican beach resorts these days, Brisas del Mar is a screaming bargain.
[Ed. Note: Welcome to our Good Rate/Bad Rate feature where we look at hotel prices in the same region and decide which one most deserves your hard-earned benjamins. Rates quoted here were captured on September 12, 2007 and are subject to change. Enjoy.]
They do things big in Texas and this includes the Texas State Fair, billed as "North America's largest annual expo." It runs September 28 to October 21 in Dallas.
If you're planning on checking out the Human Cannonball, the $5 million sky ride, or the giant "Big Tex" statue, get your hotel reservations now.
The Marriott Suites Market Center gets high marks for it spacious quarters (600+ square feet)and friendly service. Compared to a lot of the price-gouging going on during the state fair (see this week's Bad Rate), the suite prices here are a steal.
For $249 a night you get a separate living room, a mini-fridge, and a fitness center on site. The hotel provides complimentary transportation within a five-mile radius, so if you tip your shuttle driver nicely you could end up with a ride to the fair. Granted this is the AAA rate or the corporate rate, but hotel insiders tell us, "If you can fog up a mirror you can get the corporate rate."
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by Tim L.
