Tag: National Park Hotels
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Ahwahnee Hotel Chefs' Holidays 2013 Feature Hungry Cat and Cakebread
Here's the latest happening in the luxury hotel world as told by Just Luxe's own Lena Katz. Got a question about luxury hotels and where to stay? Send it in and we'll have Lena answer it.
For those of you who aren’t National Parks-savvy, we must formally announce that January is a Big Deal, event-wise, for the West Coast’s biggest NPS hotel name. Northern California's famous Yosemite National Park, and in specific the iconic Ahwahnee Hotel on the Yosemite Valley floor, has been drawing ever-bigger crowds and marquee-name chefs with its annual Yosemite’s Chefs' Holidays series, which runs for eight sessions in 2013. JustLuxe.com got a peek at the first session, which ran January 6-8, and there are seven more to go including the finale January 30-31. Look for the complete schedule on the Ahwahnee page.
The Ahwahnee, for those not familiar, was finished in 1927, and is a masterpiece of grandiose traditional Arts & Crafts architecture, with some Native American elements, plus vast sweeping interior lines that reflect the vast mountain outside. It's a Historic Hotel of America, and management company Delaware North has taken every measure to preserve that "You just stepped back 90 years in time" feeling. In the wintertime, this translates to traditional recreation activities like the Curry Village Ice Rink (opened November in 2012) and guided full moon snowshoe walks (starting January 23rd in 2013--rates around $415 per night).
We, however, prefer the newer tradition of Chefs' Holidays, in which chefs and winemakers and foodies from coast to coast get cozy and chatty, sipping all kinds of wine and whipping up delicious morsels and enjoying those chilly wintertime Glacier Point views through the window.
National Park Hotels / Hotel Packages / Wyoming Hotels / Jackson Hole Hotels / → All Tags
See Yellowstone's Winter By Snowcoach at Spring Creek Ranch
If you thought Yellowstone National Park was only a place to visit in the summer months (along with throngs of tourists) think again.
An unexpected, but thrilling time to take a tour would be in the winter, and especially if you take advantage of Spring Creek Ranch’s new Winter Wildlife Safari program.
You’ll still get to see Old Faithful erupt, but due to lower temps (yes, it does get cold) the geyser bursts will be bigger than ever—and you’ll share the sight with fewer people. Then there’s the second best reason to come during the December-March season—riding around Yellowstone in a snowcoach for animal watching.
Hotel Art / Ohio Hotels / National Park Hotels / For the Sake of Hotel Art / → All Tags
For the Sake of Hotel Art: Maumee Bay State Park Resort's Lighthouse Lens
What kind of art do you stick in your lobby if you're a Great Lakes resort perched near the entrance to a major harbor, with several famous lighthouses within easy driving (or boating) distance? Well, if you're the Maumee Bay State Park Lodge, you don't just hang a giant painting of a stormy lighthouse scene; you take the entire lens of one and install that.
This is the original 1904 glass lens for the Toledo Lighthouse, made in Paris by Barbier and Bernard. Its beam of light was visible 16 miles around. Eventually it needed replacing and was removed in 1995, eventually ending up here at Maumee Bay in 2008. These days the lighthouse utilizes a lens made of plastic.
Wyoming Hotels / National Park Hotels / Yellowstone Park Hotels / Historic Hotels / → All Tags
Old Faithful Inn: Historical and Cool At The Same Time
Hotel lobby design is something that hoteliers have been focusing on to wow guests upon first impressions. Grand lobbies are nothing new and the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park is no exception. Walking into the log cabin lodge certainly elicits oohs and ahhs and might cause some stick necks from gazing upwards. While the lobby is quite impressive, the awe inspiring design isn't left just for the lobby. The uniqueness and 'wild west' feel is carried through the guest rooms, dining room, and gift shop.
The Inn is smack in the middle of Yellowstone's most visited geothermal attraction, Old Faithful. The accommodation is as consistent as the geyser since it has been open for business since 1904, when it boasted steam heat and electric lighting. It has seen almost as much as the surrounding land, by successfully dodging forest fires, earthquakes and the throngs of tourists coming to admire the timber hotel.
Historical Hotels / National Park Hotels / Alaska Hotels / Hotel History / → All Tags
The Year Was 1957 and the Place Was Alaska's McKinley Park Hotel
Happy Independence Day! This year, we're celebrating with a patriotic look back at one of the United States' most historic hotels: the McKinley Park Hotel in Mt. McKinley National Park, Alaska. Really, what's more "nuclear family" traditional Americana than a National Park?
We recently came across a vintage pamphlet from a stay at the hotel in the summer of 1957. The yellowed pages tout the 86-room property as "a friendly hotel in Alaska's scenic land of the midnight sun" and a perfect location for spotting the multitude of wildlife of the park, whose land measures an impressive 1,939,493 acres.
Snapshot / Death Valley Hotels / Motels / National Park Hotels / → All Tags
There's Still Time For A Death Valley Experience That Doesn't Include Heat Stroke
Death Valley may not be the most attractive vacation prospect right now, what with the obscene gas prices, but if you want to see it soon (and you should), we couldn’t help but notice that temperatures right now are a pretty mild 90 degrees, with a high of 99 for tomorrow and back to 96 for Sunday.
Which, seeing as summer temperatures are normally soaring by now, really isn’t bad. Maybe it’s suffering from the same cold weather front as Vegas (currently a miserable 79) has been for the past few days.
If you want to make a run for it this weekend, we’d advise bypassing the swanky Furnace Creek - because you don’t go to Death Valley to play golf and live in a resort, do you?
No, you go to Death Valley to soak in nature, escape civilization and contemplate the magnitude of the earth and all that jazz.
And for that, we recommend Stovepipe Wells. It used to be the official National Park property in the Valley, before they switched to Furnace Creek (heresy!), and it’s just what you think of Death Valley as. Half an hour from the bustle of Furnace Creek, there’s just a motel, a restaurant and a general store.
Hotel Packages / Hotel Deals / Washington Hotels / National Park Hotels / Nature Retreats / → All Tags
Celebrate the Last Weeks of 2010 For $20.10 With a Retreat to the Olympic National Park
The Quinault rainforest, as seen by HotelChatter last week. Sadly we failed to find Edward Cullen
Sometimes you want to end the year by partying your brain into a gutter and sometimes you want to turn your back on all the fake-happy Christmas parties and ignore the fact that another year is about to finish. And if you’re leaning the latter way this year, then you’re in for a treat, because two of the properties within Washington State’s Olympic National Park are offering a pretty good deal for the tail end of the year.
Stay one night for $99 at either Lake Quinault Lodge, in the middle of the Quinault Rainforest, or Kalaloch Lodge, on the coastal road up to Forks, and you can book a second night for $20.10 (because it’s the end of 2010, see).
Wyoming Hotels / National Park Hotels / Yellowstone Hotels / Green Hotels / → All Tags
Sleep with Lewis & Clarke and Annie Oakley in Wyoming
We knew there was something fun in Wyoming! Get this: a cool hotel has popped up in Cody, Wyoming and features six themed suites. Among them: Annie Oakley and Lewis & Clarke.
The Cody, whose walls are made with lumber taken from planks that once surrounded Old Faithful, is also hardcore eco-conscious. Says the owner:
We have no paper products in the hotel except for tissue paper and that is biodegradable. Our breakfast has cloth napkins, china, and glass wear. So we're washing a lot of dishes.
You know, we might consider going totally paperless if we were to stay in the Lewis and Clark room. When in Rome, do as the Romans do ... and when in a themed room, you might as well apply the theme to your -- okay, we're done.
