Lodging

Growing up in the deep south, my travel experiences growing up were a little different than most. While kids my age frequented big name hotels and bed and breakfasts, I was limited to KOA campgrounds and a pop-up camper. It wasn’t until later on that I had my first bed and breakfast experience, which just so happened to be at the Brady Inn in Madison, Georgia.

Front of the Brady Inn Bed and Breakfast

Madison, Georgia’s Brady Inn is your typical southern historic home that you might picture appearing in a movie. The outside is your basic southern antebellum home with a porch with rocking chairs and a garden in the front and along the porch. When you walk inside it has the feel of a historic antique museum or historic home like the Biltmore House. The Brady Inn in Madison features Victorian style antique furniture in each room, from the beds to the dresser to the sofa to the coffee table. Each rooms has its own unique style and amenities and no one room is like the other.

One of the Brady Inn's bedrooms

If you’re accustomed to luxury hotels, then don’t expect anything flashy about the Brady Inn. This Madison bed and breakfast is simply your standard cozy bed and breakfast with the southern hospitality and comfort you would expect to find at a top-rate inn. The accommodations include seven bedrooms, each with their own private bath, sitting areas and complimentary high-speed and wireless Internet access. Two of the bedrooms can be connected to make a suite and the adjoining cottage features a two-bedroom suite with a TV and DVD player, refrigerator and sitting room.

Two of the inn’s most notable features is its location in Madison, Georgia, as well as its accommodations for weddings and events. The bed and breakfast is a block from Madison’s downtown square, which offers a great selection of restaurants and boutique shops. The Madison bed and breakfast is popular for weddings, as it offers great accommodations for a wedding party. The inn can accommodate a small wedding, rehearsal dinner and reception.

Wedding Setup at the Brady Inn

Rates at  the Brady Inn in Madison, Georgia start at $125 per night and go up to $175. Included in that rate is a southern gourmet breakfast, complimentary snacks during the afternoon and complimentary wine at night. Currently, if you stay during the week, you get your second night 40% off.

The Brady Inn Bed and Breakfast
250 North Second Street
Madison, GA 30650
706-342-4400

Photos courtesy of The Brady Inn Bed and Breakfast.

As per the draw for the 2010 FIFA WorldCup being held in South Africa, the United States (Group C) won’t face Italy (Group F) unless both teams make it to the finals. That’s not about to happen… But the thing is that as far as lodging is concerned, the US has already beaten Italy.

Irene Country Lodge, Gauteng, South Africa

For the Confederations cup held earlier this year, the Italian team was booked into the Irene Country lodge, and they were planning to do the same for the World Cup. The lodge is ideally located in Gauteng, 30 miles from Johannesburg on the outskirts of Pretoria, with Johannesburg International Airport 25 minutes away.

This lodge is coveted by teams playing in Joburg because Southdowns College in Irene has three full soccer fields, with six more in the works, along with a gym and pool. All in all, Irene Country lodge is one of the best team hotels if you’re one of the qualifying teams for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

So imagine Italy’s horror when they found that team USA had already grabbed Irene Country lodge. The US followed all the protocols and were given the lodge as their first choice by FIFA. The Italians lost – fair and square, due to their complacency.

Unlikely that the lodge will have any place left for the duration of the World Cup, but in case you want to try, they offer 50 ensuite bedrooms facing the lake, set in a languid English country manor setting, including a resident herd of cows. 

If you’re planning a trip to SA for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, then you might also want to consider combining soccer & safari in Kruger Park. 

Photo courtesy Irene Country Lodge

Info: 391 Nellmapius Drive, Irene, 0062, Gauteng, South Africa; +27 (0)12 667-6464; www.irenecountrylodge.co.za/

If you’re like me, the idea of enjoying the Christmas holidays while someone else does all the work, sounds pretty good about now. Walks in the snow, bedtime stories by the fireplace of a beautiful lodge and the smell of cookies baking in the kitchen are the scenes from my ideal Christmas dream.

The dream comes true at Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge where the staff has done all the work for me. They call it a Festival of Christmas. From Dec. 23 – 26, 2009, the $399 per night (3-night minimum) package includes:

·         In-room Christmas tree and complete kit of decorations
·         Manager’s Christmas Eve Reception with a visit from Santa
·         Mixology class
·         Maligne Canyon Ice Walk
·         Maligne Valley tour
·         Recreational rentals (cross-country skis, skates, tobaggans)
·         Lighting of the Great Tree
·         Stocking decorating
·         History Tours
·         Skating with elves on Lake Mildred
·         Caroling in the Great Hall
·         Chocolate tasting
·         Santa’s Workshop craft class
·         Christmas Cookie Bake
·         Horse-drawn wagon rides
·         Holiday movies
·         Holiday bonfire with s’mores
·         Holiday Bingo
·         Santa’s Village Holiday Hangout and recreational programs… and more!

My visits to Jasper Park Lodge have always been in the summer with accommodations in one of the log cabin junior suites that combine luxury with a rustic setting. Although I enjoyed walking the trail around Lac Beauvert, experiencing the snowy view of ice skaters on the lake sounds like a dream come true to me.

If you go:
Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge
Old Lodge Road
Jasper, Alberta, Canada
1(866) 540-4454

Review by Donna L. Hull, My Itchy Travel Feet
Photos courtesy of Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge

From Nancy D. Brown of What a Trip

Swiss Cow by Nancy D. Brown

I first discovered the Hotel Falken during a European college trip the summer of my junior year. Our small group took a cog wheel train from Interlaken to the alpine village of Wengen, Switzerland. We arrived at night time, checked into our rooms and tucked into two single beds. Neither my room mate nor I could figure out the bedding, it looked like a giant white marshmallow was placed upon our bed. By the next morning, we had figured out the Swiss down duvet, now widely available in the United States. Back in the 1980’s, the down duvet was a new experience for us California kids. The closest we’d been to a summer/winter resort like Wengen was in Lake Tahoe.

As I crossed the room and opened the shutters, I was delighted to see the magnificent Jungfrau, snow capped and surrounded with a halo of puffy clouds. Cows grazed in the meadow above the hotel, their custom made cow bells clanging softly in the distance.  Flower boxes spilled over with red geraniums from the surrounding hotels. I would remember this hotel experience for the rest of my life.

I was able to come back to the Hotel Falken as a newlywed with my husband. We had both quit our jobs and were backpacking through Europe for two months. We had planned our “splurge” night in the car-free village of Wengen to celebrate our one year anniversary. My parents also visited Wengen and stayed at this Hotel when they were there for a jazz festival. 

Switzerland is one of my favorite vacation destinations. Picture postcard scenery, romantic hotels, plenty of outdoor adventure opportunities and the best chocolate in the world. What’s not to love about Switzerland? Well, I should mention that I don’t love the expense of traveling in Switzerland. Budget travelers might consider the “sleep in the straw” programs. I prefer to save up my money and stay at the Hotel Falken.

Have you been to Wengen, Switzerland? What are your favorite memories?

Hotel Falken
Feliciano Cova Susanna
Gruebi
3823 Wengen

Tel. 033 856 51 21

Photo courtesy of Nancy D. Brown

Lodging in Olympos, on Turkey’s mediterranean coast in Antalya, is not just a place to crash for the night. The Treehouses in Olympos are just as much a part of the experience as the beach, gift shops and the Lycian history tours.

Kadir's Treehouses, Olympos, Turkey

Kadir’s Tree Houses:- Kadir’s has become too civilized to be labeled as an adventure, with 2 bars, a 150 seat seafood restaurant, satellite tv, internet access and all kinds of services, including a travel booking agency.

It’s a social gathering ground for tourists in Olympos, complete with a nightly bonfire. Still offers a refreshing change from the cookie-cutter backpacker hostels, and besides – it’s darn cheap. Rates start from around $10, breakfast and dinner included.

Lodging options include 100 bungalows, 15 cabins and 10 dorms, in addition to the camping grounds. Some of these treehouses are a pretty good way up the trees to be really called treehouses.

If Kadir’s is full up, then there’s other trees to climb in Olympos. Turkmen Treehouses has plenty of room to spare. They also have bungalows, luxe bungalows and ultra-luxe bungalows.

Obviously, these bungalow digs are very well grounded and in fact, come with air-conditioning, showers, hair dryers, wireless internet, the works… Not much adventure there, except maybe if you try to take pictures of people up in the treehouses, and one of them swings down to take a whack at you.

 The other two options are Bayram’s Tree Houses and Saban Pension. 

Photo by jonrawlinson

Related posts:-
5 US Treehouse Lodgings Available to Rent
God’s Tree House
Weird Hotels-Strange and Unique Hotels Around the World

Pool outside XS nightclub at Encore Las Vegas

Las Vegas has been dealt a lot of bad hands in the past year: fewer people gambling, fewer conventions and incentive trips, and one of the country’s worst housing bubble deflations—just for a start. It takes several years for a hotel project to go from groundbreaking to opening, however, so many of those new megahotels planned when things were booming are now opening at the worst possible time.

The Wynn sister hotel Encore came on line a year ago with 2034 new rooms, just as the stock market and housing market were picking up speed on their full-blown downward spiral. The XS club was hopping when I visited earlier this month as part of the Luxury Travel Expo, but outside of where the convention had booked up the place, the public areas were feeling pretty empty. Encore is a beautiful, stylish hotel with rooms that have pretty much everything you could want, but it was built for an age of excess. Who knows when that feeling will come around again. So meanwhile, you can get a room there for as low as $169 mid-week, which is a fantastic bargain for a AAA 5-diamond hotel. Book two nights or more and you’ll probably come away with a resort credit on top.

Then in March the off-strip M Resort and Casino opened with 390 rooms, the whole project having an estimated price tag of $1 billion. Hey, at least they picked the month when the Dow hit rock bottom. Nowhere to go but up!

The brand new Aria Hotel opens today in the 67-acre City Center, a mixed use project that will cost somewhere around $8.5 billion. (See this recent Wall Street Journal story, The long bumpy road to completing City Center.) Aria has an incredible 4,004 rooms to fill, including 568 suites. As a result, decked-out standard rooms are going for as little as $149, or even less as part of a package deal. Something tells me an upgrade to a suite is worth bargaining for.

Vdara Hotel & Spa, also in the City Center, just opened this month as well. The all-suite hotel with no casino has rates that start even lower, at $129 mid-week for a suite with kitchenette that’s nearly 600 square feet. The plan was to open with 1,495 rooms, but with the economy in tatters, the initial count will be a third of that.

Do the math though and between the Encore, M, Aria, and Vdara, Las Vegas has at least 6,850 more rooms than it did when Lehman Brothers went under and the former pillars of American industry had to get a bailout from Washington. Go there now and you’ll get your own personal bailout: bargain rates on a nice new hotel room. You’ll have plenty left over to party like a rock star.

Stylish bar at Encore Las Vegas

[Photos by Tim Leffel]

El Jabali Eco-Camp

Visitors to Mexico’s state of Querétaro can find colonial architecture, wine tasting, archaeological sites, Franciscan missions … and ecotourism adventure. Located next to the Extoraz River in a canyon in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, El Jabalí eco-camp is a gem for adventure travelers. Visitors get to the camp by quads (four-wheel all-terrain vehicles) from the nearby town of San Joaquín—home to one of the most important cultural events in Mexico, the National Competition of Huapango, a folkloric regional dance contest.

After a short lesson and practice in a nearby park, the quads traverse rough mountain roads through forest, semi-desert and canyon, and the trip provides breathtaking views of the Sierra Gorda. The narrow roads and steep drop-offs (no guardrails) may cause some to hesitate, and it’s possible to negotiate limited room to ride in a truck that accompanies your group.

The campground itself has six luxury safari-type tent-cabins. Each cabin has comfortable beds and private bathroom (and shower!). All are run on solar power. It’s an amazing sight to stand on your cabin deck and look across a grassy field to the river and monumental walls of the canyon.

Bucareli Mission

Meals are cooked in a kitchen located in the common dining/bar area and are extremely hearty and tasty. Fruits served during meals are all grown on the property. An evening bonfire next to the river provides the perfect opportunity to relax under the stars and share stories.

From the campground, you can explore the area, especially the unfinished Bucareli Mission, built in 1797 and abandoned in 1926 after the Mexican Revolution. The chapel, fountains, priests’ cells and patios with arches can still be seen in an exploration of the buildings.

The cost of the campground adventure is $1,500 pesos (about $118) per person per night, including lodging, food and the quad tours.

El Jabalí eco-camp  +045 (441) 107 2239
campamento_eljabali@yahoo.com.mx

In addition, the State of Queretaro’s Ministry of Tourism can answer questions about the eco-camp, as well as other eco-camps in the state. +52 (442) 238 5067, www.queretaro.travel.

Photos courtesy of Jill K. Robinson

More Querétato-related information:
Living History at La Casa de la Marquesa in Querétaro

Disclosure: My trip was sponsored by the State of Querétaro’s Ministry of Tourism, however the opinions are my own, and there was no promise of type of coverage.

Relais Chateaux Hotel La Torre del Visco's wine cellar's deep selection of reasonably priced wines can provide hours of entertainment.

Like many places in Spain, when you leave your luggage unattended at La Torre del Visco, it might disappear on you.

But unlike a street corner in Barcelona, at this Relais Chateaux Hotel in the Spanish countryside, you’ll find your bags later, waiting for you in your posh room.

The vanishing luggage trick–one of my favorite features of luxury travel–was just the first of many opulent touches we enjoyed at our stay here. Located 4.5 hours from Madrid and 2.5 hours from Barcelona by car, La Torre del Visco, makes a peaceful if slightly out-of-the-way respite from visits to Spain’s biggest two cities.

Other luxurious highlights:

• a stocked 15th century wine cellar where if you open a bottle and don’t like it, you can just pick another one and not be charged for the first (the owner only carries wine he likes, so he just drinks the opened bottles himself–the wine selection is so good, however, he doesn’t get to do this often)
• a menu that changes daily based on what’s fresh–or freshly killed (it damn near killed me that right after checking out I saw a plate of just-caught fish on ice in the kitchen)
• while chatting with some other guests on a porch enjoying a panoramic view of the Spanish countryside, we were asked if we wanted  lunch–moments later the white table cloth was brought out, as were plate after plate of meats and cheeses

La Torre del Visco has 17 rooms (four suites, two junior suites, six superior double rooms and five standard rooms). Prices range from 151€ to 303.5€ on weekdays and 275€ to 425€ on weekends and holidays. It is not suitable for people with disabilities. La Torre del Visco also has two acres of formal gardens, terraces and fountains as well as a 220-acre organic farm to explore.

Enjoy a good sit taking in the Spanish countryside.

Photos: Zach Everson

Relais Chateaux Hotel La Torre del Visco
Partida Torre del Visco s/n
44587 Fuentespalda, Spain
( 00 34) 978 76 90 15

As 2009 comes to an end, it’s become increasingly more challenging for hotels to develop creative and new ideas for their travel promotions. One Colorado Springs Hotel and Resort has put their own personalized spin for travelers to Colorado at the beginning of 2010.

Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado Springs is ringing in the New Year with a unique promotion that starts on January 1 and will be running until March 31. Named after Dean Martin’s popular winter song, the promotion is called “baby it’s cold outside”. The hotel promotion features up to 50% off guest rooms, restaurant orders, spa and golf services. So what’s the catch? 

Well the hotel promotion’s catch is that the price you pay is based on how cold it is. Yes, that’s right, the price you pay depends on the temperature. The colder the temperature outside, the more you save. When the temperature is below 0 degrees, then you receive 50% off not only your room, but your entire bill, including golf, dining and spa services. A weather board will be at the front desk to validate the temperature. 

The View at Cheyenne Mountain Resort

Colorado Springs’ Cheyenne Mountain Resort did a similar travel promotion last year, except it only applied to golf retail items. It had so much success, they decided to add some features and make the promotion applicable for all the resort’s services. As you can expect, the best time to get 50% off will be during January and early February. 

Rates at the Colorado Springs resort begin at $179 per night for your basic room, which includes a view and two queen beds and go up from there for the larger deluxe rooms and suites. Each room comes with almost 500 square feet of space, a private balcony with beautiful views of the Colorado Rockies and the resort, sitting areas, high-speed Internet access, a well-appointed bathroom and a wet bar. Some of the bigger suites include personal refrigerators, a fireplace and a separate parlor.

Cheyenne Mountain Resort
3225 Broadmoor Valley
Colorado Springs, CO 80906
719-538-4000
 

Photo taken by rlacy on Flickr.

From Nancy D. Brown of What a Trip

Snow on Mount Diablo, California

Baby, it’s cold outside! Down right freezing in some places that haven’t seen snow in years. We’re talking snow on Mount Diablo in Northern California!

With temperatures reaching record lows in California, you might be thinking about a warm weather destination for the winter holidays.

Personally, I’ll be heading to Cancun, Mexico next week to stay at the JW Marriott Resort and Spa, located off the northeast corner of the Yucatan Peninsula. I’ll be a guest of the JW Marriott Resort and Spa. I also hope to go horseback riding when I’m in Cancun.

If you like balmy weather, warm water for snorkeling, standup paddling, surfing and diving or simply snoozing on a lani while listening to the sound of the waves lapping sparkling sands, then Maui is calling you.

Sheraton Maui Resort photo by Nancy D. Brown

I stayed at the Sheraton Maui Resort and Spa last June. What’s new at the Sheraton? The Spa at Black Rock offers an indoor, outdoor type of experience, as the rooms are not completely closed in. What’s more relaxing than listening to the surf and birds twittering in the background while enjoying a massage?

Resorts on Twitter

Speaking of twitter; follow the Sheraton’s Twitter link for updates on the Sheraton, Maui. You can also find “What a Trip” on twitter. 

If you want to follow my tweets while I’m blogging in Cancun, Mexico, you can follow the #BlogParadise hash tag on Twitter or follow Marriott Resorts twitter feed next week.

Are you heading anywhere for the holidays?

Mount Diablo photo courtesy of Amber Wheable.

Sheraton Maui Resort and Spa 1 (866) 716-8109

2605 Kaanapali Parkway, Lahaina, HI 96761