The Ritz-Carlton, Washington, D.C.: because sometimes a girl just needs to get away from it all.

I was nervous about bringing my then-11-month-old daughter to The Ritz-Carlton, Washington, D.C. for a four-night stay last December. While it was her seventh time in a hotel and my wife and I have mastered the basics of traveling with an infant (give ‘em what they want so they don’t cry), it was her first visit to luxury hotel, and one that catered towards more of a business clientele no less.

• What if she cried at night and kept awake a person with an early-morning meeting that was critical to world peace?
• Would a trash can full of dirty diapers and spilled Cheerios be out of place at “one of the premier luxury hotels in Washington, DC”?
• What if she developed expensive tastes like her mother?

The accommodations

Our 450-sq.-ft. club deluxe room provided ample space for our daughter to crawl and fall. It probably was a safer environment for her than our house.

In addition to a teddy bear that the manager brought up to our room, a small P.O.L.O. tote (protect our little ones) was left in the crib that we’d requested ahead of time. It included baby lotion and plug covers, for which my wife and I were both glad and hateful.

• Glad: The Ritz-Carlton, Washington, D.C. was the first hotel we’d visited thoughtful enough to provide plug covers.
• Hateful: My wife and I felt like lousy parents because we’d never thought to bring plug covers to a hotel before either.

The food

So we alleviated our guilt by having a friend with little experience with infants come over and watch our precious sleeping daughter while we went downstairs to enjoy a (complimentary) dinner and drinks at the Westend Bistro by Eric Ripert (we didn’t think the baby monitor would reach from the ninth floor to the first). Don’t feel bad for my daughter though; the next afternoon she ate lunch at the contemporary American restaurant too. And while she’s not quite ready to blog about how her meal tasted to her developing palate, her gusto for more made it clear that she enjoyed the mac and cheese at the Westend Bistro by Eric Ripert better than what’s served at the home kitchen by Mom and Dad.

Now lest the girl get uppity (too late you say?) and expect a meal at one of DC’s chicest restaurants every day, a few weeks before our visit I requested a refrigerator for our room. And while Westend Bistro does specialize in comfort food (try the burger), it does not offer that most soothing of meals—breast milk. We’d called ahead to ask for a fridge in the room before all of our stays at other hotels, but this instance was one of the rare times that one was actually there waiting for us.

And the Ritz-Carlton’s Club Lounge (access was included with our stay), with its breakfast, lunch, and dinner spreads made for an easy and quick way to feed our daughter and ourselves. The club’s attendants were spectacular with accommodating any food requests we had—the yogurt we asked for to go came back not only wrapped in aluminum to make sure it stayed cold but the foil was shaped to look like a bird.

The childcare

Should you not have a friend in the DC area willing to watch your pride and joy in exchange for a six pack of Miller Lite, the concierge keeps a list of local babysitting services. Guests are required to make arrangements themselves though (likely because DC is so lawyery).

The adjacent Sports Club/LA, however, offers childcare in its For Kids Only secure area for $10 an hour. Any guilt you feel about dropping off your kid here will quickly be replaced by angst when you see the facilities and how much fun your child is having without you there (it’s a lot more impressive than most gym’s childcare areas). While intended for parents who are working out, there’s no reason you can’t deposit your kid here while you park yourself in the club’s Sidewalk Café and tweet over a latte or three (you can’t leave the gym’s facilities though).

The service

Eating lunch in the aforementioned Club Lounge, my daughter started to pull off her sock, most likely so she could cram her foot in her mouth, as is her custom. Seeing this, one of the lounge attendants came over, helped her remove the sock the rest of the way, rolled it up, and tucked it into her diaper bag, stunning both father and daughter. While down there, she also picked up a chunk of cheese from my daughter’s lap and threw it out (normally I would’ve picked it up and eaten it).

Upon returning to Louisville, to reintroduce our daughter to reality, my wife and I promptly checked her in for a three-night stay at the Economy Inn while we returned to our house and made plans to replace our guest room/office with a Club Lounge of our own.

The result

Our then-11-month-old daughter walked for the first time in room 935 of the Ritz-Carlton, Washington D.C. (your child’s results may vary).

And for the adults: A cocktail recipe

Because all hotel reviews should end with a cocktail recipe, here’s one for The Speaker of the House, a specialty drink the Westend Bistro served this New Year’s Eve:

1. Add 1 oz. of persimmon puree and three dashes of cinnamon bitters to a champagne flute glass.
2. Fill the glass with Prosecco (every glass, of course, should be filled with Prosecco).

Ritz-Carlton, Washington D.C.
1150 22nd St. NW
Washington, DC 20037
202-835-0500

We got a special rate at this hotel, but you can get one too: for 1,000 days starting on Jan. 20, 2011, the Ritz-Carlton, Washington D.C. is offering a JFK 50th Anniversary Camelot Package. Starting at $329 a night, it includes deluxe guest room accommodations with valet parking; a copy of the best-selling book Portrait of Camelot: A Thousand Days in the Kennedy White House (with DVD); two tickets to the Newseum with an exclusive brochure highlighting the photos, artifacts, videos and stories that depict JFK’s biggest news-making moments; and a copy of the historic Life magazine, “JFK: The Run for the White House.”

Photo: Zach Everson

The Greek Revival-style manor house

If next week’s Mardi Gras is calling you towards New Orleans or Baton Rouge (where I stayed last May at the Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center) consider an overnight stay along the Mississippi River at Oak Alley Plantation. There you’ll find R&R steeped in antebellum history. Like Bocage, another plantation in the river region of Louisiana, Oak Alley includes accommodations.

Creole-style 100-year-old cottages

Unlike Bocage, where guests slumber in opulent comfort in the mansion, guests at Oak Alley stay in separate, Creole-style cottages at the back of the main building. These centuries old one and two-bedroom cottages, updated into cozy, modern comfort are tucked away from the property’s bustle. This means the tourists that tromp through mansion house on a tour won’t disrupt your stay.

The mansion tour is not included in the overnight price, but do take time for it. Oak Alley, built in 1839, got its name from steamship  travelers because of its stand of 300 year old oak trees that line the lane from the plantation to the Mississippi River.

Now a National Historic Landmark,  this Greek Revival mansion with its expansive porch and wide columns has been restored to mint condition and appointed with period furniture. The guided tour is worth the extra price if you want to find out more about what life was like in the manor house of a sugar plantation.

Whether you take a tour or not, guests can wander the grounds that include a gift shop and a restaurant. Breakfast comes with the lodging price and lunch is available.

Bedroom view taken from doorway

If you go, stroll down the lane to the Mississippi River. Because there’s a levee now, the only way to see the water from the plantation’s grounds is to walk to the top of the levee.

By the way, if the mansion looks familiar, there’s a reason. It was used as one of the settings in the movies “Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte”, “Primary Colors,” and “Interview with a Vampire.”

* Although I didn’t stay at Oak Alley while I was on a group tour courtesy of the Baton Rouge Visitors and Convention Bureau, I was given a  look-see of the cottages. The woman who showed me around told me that the cottages are quite popular as accommodations for destination weddings.

Also consider visiting during other special events like the Spring Arts and Crafts Festival, March 26-27 or for the Mother’s Day Brunch.

Check Oak Alley’s website for other special dates.

Oak Alley Plantation, Restaurant & Inn
3645 Highway 18 (Great River Road)
Vacherie, LA 70090
phone: (225) 265-2151 or 1-800-44ALLEY

Photos courtesy of Jamie Rhein, member of the Midwest Travel Writers Association

Related Posts:

• Mardi Gras in New Orleans: Where to Stay, Play and Eat
• Mardi Gras Lodging Packages

Get a sweet deal on a luxury suite

Want to find a good deal on your next place to stay on vacation? A really good deal? If you’re flexible, you can take advantage of the laws of economics and the still-lingering tough climate for lodging companies: pay a highly discounted price by winning your next stay at an auction. Here are three companies that will ensure you don’t pay the retail price on your next trip.

Off & Away

This is one of the newest entries on the hotel auction scene—and maybe the most fun. The concept is a little complicated, but basically you’re buying credits and then bidding on a fab suite—not just a room—in great hotels in popular places like New York, Miami, Las Vegas, and Cabo San Lucas. If you win the auction, that’s the price you’re going to pay for your suite. And as long as the hotel is not booked out already, the dates are flexible.

The tricky part comes if you don’t win. You get credits (not the same as the bidding ones) you can apply to booking a regular stay at any hotel in their network. See the full how it works explanation here.

So how much of a deal do people get? Well the deal pictured at the top, at Aqua Cancun, had two hours to go and was at $2.70 for a four-night vacation. But the last winner paid $439 total, which is still great for a luxury all-inclusive for four days. One woman scored a two-night stay in a suite at the Kimberly in New York City for $7.50! You can see photos of the winners (usually in a bathrobe) enjoying their suite, with the price they paid.

Luxury Link

You won’t find the “too good to be true” deals of Off & Away here, but you have a far wider selection and you’re sure to save a bundle off the retail price. The auctions at Luxury Link will make you start dreaming of jetting off to exotic lands: high-end hotel auctions about to close as I was writing this were three nights in Marrakech for $388, 7 nights in an all-inclusive suite in Los Cabos for $1,200 including taxes and transfers, or 5 nights on the Amalfi Coast in Italy in a junior suite for $1,720 including breakfasts, two massages, and a tasting menu dinner.

Be sure to read the fine print though: there’s a $40 “handling fee” tacked on, for starters. Plus some packages duplicate what you can find on the hotels’ own websites in terms of spa credits or golf being thrown in the mix to add to the value. Do some research before hitting the bid button.

SkyAuction

An oldie but a goodie, I used SkyAuction again last year to get an all-inclusive hotel on the Nuevo Vallarta beach near Puerto Vallarta for $82 a night—for two adults and a kid. Selection is slim in some areas, but they have offerings on every continent. Selection is especially deep in resort area of the southern U.S., the Caribbean, and Mexico, SkyAuction runs a lot of auctions all the time to fill a lot of what would be empty rooms. Sometimes you can find a good deal on packages with airfare included as well: as I was writing this there was a deal about to close for a trip to Fiji from L.A. with airfare, 7 nights hotel, and meals for $1,915 per person including fees.

The add-on fees can end up being more than your bid price here though for some stays, so be sure to have a calculator handy to figure out the real cost. There can be three or four different add-on fees for one auction depending on your timing and what kind of room you want.

With all auction sites, including Priceline, understand that once you win, you’re in. Only play the game if you’re positive you can enjoy the winnings and can play by their rules. Keep all receipts and e-mail confirmations and take them with you in case there’s a misunderstanding. Do it all right though and you can get the kind of lodging deal you’ll be bragging about for years to come.

Related post: Sleuthing out Desired Hotels on Priceline and Hotwire

By travel writer Tim Leffel, author of The World’s Cheapest Destinations and Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune.

The lobby of the Ace Hotel New York City.

A new bastion of hipness has emerged in New York City. And guess what – it’s not in Brooklyn! Or Tribeca. Or even the Meatpacking district.

The Ace Hotel is located in an indistinct area near midtown within the former Breslin Hotel, a 12-story flatiron building on the corner of Broadway and 29th Street.

The Ace is a bustling mix of eclecticism. People pore over iPads and newspapers at long black tables in the lobby, sip cocktails at the John Dory Oyster Bar and the Breslin, and browse boutiques at the Opening Ceremony and Project 8b.

Mike Doughty recently played a gig at Liberty Hall, an large event space in the basement of the hotel. Celeb sightings have been known to occur.

Function becomes a design element in the unfussy rooms.

Spawned from the Ace Hotel Group of Seattle (with properties in Portland and Palm Springs also), the Ace, like the others in the AHG group, is built around collaborations with local designers, artists, and independent businesses.

Ace Hotels employ a signature aesthetic that mixes objects, lighting and finishes from different eras for an unconventional effect. One wall in the lobby exhibits two decades of graffiti stickers while ancient brass elevators groan as they lift guests and luggage to the floors above.

In one of the 260 guests rooms (which range in price from $169 for a modest bunk-bed room to $800 for a suite with a turntable and guitar) one might find a clothes rack made from bent plumbing pipes with hanging steel boxes in lieu of a closet. Pipes and other materials are often re-appropriated into functional design elements like bath accessories and desk legs, showing how something elegant but simple and unfussy can be created from basics.

Rooms are individualized with paintings and murals by emerging artists and chalkboard paint on the walls.

Next time you’re in Manhattan book a room here or at least stop by to soak in the atmosphere, it may not be in Dumbo but who cares, it’s the Ace.

Ace Hotel New York City
20W 29th Street
New York City, NY 10001
212.679.2222

Photos courtesy of jetsetcd