Pop Quiz!

     Okay, which is better?  The New York Hampton Inn or the Santa Barbara Four Seasons?  Think you know, right? Wrong!!  Read on....

Best Western Carmel Bay View Inn

      I love to travel.  Especially the part about staying in a hotel.  It doesn’t have to be a fancy hotel--although I do love them for sure.  But one of our best trips over the last few years was to Carmel, where we stayed at a Best Western that was, well, the best.  Amazing views looking out over the treetops to the ocean, fireplace, neat deck, cute lobby, continental breakfast.  Now, the room wasn’t fancy, and the only chair in the room was the desk chair, and the bathroom window--which looked right out on the walkway and the parking lot--had no curtain. 

Cute Lobby, huh?

So it wasn’t perfect.  But it was fabulous!  We just covered the bathroom window with a pillow (they very conveniently had extras on the bed), and we used the bed as the easy chair.  And it didn’t cost a fortune--and them is words rarely spoken in Carmel.  It was so great that I’ve recommended it to many people.  (In fact, my dentist and his wife took our advice and had a great time there, too.)  We fully plan to stay there again next time.  (If the word hasn’t gotten out and now it costs a bunch, that is.)

See the Fireplace in the Corner?

     So I’m not a hotel snob.  I say there’s something magical about checking in and then waiting as the door to the room opens to reveal where we’ll be living for the next day or weekend or week.  Holiday Inn?  Courtyard by Marriott?  The Ritz-Carlton?  I love them all.  Some more than others, of course (hello, Ritz-Carlton), but I love them all, nonetheless.  Must be something left over from childhood. 

     I’m remembering our fab Carmel trip because Steve and I have taken a number of trips in the last few months and once again, just like in Carmel, our hotels surprised us.  Some were good surprises!  And some not so good.  You just never can tell.  

W/Graham and Kathleen

W/Steve's Childhood Friend Rett, and Rehana

     In early January we went to New York for a business trip, and we made a long weekend out of it and met friends for dinner a few times and wandered the streets of SoHo.  We both love NYC, even spent half of our honeymoon there.  And we mostly have stayed (at my request) near all the touristy, upscale stuff.  Park Avenue (we stayed at the Waldorf once!), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Central Park (the Essex House for half of our honeymoon).  And had a blast walking to Rockefeller Center, Tiffany’s, Bloomingdales, the Plaza Hotel, and the museum.  Very neat! 

     But this time, we stayed in SoHo.  I couldn’t even tell you where SoHo is on a map of NYC, but I can tell you it’s neat!  Lots of shops and galleries and pubs and restaurants.  And people, of course.  (We had lunch in a neat pub called the Broome Street Bar and while we were eating, in walked Tyne Daly and some elderly, but classy, gal pals.  Fun!)  We stayed at the Hampton Inn.   And let me tell you, if you ever want a fabulous place to stay in NYC, I don’t recommend the Waldorf: charming rooms, just ok service.  Or the Essex House: great location, cozy and elegant restaurant for breakfast, but mostly a business hotel, I thought.  Or the Cooper Square: tiny tiny rooms with breathtaking views, but so dark in the hallway and elevator you need a flashlight--we're not cool enough for that place, I guess.  And not the Stanhope: right across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but oops, it’s not there anymore.  Nope.  I recommend the Hampton Inn in SoHo.  It's better than all of them.
  

     From the moment we got there, we were treated so well, thanks to Amanda, Klein, and Ginnia, the front desk staff.  They are the go to people for everything there.  And they were friendly, nice and always offering to help us—help us find a restaurant, help us figure out why the vending machine didn’t seem to have Diet Coke (it did, it just looked like it was regular Coke), help us decide how to get to a theatre, or whether we should cab it or walk to our destination.  Whatever we needed help with, they were there.  And they were so nice.  Nice!  My favorite feature, I think.  Well, that or maybe the chocolate chip cookies always on the front desk.  So how great is all that?  I mean, I think I’ve always had good experiences at Hampton Inns, but this was something else!

View from the Deck

     And then, there was the room.  Holy smokes.  They gave us a corner room on the top floor (19).  If you’ve ever stayed in NYC, you probably know it’s famous for rooms that barely fit the bed.  Not this one.  A nice seating area, comfy chairs (two!), a lovely bathroom, a huge shower with so many spigots and shower heads it was terrifying, and a deck.  A deck that overlooked not only the streets and tops of buildings of New York, but also the Hudson River.  Yes, from our 19th floor deck at the Hampton Inn, we looked out on the Hudson River.  The room also had an entire wall of floor to ceiling windows.

      But it gets cooler. Because a good part of that wall of glass was in the shower.  The shower was in the corner of the room, and not just one, but two walls of that shower were floor to ceiling windows.  Not opaque glass, not glass blocks, not rain glass.  Clear windows.  Overlooking NYC and the Hudson River!  I add with relief that there was also a curtain rod running all along those walls that were windows so that one could pull the curtain across for privacy from the outside world while showering.  (Although I have to say that the people in the really tall building across the way could probably see in over the curtain anyway.  And they probably got over that thrill long ago.  That’s what I told myself, anyway, each time I approached my shower.)  Actually, the other two walls of that shower were also clear glass, but those looked into the room.  Weird, right?  So you

Shower with a View!

kind of had to really know your roommate well if you were going to take a shower, because there warn’t no shower curtain between the room and the shower wall for privacy.  Or maybe you could just ask them to avert their eyes while you were cleaning yourself.  Very New York, I have to assume.   And very neat, I have to admit.

     Between the fabulous room (or shower, at least) and the fabulous service, that hotel ranked right up there with the Carmel Best Western.  And next time we go to NY—and we will—we’ll stay there again for sure.

      Too bad the same can’t be said for the very fancy place we stayed for our trip to Santa Barbara in November.  Steve and I went there for almost a week to celebrate our 10th Anniversary.  (Which means we’ve actually been together 19 years, but still, the wedding date is the one to celebrate, don’t you think?)

Nude Beach!?

     We've had Santa Barbara right up there toward the top of our Places We Want to Go list for a while.  So it seemed like the perfect place to go for our anniversary.  Gorgeous, lush, relaxing, filled with long drives, walks on the beach, and reading involved.  But we (I, that is, being our resident travel arranger/concierge) decided not to test the Santa Barbara Hampton Inn or Best Western this time around, and went for the splurge. La di da, we went to the Five Diamond Santa Barbara Four Seasons Biltmore.  How could we go wrong?      

Four Seasons Santa Barbara

     Believe it or not, we did!  Because I can only assume that either the Best Western or the Hampton Inn would have been just as good, if not better.  And a whole heck of a lot cheaper, of that I am sure.  Not a slum certainly (it was unbelievably lovely and pretty and lush), but with the service of the DMV, might be a good way to put it.  (We did see Dr. Drew there at breakfast one morning, though, so our trip was not a total loss.  And if you don’t know who he is—well it’s a good thing you weren’t there instead of us, or you’d have virtually no takeaways from your trip!)

     In all fairness, there were some really great parts about the place.

Outside our Room

       The resort itself was just beautiful, and our room was lovely with French Doors out to a patio, and a really beautiful bathroom with this gorgeous aqua Mexican tile.  We heard the sound of a train going by regularly, which Steve and I both loved.  Room service was great, and the spa (a birthday treat from my mom), was kind of spectacular.  And everyone knew it was our anniversary and wished us a happy anniversary.  How nice is that?  And we had an amazing anniversary dinner sitting outside at the Tydes Restaurant, overlooking beach and bay as the sun went down.  Pretty good stuff huh?

But the rest of our stay?  Not so stellar.  I mean, we weren't treated badly, and no one was rude, and nothing awful happened.  But when we stay at a 5-Diamond property (which is not often!), boy, we at least expect the staff to be friendly and courteous and maybe even (maybe it's too much?) interested in helping.  WE WANT TO BE TAKEN CARE OF, gosh darn it.  But apparently they don't do that there.  Instead, we got a staff with a general attitude of chilly--but polite--indifference. Can that be??

Yes!  I'll tell you how.

     First the concierge.  She was, in a word, bored.  By us?  By her job?  By her life?  Hard to say.  (but please please please say it wasn't us)  Our first experience, once inside the hotel, was to mistakenly go to the concierge desk to check in (in our defense, let me say it looked exactly like the Front Desk.  And there was no sign!)  Anyway, in response to our apparently horribly annoying gaffe, the concierge dismissed us with, “Check-in is on the other side of the lobby,” gave a vague wave of her hand, and then turned away.  Gee, no "Welcome to the Four Seasons, you wonderful people, we've been waiting for you all day!"?  (Well, maybe that expectation is a bit over the top.)  We tried to warm her up a number of times during our stay, but she remained aloof.  Us: "We're here for our 10th anniversary.  Can you recommend a nice place for dinner?" Concierge:  "The blah blah blah Restaurant.   Go here, turn there, it's on your left.   Who's next?"   The next day:  Us:  "Can you recommend a nice drive?"  C:  "Go here, turn there, and drive.  Next?"  After a few tries, we got kind of scared of her and left her alone to her phone calls.  (That's beat only by a concierge we once tried to talk to at the Sun Valley Resort in Idaho.  Tried in vain.  Because (we were proudly informed by her manager) this was only her second day in the United States!  And we could sure tell, because she could hardly speak English.  I mean, like until two days ago she'd never spoken any English.  A concierge who doesn't yet have a grasp of the language.  Huh.  We laughed about it afterward, but at the time all we wanted to do was to get to the damn restaurant.  Which she was totally unequipped to help us do.)  But back to the Four Seasons.

    Registration: The ladies at the front desk were not as indifferent or chilly as the concierge, we were thrilled to discover.  And they even welcomed us.  Phew!  But I have to admit, when one of them said, "Wow, you're here for six days??" I felt sort of intimidated.  Isn't that okay?  Is that too long?  Has no one ever stayed that long before?  (Although in hindsight, her puzzlement makes more sense.)  Anyway, these gals seemed young and just sort of unprofessional.  Why do I say that?  Well, here's a little Front Desk scenario:  The following day I had a question.  I walked up to the front desk, where one of the front desk ladies was standing, putting a Band-Aid on her finger.  Me:  "Did you hurt yourself?"  Her:  "No, but I keep picking at my finger, so I’m putting a band-aid on it so I’ll stop.” Five diamonds, indeed.

      Bellman:  The bellman who took us to our room was fine.  He took our bags just fine.  He found the room just fine (not an easy task at that place, I admit).  He just didn't know much about the room, didn't give us the little room tour, and he also had a hard time with English. (What is with these hotels and staff who can't communicate?  I just don't get it.  I mean, he's not a behind the scenes guy; he's in a job whose main function involves communication.  Right?  Is it just me???) Anyway, we didn't get our little explanation of the lights, the mini-bar, how to get ice, how to call room service.  And not even a mention of the fireplace, let alone how to use it.   (See, I WANT TO BE PAMPERED!)

And so it went.  There's more, but I'm sure you get the picture.  So all in all, the stay was kind of fine.  Which was a bummer. Because we went to the Four Seasons based on their stellar reputation.  We were even willing to pay a ridiculous amount of money (I'll pretend I'm not saying just how much because I am a gal of discretion, but really it's too humiliating to admit at this point).  We were willing to pay because it was a special occasion, and we wanted to be pampered and treated well by nice, friendly people in gorgeous surroundings.  WE WANTED TO BE PAMPERED.  Didn't happen.  (Except for Manny from Room Service, for whom we are so grateful!)

Now, we're nice people.  We don't find people not liking us as we get around in life.  And so we weren't looking for trouble.  WE WANTED TO BE PAMPERED!  (Did you get that yet?)  Isn't that why they give out the little stars and diamonds?  I'm pretty sure it is.  And I speak from experience, I'll have you know.  I was a concierge at The Phoenician in Phoenix (which was a Five-Star property when I was there.  Shortly after I left they "lost a star," as they say.  The two things are probably unrelated, but I like to think it's no coincidence, baby.)  Anyway, my point is that I understand the standard that's expected.  I liked giving that level of service, and I think my clients could probably tell.  (Well, except maybe for the nasty, scary ones, and hey, I was pretty good at faking it with them, so even they felt good about it all.)  And I like to get it when I make a point to stay and pay money at a place that's suggested, by its ratings and its name and its rates (oh yes, especially those rates), that it will provide all that good stuff.

Ahhhh, This Is the Life!

We were so unimpressed by our Four Seasons experience that we checked out early.  We weren't mad, just disappointed and maybe just a little resentful.  (Well, Steve wasn't resentful--he is always in bliss and calm--but I, semi-unenlightened gal that I am, was a teensy bit resentful.)  We decided we'd have more fun spending the rest of our anniversary vacation at home.  So we went home, sprung the dog from his pet resort early, and pampered ourselves, instead. A lovely anniversary, after all.

      And I did write them a lovely, long, letter (friendly and polite and not chilly, I swear) about our whole experience.  So far?  No response.  Should I be surprised?  Hmmm.

So, what's the lesson here?  Heck, I have no idea, I'm not a teacher, or even a parent.  But what I do know is that if you're going to NYC, stay at the Hampton Inn SoHo, and if you're going to Santa Barbara?  Well, you're on your own.

      Just my humble, but always correct, opinion.

      Now, our next trip is to Napa.  Anybody know a good inn?