Portland August 2013 - Marriott Downtown Waterfront

I can check off my 2013 New Year's Resolution of visiting a new state. Dan whisked me off to Portland, Oregon for few days to celebrate my 36th birthday. Prior to visiting Portland, my thoughts on the city were pretty exclusively based on three seasons of Portlandia. I loved Portland, but was disappointed at the lack of "Put a Bird on It".

In 1995, I was accepted to Reed College and nearly moved to Portland. As we drove around Portland, I thought about how different my life might have been had I decided to move to the area back in the 90's, rather than heading to New York for college. The two couldn't have been more different from each other or my native Southern California.

Dan booked us a room at the Marriott Downtown Waterfront.

Home for the weekend- Marriott Downtown Waterfront

The Marriott Downtown Waterfront is in an amazing location. It's right on the Willamette River and walking distance to all of the action in downtown.

We arrived hours prior to check in, but our room was ready and we even got an upgrade to a river view! Normally, I'm not too fussed with having a great view. Who cares about staying in the room and looking out a window, when there is a city to explore? Prior to getting the upgrade, I was just happy to be away in Portland. However, I have to admit that the view upgrade was completely worth it for this hotel.

Here was our view.

We watched the Providence Bridge Pedal Event from our room and during the event, a fire boat came out on the river and did a water display, including shooting out red and bright blue streams of water. So cool.

We had a microscopic patio, so mostly we enjoyed the views from standing inside of our room. I love the picture of Dan demonstrating the size of our patio.

Our room was very nice with one of the most comfortable hotel beds that I have ever experienced. I usually have trouble sleeping, but I slept solid at the Marriott.

The bathroom was a little small for my liking, making it difficult to get ready in the mornings. Our stuff, mostly mine, filled all of the available counter space and there needed to be additional towel racks. However, the toiletries were Bath and Body Works, which made up for the lack of space. The lotion smelled really good.

The best thing about the Marriott Downtown Waterfront was the staff. Everyone was extremely nice and helpful, going out of their way to make sure that we had a fantastic trip. I wish that I had gotten names, so that I could specifically mention outstanding employees. The biggest stand outs were a young blonde woman at check-in and the employees working in the concierge lounge.

We went into the lounge twice and two female employees went out of their way to give us suggestions of things to do in the area, including giving us a map and circling points of interest. They were just very genuine people giving their suggestions to make our trip better. I feel like the Marriott hires employees that are enthusiastic about Portland and it shined through when they were interacting with us.

The Marriott has a great restaurant, which I will review in a soon to come Portland food post. I also found some great reading spots in the lobby, were I took some Kindle breaks as a rest from touring.

Although we had great weather during our trip, we did see a bucket of umbrellas in the lobby, another nice touch in the hotel.

One big tip- Parking at the hotel is pricy at over thirty a day. We found a lot behind the hotel, which was six dollars on weekends. It was relatively empty and very easy access from the hotel. The back entrance for the hotel was just across the street from the lot. The Marriott is in a very clean and safe area and we never felt uncomfortable parking in the lot. It was a great find! We took the savings and spent it at the Bite of Oregon food festival!

Stay tuned for an onslaught of Portland posts, including the coolest doughnut shop on the planet and pictures of a baby elephant!

Dan's 40th Birthday Big Bear Weekend- Day One

Originally, we wanted to celebrate Dan's 40th in Hawaii, but due to lack of vacation time, we had to pick something a bit more local. Dan loves Big Bear, so we booked up a three day weekend with tons of activities.

Unlike Lake Arrowhead, which has the very lovely Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa, we couldn't immediately pin-point the nicest resort in Big Bear. Although filled with beautiful homes and amazing restaurants, Big Bear seems to have a lack of luxury resorts. After many hours of internet research and recommendations from friends, we picked the NorthWoods Resort as our home for the weekend.

We were initially put off by the lack of a lake view, but what NorthWoods lacks in view, it makes up for in proximity to the village. This is the place to stay if you want the ability to walk to great restaurants and more importantly drink without having to worry about choosing a designated driver! The walk-ability factor was huge to our enjoyment of the weekend.

The decor in the hotel is rustic, cozy and cute. I had an great initial impression with the lobby and while waiting to check-in, I overheard a very enthusiastic front desk clerk giving out tips to another couple regarding local hiking trails. The staff was wonderful at NorthWoods, quick to make suggestions and generally ready to see that our needs were met.

We arrived very early on a Saturday morning and the early check-in fee was only ten dollars. Most things in Big Bear are far less expensive than in Los Angeles, so we spent the whole weekend suffering from reverse sticker shock.

Here are some of my NorthWoods first impression pictures.

Our room had cute woodsy decor touches, like towel racks that looked like tree branches. As far as hotels go it fit our basic needs. The room had standard amenities (coffee/hairdryer/iron/nice toiletries) and was roomy.

NorthWoods definitely had some negatives. The walls were paper-thin. We heard every bit of the conversations going on in the rooms surrounding us. The bed wasn't very comfortable, it was springy. The television wasn't in widescreen and as we were watching the news, the newscaster was often only on half on the screen. It was actually kind of funny. The biggest let-down was the pool, which was small and located in the parking lot. We didn't even bother to use it.

As I previously mentioned, NorthWoods' great location is what makes this resort a stand-out. We will likely return here to take advantage of its proximity. Minutes after dumping our luggage off in our room, we walked to the marina for our pontoon boat rental.

In summer, the marina books up their rental equipment very quickly. We reserved our two-hour pontoon boat ride three weeks in advance, but all of the people that were trying to book same-day or same-weekend rentals, were being told that they were out of luck. Book early!

As part of their contribution to Dan's birthday weekend, his parents paid for the boat trip. Thanks Jan and Dave! We had gone on a shorter pontoon trip when they visited us last September and it was something that Dan had wanted to do again.

I had packed a picnic for the boat, but unfortunately I had forgotten it in the car. The marina has a small selection of snacks, so we bought a bag of M&M's and bottled water.

We saw a funny little boat in the marina. It was so low in the water, that it looked like it was sinking.

Also near the marina was the Action Aqua Flight. It's a new thing that the Action Tour Company is offering this summer. It looked potentially fun, but also really hard to do. I'm not sure that I would want to get into the icy lake water to try it out!

Action Aqua Flight

It was an overcast, chilly morning on the lake. We found a small patch of sun on one side of the lake and joined a ton of other boats that were also taking advantage of the warmth.

Friday night had been a late evening spent kicking off Dan's birthday weekend with a few friends and we were running on empty having only gotten a fews hours of sleep before driving up the mountain. We parked the boat in the sun and took a much needed nap.

Dan took this beautiful panorama picture of the lake.

Sooner than we would have liked, our two hour rental was nearly finished and we had to head back towards the marina, through the cold part of the lake. We saw the Time Bandit pirate ship, something that we want to do on our next Big Bear trip!

For dinner, we walked to the village and found an amazing Mexican restaurant called El Jacalito Grill. The place was packed, but we managed to snag a high-top in the bar. I previously mentioned the stick-shock in Big Bear for those of us visiting from Los Angeles. El Jacalito was ridiculously inexpensive. We each had a large Coronarita (for the uninitiated- bottles of Corona in a Margarita).

Since it's his birthday, Dan is allowed to steal my drink.

We shared our main course, which was an enormous shredded beef burrito. The burritos are bigger than the ones at Chipolte. We left full and happy that we had the foresight to share. El Jacalito also has a salsa bar to accompany the tortilla chips, which was a fun touch. The total for our bill was around twenty dollars. Amazing!

Another Big Bear Village value is the cinema. It's a small four screen theater and anyone who lives in a big city will feel like this is a flash back to the eighties. It's older. That being said, we saw The Wolverine on opening weekend during peak movie times and it was only eight dollars a ticket. That's cheaper than the matinee at our local theaters. We joked (half-joked) about driving up to Big Bear just to spend a day watching movies to save money on our cinema habit. What did I think of The Wolverine? Stay tuned for a review coming at the end of the week.

With the exception of bars, Big Bear is a town that shuts down early. It was eerily quiet walking back to our hotel after the movie, around nine-thirty. We ended our night with Irish Coffees at the bar in NorthWoods, Stillwells.

Stillwells is a great addition to NorthWoods. It fits in with the rustic decor and the bar had a warm vibe. I really liked the bartender, who was from England and was chatting with us. NorthWoods really had great staff, everyone from check-in to cleaning staff to the bartenders, were very friendly. Again, we marveled at the low drink prices.

We called it an early night and headed to bed to wake up for Dan's Birthday and morning Segway tour!

Las Vegas- June 2013, South Point Casino

After last years wonderful discovery of Tahiti Village, Dan and I have been open to trying other non-strip hotels. South Point had a great weekend offer and the reviews seemed decent, so we decided to give it a try for our end of July trip. Plus, sadly, Tahiti Village was booked solid. We love that place!

We arrived at South Point mid-evening on a Thursday and we were greeted with a long queue at check-in. The attendants seemed frazzled and the manager had several guests waiting to speak with her regarding complaints. We were in "vacation mode" and refused to let the vibe at check-in affect our good spirits.

We knew that the hotel would be busy due to the Art-n-Ink Tattoo festival invading South Point for the duration of our visit. I expected the convention to make a bigger impact to our stay, however, if I didn't already know that it was going on, I probably wouldn't have realized that it was happening. The people watching wasn't nearly as entertaining as I had anticipated. It was a tame bunch.

Obviously here for the Art-N-Ink Festival

The decor theme of South Point is late 80's cruise ship meets equestrian. They have a large equestrian center, so I get the horse theme, but it's very distastefully done. It's hard to believe that this is a relatively new hotel.

Further killing the atmosphere is the glaring bright lights. It's like being at a nightclub during closing and having all of the lights turned on before you exit. I've never been in a Vegas hotel with less of a "Vegas" vibe.

Naturally, the rooms carried the theme of bad horse decor, but they were clean and spacious.

The beds were not the most comfortable, a little hard and springy. We were there for three nights and neither of us got restful sleep on any of the nights. The walls were thick though and outside noisy was not a problem.

Hotel bathrooms are always important to me. In particular, I love to soak in a hot bath while on vacation. Our room did have a tub, but it was very shallow, too shallow for a relaxing soak.

I also like a bathroom with a great vanity area for getting ready. The vanity at South Point was in separate area and had oodles of counter space. However, the mirror was set back too far to be useful for applying make-up. I used the full length mirror in the hall, which had terrible lighting. I've been spoiled with staying at fancier hotels that have rooms with lighted make-up mirrors.

Our room had a great view of the pool, which was useful on the first morning when we were trying to determine if there were enough lounge chairs available to bother going down. I am so used to the overcrowded strip pools.

We used the pool once, on the first morning. It had just opened and we grabbed two lounge chairs by the adult only spa. The South Point pool complex is a concrete jungle with a few patches of astroturf and some lagoons. It really needs some atmosphere and greenery. There was no music to create an ambiance and maybe we arrived too early, but there were no attendants with the towels or serving cocktails. The pool was filled with kids, which spilled over into the adult only spa.

We stayed for about thirty minutes and then the combination of excessive heat and being underwhelmed with the pool complex compelled us to go inside. We didn't use the pool for the remainder of our stay and with the exception of kids, it never looked very busy from our room window. To be fair, the heat wave made it very difficult to spend time outdoors.

The heat was not fun for our Smart Car either!

South Point did have some major positives with regard to being a great value. We ate at four of the eleven restaurants (Garden Buffet, Baja Miguels, Steak N'Shake and Zenshin) all of which were an exceptionally good value. We had sushi and alcohol at Zenshin that was incredible and we left full for around forty dollars. The Garden Buffet was fairly average food, but we received a 2-for-1 coupon that made it an amazing bargain. All of the bars were cheap with mixed drinks for around five dollars. Giant, strong margaritas were only a little more. Cheap, Cheap, Cheap.

Entertainment was a bargain. We saw a two hour comedy show with headliner John Caparulo and Mark Ellis for fifteen each. It was a hilarious show and such a deal.

We skipped it, but they also offer a free comedy show for adults late on Fridays. Our hotel guest coupon booklet included free passes to late events in the showroom, including one of my favorite 80's cover groups, The Spazmatics, who play every Saturday night. There is completely different type of entertainment every night and really something for everyone.

If you like to gamble, the table limits are really low. We found dollar minimum tables on both weekend nights. I've never seen this on the strip.

The hotel has a Century Movie Theater and Bowling Alley. It makes for a hotel that is more family friendly and a bit over-run with kids, but it's also nice to have so many entertainment options.

This is not the hotel to stay at if you don't have a car in Vegas. It's about a fifteen minute drive to the strip and a taxi would not be cheap. We found it easy to drive our car to the strip, but it also made us decide to do most of our drinking at South Point. We spent more time in our own hotel, than we normally would when we stay on the strip.

Bottom Line- South Point is a clean, inexpensive option, but it does not have a traditional "Vegas" feel. I'd stay here again if we got a good offer and if it was off-pool season. If the weather is nice, the pool takes on a greater importance.