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Welldone Rumproast

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Everything posted by Welldone Rumproast

  1. Note: This is a cross-post from the other threrad (in case anyoe follows one of the threads but not the other). The Marriott (the former Le Meredien) is located across from Downtown and the Convention Center (you turn to the right as soon as you finish crossing the Bay on the Coronado Bay Bridge). There's no was I would use "oceanfront" for the Marriott (but who knows)? ? The Loews is several miles south, down State Highway 75 (Silver Strand Boulevard), past the Naval Amphibious base. The road runs along a narrow sliver of land separating the ocean from the bay. When you reach the entrance to the Loews, you turn towards the bay, away from the ocean, to enter the resort complex. Therefore the description of "oceanfront, no beach" seems to fit better. I stayed at the Lowes in late '01 at a $99 Loews special weekend rate. Rooms are very nice, with HUGE bathrooms (separate shower and soaking tub, etc). Restaurant is good but service was spotty (well-intentioned but inexperienced). Very nice swimming pool area.
  2. dbnyc - One thing leads me to think your hunch may be right: The Marriott (the former Le Meredien) is located across from Downtown and the Convention Center (you turn to the right as soon as you finish crossing the Bay on the Coronado Bay Bridge). There's no was I would use "oceanfront" for the Marriott (but who knows)? ? The Loews is several miles south, down State Highway 75 (Silver Strand Boulevard), past the Naval Amphibious base. The road runs along a narrow sliver of land separating the ocean from the bay. When you reach the entrance to the Loews, you turn towards the bay, away from the ocean, to enter the resort complex. Therefore the description of "oceanfront, no beach" seems to fit better. I stayed at the Lowes in late '01 at a $99 Loews special weekend rate. Rooms are very nice, with HUGE bathrooms (separate shower and soaking tub, etc). Restaurant is good but service was spotty (well-intentioned but inexperienced). Very nice swimming pool area.
  3. Excellent job! I know this hotel quite well (in my former job I used to visit a client in an office building across the street). It is in the Greenway Plaza complex, directly across the street from the Compaq Centrer (arean where the Houston Rockets play). The hotel is connected to a small underground mall with restaurants and a movie theatre that plays both first run and "art-house" things too. The hotel parking entrance is right on the service road that runs parallel to the Southwest Freeway (US-59). When you get ready to head to Minute Maid Park, you only need to get on 59 and head downtown - the freeway is right in back of the ballpark! The rooms are larger than average and very nice. Parking is directly underneath, and you can take an escalator or elevator direrctly to the lobby without going outside. I don't remember if they charge for parking or not. Lots of good reataurants on nearby Kirby Drive. Try Beck's Prime (looks like a typical fast food joint but the food is really good) for mesquite-grilled hamburgers and super-thick milkshakes, and the Goode Company for good BBQ.
  4. Hi tbrko - I checked my M.C.'s office (Peter Deutsch) and they verified that the White House has suspended the individual tours indefinitely. The other tour that is good is the FBI Lab, but those are also suspended until further notice - the stated reason is because of extensive renovations, not necessarily 9/11 (I sure hope the FBI can secure its own HQ building) :) The good news is that the Rotunda of the National Archives, which has been closed for the last 2 years for reconstruction, is scheduled to reopen on 9/18/2003. The Charters of Freedom (D of I, Constitution and B of R) are supposed to be able to be seen a lot better in their new high-tech display cases http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_...ce/rotunda.html
  5. There are two medium size conventions (Vending machine marketers and a medical group) during your dates. Neither is headquarterted at your hotel, but 10,000 delegates in town has probably tightened up room inventory. A tip (apologies if you already have this info): If you intend to take governmental tours especially the White House tours, contact your Member of Congress **TODAY** and make your request for tickets for the Congressional Tours. The White House is the best deal because you get to bypass the regular line and you see one or two extra rooms that are not included in the general tours. Congressional ofices can also get you Capitol gallery passes and other goodies. All of these are no charge but strictly first come first served. And remember - your taxes already paid for them :) Enjoy your time in DC!
  6. Especially onn in Milan :) <Smart aleck> (coming home tomorrow) I used to work for a company with HQ in northern Houston. They also had a lot of clients there, so I ended up making so many trips in the '90s I wanted to get a bumper sticker for my car reading "My Other Home is the Houston Airport" :)
  7. Hi jkloni, The Galleria area (Westheimer area) has the advantage of the shopping and lots of restaurants. And you can reach the other attractions pretty well, however, you need to be careful of commute traffic on the 610 Loop, which can get pretty crazy at rush hours. If you do stay in Galleria and are going to the ballpark, consider staying off the freewy and taking MEMORIAL DRIVE, a parkway road that run straight into downtown. Also, if you get the Omni, be aware that it is NOT in the area that is right across the street from the Galleria - it's about two or three miles north in an office park called Riverway. It's a very short five minute drive, but you can't really walk (very nice hotel by the way - it was originally built as a Four Seasons property). Some of the hotels in the Galleria zone (like the JW Marriott) *are* directly across the street from the mall. Downtown Houston is another possibility. You might even be abe to walk to the ballpark. In calculating your potential costs, you would need to factor what you would pay to park in the hotel garage, versus what you will pay to park at Minute Maid Park (if you drive in from the Galleria or other area). Dontown can be a little desolate at night (but that was before the ballpark opened, I'm sure that on gamedays, all the people in the area for a game really livens things up)!
  8. Hi - are you going for baseball games (tournament etc.) OTHER than the Astros? The reason I ask is that the 'Stros now play in Minute Maid Park (formerly Enron) which is smack in the middle of downtown (they're playing the Reds during your dates). Sorry if I misunderstood - just checking.
  9. I think Priceline should send a wedding gift, in appreciation for all the business :) (a nice basket of $10 bonus money would be nice)
  10. WT - thankfully it does - it was built in the mid-1990s. The ac on the ground floo (lobby, and the small meeting room where I'm at now) have excellent chilled air, but up in the rooms it only gets it down to about 74F (but believe me its better than nothing).
  11. Hi all from broiling hot Italy ( I just discovered a free internet-connected PC in my hotel) :) The FLL boat show dates are October 30 - November 3, 2003 The Miami Dade version is in February (usually before Presidents Day, IIRC)
  12. Just a thought about FLL versus MIA airfares: Although fares (and fare sales) are more byzantine than ever, FLL does offer a great "leveling" factor: SOUTHWEST, JETBLUE and SONG operate only out of FLL, and to my best knowledge do not go into MIA. AIRTRAN goes to both. Sometimes, when the mainline carriers match a low-cost carrier's fares, they will apply the sales to all three South Florida airports, but other times not. As they say, "Your Mileage May Vary" :)
  13. Hi lml - the term usually used is to "join the reservations". However, whether miltiple reservations can be joined (and also in your specific case, whether more than two can be joined) is most always a function of (or limitation of) whatever Hotel Management software the hotel is using. Simply stated, some software packages can do it, others can't. Further, many software packages allow their parameters to be customized , so even if the software can do joins, the hotel management may decide to disable that functionality. Given the newness and the upscale nature of the Westin TS, I'd guess that the software is going to be a recent release and that they'd want to use all of its features.
  14. Bid Strategy As part of my upcoming trip to Europe, I return to Newark on the 15th, however, the final leg from EWR to FLL is on the 16th (no award ticket seats available on the 15th). No big deal, I'll either stay in the city or at the airport. Wyndham has a special rate of USD 65 at the airport, which will earn Wyndham by Request bennies (including 500 AA miles) :) Given the bidding for the 5* MT East property by other board members in Stptember and November, I thought I'd try a lowball bid. I set an upper limit of $112. The reason for this was that the Conrad website was showing a rate of USD 316, so I set 1/3 of that price as my maximum. For 5*, there are six rebid zones in addition to MTE. Bid History All bids rejected: Midtown East $95 MTE + 1 Rbd Zone $ 98 MTE + 2 Rbd Zones $100 MTE + 3 Rbd Zones $103 MTE + 4 Rbd Zones $106 MTE + 5 Rbd Zones $108 MTE + 6 Rbd Zones $112 I'll either rebid in 72 hrs, bid 4* or just reserve the EWR Wyndham
  15. Northern Arizona University is in Flagstaff. There may be an event going on (orientation maybe, or even football - though it's kind of early for that). An event at NAU added to tourists going to and from the Grand Canyon (last chance to take the kids before school starts up again) might be part of the reason. I'm curious if the successful bids you quoted earlier were from the summer time?
  16. I last flew and rented in SLC about 2.5 years ago (a year before the Olympics) and also rented from AL. They put me into an Isuzu Rodeo even though I had a regular mid-size car (it was January and snowing and I had a 60 mile drive so I was grateful). I did see lots of SUVs in the garage. Again , this was 2+ years ago. IIRC, Alamo and the other rental car companies are in a common rental facility and garage that you can walk to from baggage claim (I think that the facility was built in preparatrion for the Olympics) so at leadst he won't have to wait for a shuttle bus. As someone posted in another thread, AL and ZL (National) have merged their fleets and facilities in many cities, I'm not sure if SLC is one of them, but if so, maybe there will be a larger pool of SUVs to draw from.
  17. The Sheraton Russell is a well-thought-of property, amongst Sheraton (Starwood) frequent stayers. Plus, it is located at Park and 37th - from there to the NY Public Library, it's only two long blocks (Park to Madison to 5th Ave) then about 4 short blocks north to the entrance to the Library at 41st street, where the statues of the lions are (in Manhattan, the north-south city blocks are quite short, while the east-west city blocks are longer). Hope your wife's training is going well. One of my co-workers just did his first marathon. Thereuare - speaking of the Victors, have you checked some of the Wolverine message boards for ND tix? Just in case, here's one: http://michigan.rivals.com/forum.asp?style...883&fid=42&pid=
  18. Another reason this can happen is with accessible rooms. Twice recently at the Kansas City Airport Hilton, I was given an accessible room with one double bed (I was travelling alone so it wasn't a big deal). Strictly as an unscientific observation, I have found that older hotels, which often have sections or wings that were built in different years, are more prone to having rooms of varying size and layout, while newer construction tends towards "cookie-cutter" uniformity (no guarantees, of course)! Another advantage of aiming at all-suite properties is that you will get two televisions :)
  19. Hi c h g - would you consider staying down in San Luis Obispo? About 40 miles away.
  20. I realize that I forgot the most important factor when conserding the Waldorf Towers - the United Nations. The W-T is the US Governent's "official" diplomatic hotel, and of course other nation's diplomats stay there. And by coincidence, the annual session of the General Assembly starts on September 16th. Actually, the only reason that there's still availability is that George Bush doesn't regularly speak at this session (unlike his dad and Bill Clinton). If the Prez is in residence, the Secret Service would claim a big chunk of the rooms. Lowest rate (on the Conrad website) is USD 529 :) Also, the more I think of it, Fashion Week might not be as much of a factor - the "fashionistas" probably prefer more "hip" places like the Bryant Park Hotel, the Dylan Hotel and the Royalton Hotel :)
  21. I honestly (Yeah, sure-sure) :) started my post with the words "it's in USE" , but "somehow" I cut that line out of my message. Definitely USE
  22. T - the hotel sits on the southeast corner of Powell and Sutter Streets. To see where this is, look at the PL map of Union Square East, and find the green city block that is Union Square. The top (north) boundary of that square is Post Street. Go one block "up" (north) to the next street (name not given). That street is Sutter Street, and the Sir Francis Drake is at the east (right-hand) corner, the corner on the same side of Powell Street as the Square (I hope that all made sense) :) Interesting thing - looking at the more detailed map of Union Square West, I see that the USW zone starts well to the left (west) of Powell Street. This explains why the Westin St. Francis comes up in Union Square EAST, since the Westin St. F sits on the west side of Powell directly facing Union Square . zbenye - Oops, sorry - I started composing my message just before you posted - didn't mean to step on your response :)
  23. Just in case it hasn't been mentioned, the Amerisuites and the Embassy Suites are across the street from each other
  24. Hi fitzhokies and welcome! I think the cause of the room shortage is the following: September 12-19 - Spring 2004 Fashion Week "7th on Sixth" This is the big show when they set up tents in Bryant Park Then add to the mix: September 16-18 - PC Expo (about 45,000 attendees) September 19-22 - Home Textiles Show (10,000) None of those events in and of themselves fill up all the hotels, however, the overlap, when mixed with regular fall business travel, can definitely make inventory tight.
  25. bturner13 - Welcome to Ft. Lauderdale :) (I live about 3 miles from the Port). Enjoy your cruise and have a safe and happy vacation!
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