Boeing 787 Dreamliner SFO-YYZ

Our little family of four is in the middle of a big winter fun trip, currently in Quebec City, and our first step on the trip was Air Canada Dreamliner business class from SFO to Toronto. My 3 year old son is turning into quite the airplane aficionado, and he was VERY excited to take his first Dreamliner flight (he laments the fact that he hasn’t been on an A380 yet). We needed to get to Quebec City from San Francisco, and originally, I was planning on just paying for an economy ticket with cash, but when I saw that there were 3 award tickets available in business class in a freshly configured 787, I jumped at the opportunity. Little Vivian is still a lap child, as she’s only 11 months old.

The suites were arranged in a 1-2-1 configuration. In the past when we’ve flown this type of configuration, we typically put my son in the aisle right across from me so I can easily reach over and help him with something if the seatbelt sign is on, but for whatever reason, the flight attendants wanted him in the forwardmost seat for takeoff and landing. The crew on this flight really as fantastic, though. The flight attendants took extra care to make sure that my son understood the seatbelt, the in-flight entertainment, and everything that was going to happen (i.e. take off, mommy and daddy are right behind him, etc).

I started settling in, and I really liked the seat. The video display was very large, and I much prefer the displays that are mounted in a fixed position, rather than having them swing in on an arm. Those need to be stowed for takeoff and landing, whereas you can start watching programming from the moment you sit down on these. There was ample storage, and it had both a USB and a 120V plug. I’m looking forward to the first airline to have USB-C ports built in.

I will say that the actual user interface of the in-flight entertainment slightly confused me. I was always able to navigate to what I wanted eventually, but the remote control has its own display, and sometimes I’d want something like an airplane map, and it would start displaying on the device screen rather than the primary display. My daughter enjoyed climbing around my seat before departure. While traveling with an 11 month old is never easy, everything with babies is easier when you have more space!

I was offered a pre-departure beverage choice of orange juice or water. C’mon… no champagne? I asked about sparkling wine and was turned down. Booooo. Menus were passed out.

The chicken and the tortellini sounded pretty good to me. I ordered the chicken, my son ordered the chicken, and my wife ordered the tortellini. The flight began to take off, and all was well. Vivian drifted to sleep on my wife’s chest, I fired up a game on my Switch, and my son was completely into Space Jam. The noise canceling headphones on the plane are great. It was utterly impossible to get my son’s attention unless I pulled them off his head.

We were quickly in the sky, and the flight attendant came around with hot nuts and drinks. I found the beer selection pretty underwhelming so I decided to just go with a Molson, cuz eh we’re headed to Canada! Also, is there anything that tastes better than hot nuts on an airplane? Back in my days of flying 100,000+ miles per year with United and getting upgraded most of the time, the hot nuts were my favorite part, and years later, it turns out that they still are!

The flight attendants were also quick to top off anyone who needed more nuts. My son ate all his nuts as well. Meanwhile, Vivian was still asleep, and my wife was able to watch a movie. So far so good! The appetizer was a tasty shrimp cocktail and some warm bread.

After the appetizer, we got our main courses. The chicken was awesome! I really didn’t expect the sauce to be so flavorful. My son loved his as well.

I forgot to take a picture of my wife’s tortellini, but she seemed less excited about it than we were about our chicken. Dessert was “baked on board’ chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream.

Just like it’s hard to screw up hot mixed nuts, it’s tough to screw up gooey, warm chocolate chip cookies. Air Canada did their duty of not messing up such a basic and delicious dessert. The cookies tasted like they should, and for whatever reason, my crazy son didn’t want his cookie, just his ice cream. Don’t worry – his cookie didn’t go uneaten.

My son finished nearly two movies, I did some school work and played some games, my daughter slept for nearly three hours, my wife watched a movie, and we all ate well in good comfort. We had just about an hour left in the flight, and my daughter woke up to hang out for a bit. We played with some of her toys on the floor. It was good to have so much space with her. My son popped around to say hello as well.

I haven’t ever had a bad flight on Air Canada, and this day was no different. I really enjoyed the flight, and I found the seat to be great. It would have been great even if this were a 12 hour flight, instead of the 2300ish mile flight we had on SFO-YYZ. We stayed at the Sheraton built into the Toronto airport, and the next morning, we were off to Quebec City!

Read the rest of this article at Family Trip Report: Air Canada 787 Dreamliner Business Class, SFO-YYZ.

The first morning, I paid to upgrade. I wanted the omelette station. I noticed there were a lot of good looking pastries and cereal. I figured that we’d go with the continental breakfast the next morning.

We went to breakfast the next morning, I handed in our voucher and asked for the continental breakfast. I was looking forward to some cereal, pastries, and fruit. I was shocked that for two of us, we each got a bowl of fruit and two pieces of toast. After we sat down at the table, I asked the waitress what was included in the continental breakfast. She told me, “bread and fruit.” I asked about the cereal, yogurt, pastries, and cold cuts that were out on the table near the buffet. She told me those were off limits.

Wait… Seriously? You’re telling me that our free breakfast is literally some fruit and a piece of toast. Most definitions of continental breakfast that I can find seem to indicate that it includes way more than a piece of toast and fruit.

After our meager breakfast, I took another look at the voucher. It doesn’t say continental on it, and neither does the Marriott policy.

While I found the implementation of the breakfast policy questionable, I wondered… Does this even save the property money? I would have taken less fruit. I just wanted a bowl of cereal, and I didn’t really want toast. So here are some questions…

• Am I being over entitled?
• Have you seen WORSE continental breakfast? If so, please share in the comments!
• At what point should Marriott step in and define what breakfast actually is? It feels like they shouldn’t have to baby their properties, but it’s annoying when something designed to award an ELITE traveler makes that traveler feel like some kind of over entitled penny pincher.
• Any other thoughts?

Read the rest of this article at At What Point Is a Continental Breakfast Not Even Breakfast?.

I find the Tijuana airport, which is still under construction, to be an incredibly fascinating project. It was built with a pedestrian bridge that connects Americans directly with the United States. This project was part of a collaboration between San Diego and Tijuana. This pedestrian bridge facility is called CBX. For those of you unfamiliar with San Diego / Tijuana, a national border divides two countries, but the cities pretty much run right into each other, with Tijuana especially butting right up to the border.

The San Diego airport is downtown, and it’s very conveniently located. However, it also has a few constraints that limit its appeal and ability to expand. Geographically, it’s surrounded by a freeway, the ocean, and downtown. There isn’t much room to grow the airport. Additionally, there are many residences nearby, which means the airport has a curfew in place. No flights are allowed to depart between 11:30PM and 6:30AM. Where is there a fair amount of available real estate with more relaxed constraints? Right on the border of the United States and Mexico, in Mexico. I made a video about my experience.

I apologize if I sound overly excited about this, but I think it’s just so cool that one can land in Mexico and exit the airport in San Diego. As you get off the plane, signs for CBX are easy to spot. The entrance to CBX is right near baggage claim so you get your bags, and then they scan your boarding pass to verify you’re eligible. From here, you walk through a pretty long set of corridors, complete with a duty free shop. In the beginning of your walk, you can see Mexican taxis picking up passengers who have just landed in Tijuana.

Then on one long hallway soon after the Duty Free shops, there’s an American border. It’s clearly marked, and you’re encouraged to take a pic there! Once you cross the border, you’re just about 30 seconds away from the US Customs and Border patrol checkpoint. And yes… they do have global entry kiosks here!

After going through the checkpoint, you end up in a little mini arrival terminal of sorts. There are a few rental car kiosks, some vending machines, and a small food truck park outside. We grabbed an Uber from here, and we were on our way!

CBX was great. If you live in San Diego / Orange County and you need to fly to Mexico or some other international destination, it really is worth checking out Tijuana as an option. CBX has USA-side parking available, and they make the experience just as seamless as if you were flying via an American airport.

Read the rest of this article at CBX: Landing in Mexico, Leaving the Airport in the USA.

We were confirmed in the standard Park Suite, and as Globalists, we did not get upgraded to a higher level suite (the hotel is under no obligation to do so via the World of Hyatt terms). My wife and I were traveling with our 2.5 year old son and 6 month old daughter. Before I dig into why I don’t want to stay here and why you probably don’t either, it is worth noting that it is a very nice property. It just doesn’t live up to the hype or the price tag, and there are a lot of things that actually make it a place I would not recommend.

Location

Tokyo has fantastic public transportation. There are subway lines that will zip you all around the city, and as we have two young kids that need car seats, we don’t use taxis for our city trips. We depend on public transportation. The Park Hyatt is relatively close to three subway stations, but it is actually close to zero. Within a twenty minute radius of the Hyatt, you have the Shinjuku, Hatsudai, and Tochomae stations. If you’re walking fast, Shinjuku and Hatusdai are fifteen minutes away, and you can probably make it to Tochomae in eleven. That’s not that close, especially in the sweltering Tokyo summertime heat. If you’re planning on going round-trip to any place in town, you need to add another twenty to thirty minutes of round-trip walking time, not counting any walking you need to do near your destination. This may not seem like much, but again, it was really hot, and with kids, it was tough.

Food

As a Globalist member, you can get room service for breakfast as an option. The presentation is top notch, and the food isn’t bad. However, it isn’t that great, and it’s the same food they serve in the buffet. They had the same selection of pastries every day, the same eggs, the same fruit, etc. Asia is famous for having beautiful breakfast spreads, and this one is just okay. Also, Girandole, their breakfast restaurant, is very stuffy. There isn’t any music playing. There isn’t much conversation. It’s a bit awkward. You can get food made to order, and we did, but they were not very good. The waffles lacked texture and flavor. The pancakes were worse than IHOP pancakes. A JW Marriott or Grand Hyatt lounge is going to have just as good of food as this restaurant.

We were there six days so I wanted to try the famous New York Bar on the top floor. New York Bar is famous for their wagyu burger. Have you ever had a $50 cheeseburger? Now I can say I have. To be honest, the price didn’t bother me. I know wagyu beef is expensive, and I was pretty excited. I was surprised, however, when the waiter never asked me how I wanted it cooked, though. It came out extremely overcooked. The net result was that I was eating a wagyu burger that tasted significantly worse than Shake Shack or In N Out.

Concierge

I had a variety of odd experiences at the concierge, depending on who I worked with. Our first issue was getting Tokyo Disneyland tickets. We wanted to buy them in advance, but the Tokyo Disney site is very unfriendly to US credit cards. Before I attempted to buy them, though, a gentleman at the concierge told me that if I couldn’t get them online, I shouldn’t worry as they have plenty in stock and they could just charge the tickets to my room. Good to know. Late that evening, I went to go buy tickets online. Sure enough, the Disney site wouldn’t let me purchase with ANY of my US credit cards. I found a YouTube video about how to get tickets with cash at any FamilyMart (a Japanese 7-Eleven esque store), but I didn’t feel like going out at 10PM so I went back down to the concierge. There was a different person there this time, and I asked her if I could get a few of those Disneyland tickets charged to my room. She said they didn’t have any. I told her that the earlier attendant told me they did. She said, “Well we can get them for you, but there will be a surcharge.” I said, “Right now? Because we’re going tomorrow pretty early in the morning.” She said, “Well, in about 30 minutes…” Me: “Oh. Are you just going to walk to FamilyMart to get them?” She said yes, and I said okay I would just go do it myself.

Then there were the variety of odd milk issues. My son drinks warm milk when he wakes up in the morning and after his nap. At a hotel with a lounge, I just pop into the lounge and get some. At a hotel with a microwave in the room or lobby, I’ll do it myself. Here I went to the restaurant, and they assured me it was no problem to get milk for free there. Every time I went there, they were confused about what I was asking for, even if it was literally the same person who gave me the milk the day before. Sometimes I’d get a full glass. Sometimes I’d get a half glass. I would typically go into the business center to study when the kids were napping, and when I would walk to the restaurant for milk. The concierge folks would tell me that I really should just get that free milk delivered via room service to the business center. Okay… Seemed excessive to me, but I took them up on the offer. Room service came to the business center. With milk. And an $11 bill. LOL. I did not sign that bill… These were just a few of the examples. Getting warm milk for my son was a chore literally every day. For such a high end hotel that prides itself on service, I’m just surprised that literally every day, twice a day, getting warm milk was such a struggle.

We also used the concierge for dinner recommendations, and while the sushi place they steered us to was great, the teppanyaki place was pretty atrocious. We did get Kobe beef there, but the price we paid was over $200 per head. We left hungry. The service was weak. Dinner for my wife and I came with ice cream, and when I asked if my two year old could have a scoop as well, they were glad to give him some, for $5, which is nothing compared to the massive bill we had, but c’mon… I could have done more research in advance, but I was trusting the concierge. After looking on Tripadvisor, it looks like the Teppanyaki place we went to gives kickbacks to concierges for reservations so I see how we got there.

Lounge

There is no lounge. They do have complimentary drinks in Peak Bar from 5PM to 8PM for globalist members, and this is quite nice. I went there only twice though, as it’s not a great environment for kids. I really enjoy the convenience of a lounge and being able to go as I please. I also like Diet Coke / Coca Cola Light. A lounge enables me to get milk, snacks, diet cokes, easy breakfast, and more. Instead of getting free sodas with my expensive suite, I got trips to FamilyMart for buying soda to stash in our mini bar fridge.

Gym

Many high-end hotels have 24 hour gyms. I like those. I typically like to start my workout around 5:30AM so I can get in a good workout before the kids wake up. There are some hotels that feel like having a really nice gym isn’t good enough. They need to have a “health club.” The Park Hyatt Tokyo has a “health club.” And as Globalists, we’re allowed FREE access to it. Wow! What a perk! And because it’s a “health club,” it has operating hours. It’s only open from 6AM to 10PM. That means I had to start my workouts later to fit their schedule. Furthermore, I had to sign in every time. It’s also a pain in the neck to access  from your room. First you go to the 45th floor. Once on the 45th floor, you go down a long hallway, and then you check in at the desk. At this point, you must convince the attendant that no you don’t want a spa treatment… you just want to hit the treadmill for a bit and get out. Great. Now you go up ANOTHER elevator, as the fitness center is actually on a different level. Then you’re finally able to start your workout.

The pool and fitness center at the Park Hyatt are beautiful. You get amazing views of Tokyo from up there, and the way the pool is separated from the fitness center by a large glass wall really is pretty. The problem here is twofold. First of all, the gym is small. Again, for a high-end luxury property, I would expect more treadmills, ellipticals, and free weights. The second problem is more annoying. The room with the pool is quite humid. It is separated from the gym by just one glass wall. While it may not be apparent when you first walk in the fitness center, it is quite humid in there. If you’re someone who works out pretty hard, you probably know the point during your workout which you can expect to start breaking a sweat. At the Park Hyatt Tokyo, that point in time will come sooner. Every time I worked out, I had to start the workout later than I wanted, and I came back to the room wetter than I expected.

The Room Key

This hotel is surely the pinnacle of old school luxury and just to remind you how out of date it really is, they give you a physical key. Yes. A metal key. I’m sure that someone in their marketing department thinks this adds “a touch of old world charm” to the property or something like that. To me, it added a touch of anxiety. I never lost the key, but I knew if I did, there would probably be some fee. It also added a touch of discomfort. Instead of inserting it into my wallet along with my credit cards, it occasionally prodded my thigh from my pocket. Truly lovely.

Ice, Ice Baby

We had an ice bucket in our room. This was replenished twice per day. Again, I think this must be for that “old world charm” client that really likes to have a mini bar whiskey on the rocks at the end of every day. For everyone else, I think a fridge might be more useful and less wasteful.

Conclusion

When high-end luxury is done right, it’s awesome. The hotel takes care of all your needs, and they often anticipate the needs before you have them. I’ve experienced this at places like the Four Seasons Mauritius or Ritz-Carlton Reserve Krabi. At the Park Hyatt Tokyo, it always felt odd. For all the negatives I’ve listed, it’s still a beautiful hotel. I just don’t think it is as good as it needs to be to keep its reputation. Here’s my suite walkthrough.

Read the rest of this article at Park Hyatt Tokyo (Suite): The Nicest Hotel I Never Want to Stay At Again.

Today was a big day for Marriott. The frequent traveler community was waiting with bated breath to hear what the world’s largest hotel chain would do with their new loyalty program. I won’t summarize the whole thing for you. Scott did a great job of that here. When these massive changes come, I typically expect to lose out in some way. Today felt a little different. The vibe in the frequent traveler community is that Marriott did a great job. How good of a job they did depends on your current status with Marriott / SPG, which benefits are important to you, etc. I have been mulling things over for a few hours, and if you’re currently Lifetime Platinum with Marriott, like I am, today is overall fantastic news, and I think it will end up driving more business back to Marriott.

Achieving an Unachievable Lifetime Status

The new Marriott program has two highest tiers: Platinum Premier (earned after 75 nights) and Platinum Premier with Ambassador (earned after 100 nights). If you’re Marriott Lifetime Platinum today, you get Lifetime Platinum Premier. What makes that so cool? It’s unachievable. Outside of those being grandfathered in, one cannot earn that status ever again. The new highest lifetime status is Platinum Elite status, achieved via 600 lifetime nights plus 10 years of Platinum Elite status. When I earned Lifetime Platinum a couple years ago, the qualification threshold was 750 nights and 2,000,000 lifetime points earned. This is awesome. I have Marriott’s highest tier, minus the Ambassador, for doing nothing.

Earning Points

Because Marriott currently allows SPG <-> Marriott transfers at a ratio of 1 <-> 3, let’s agree that those are the relative value of each point. Previously, as a Lifetime Platinum, I would earn 15 points per dollar spent at Marriott properties. Given the conversion ratio, that’s the equivalent of 5 SPG points per dollar. Top tier SPG elites earned 4 points per dollar at SPG properties. Platinum Premier members in the new program earn 17.5 points per dollar, a 16.6% increase, or the equivalent of 5.83 SPG points per dollar. That is FANTASTIC value, especially considering that I never need to qualify for status again.

The Credit Card Lifetime Platinum Status Trick Might Be Gone

What trick am I referring to? The Marriott Rewards credit card granted 15 award nights per year. These counted toward lifetime status. Additionally, for ever $3K spent on the card, Marriott would give you an elite night. This ALSO counted toward lifetime status. I put a lot of spend on my Marriott card year after year, and while I certainly stayed at a lot of Marriott properties, this trick greatly accelerated my attainment of lifetime Platinum status.

Breakfast

I have had top tier status with most of the hotel programs at one time or another, and one thing that I hated about Marriott resorts was that if my wife and I traveled to a great resort, we would still have to pay for breakfast. I’m not overly entitled or against paying for breakfast, but many resorts only offer an expensive hotel buffet and aren’t close by alternative dining options. At around $25 per person for five days or more, this added a significant cost to the trip. Oh. And now we have two kids. Those costs REALLY add up. Hyatt is great about giving complimentary breakfast for the whole family (officially up to four people). Now Marriott is on par (with the exception of Ritz / Edition properties). Well done, Marriott!

Suites

Officially, and typically in practice, Marriott properties would upgrade Platinum members to the best room available, excluding suites. Hyatt and SPG were way ahead of Marriott here, not only offering complimentary upgrades to suites, but ALSO offering ways to confirm suite nights in advance. Now complimentary upgrades include suites, and with all lifetime Platinum members moving to the new Platinum Premier Elite tier, we will be ahead of just about everyone in the upgrade queue. For life. This is amazing. Hopefully hotels actually respect the official policy and give the upgrades when they’re available.

They Didn’t Break Airline Transfers

In the new program, I earn Marriott points with stays at a way better rate than I used to. Meanwhile, Marriott is keeping airline transfers alive at the same ratio as before. 60,000 Marriott points will translate into 25,000 airline miles.

Driving Business for Marriott

It’s funny how lifetime status can have an opposite effect sometimes. As soon as I got lifetime status with Marriott, I thought, “Sweet! I don’t need to stay there again any time soon. I’ve got my lifetime status, and I’ll always have it. Time to focus on qualifying at Hyatt!” Hyatt Diamond (now Globalist) was simply way more rewarding. In the new program I’m going to earn more points per stay than I used to, I’ll get free breakfast for the family at resorts, and suite upgrades are in the cards. That’s pretty darn compelling. I canceled my Marriott Credit card a long time ago, but when the new credit cards are released, I may just pick one up again.

Conclusion

I think today was a great day for all Marriott Rewards members. If you’re now a lifetime Platinum Premier Elite like me, it was even better. What do you think? Am I missing something? How do you feel about the changes?

Read the rest of this article at New Marriott Rewards from the Perspective of a Lifetime Platinum.

My son, Zachary, was 18 months old at the time of the trip so we didn’t need to buy a ticket for him. My hope was that we would be able to snag a table with four seats and that we could have a 2×2 set of seats for the price of two tickets. I also decided to splurge and buy first class tickets, which weren’t that much more than business class tickets, and they came with meal service, free drinks, and lounge access.

We were on train 2154, leaving Penn Station at 10:03AM. We had a lot of luggage and a toddler. We decided that I would take a cab with all of our luggage from the Hyatt Grand Central to Penn Station, and Katy would push Zachary in the stroller. I arrived before them, and I checked into the lounge in Penn station. It’s definitely not very nice… There were free sodas and a limited selection of packaged pastries. That’s it. That being said, it was at least a place to sit and wait, and it was also a safe place to keep our luggage. The attendees in the lounge let us know that they would give us an early heads up when the track for our train was announced.

After taking my son on a brief tour of the station to see other trains, it was time for us to board. We quickly found a table, just like I wanted, and we got situated. I was excited to be back on Acela. It had been a long time, and my son was very excited to be on a train.

The attendant came quickly to take our orders. A printed menu was a nice touch, and the fact there was good beer made the start of the trip even better! I got my beer, and we were off.

The food and drink options available on this Acela train put the airlines to shame. When was the last time you had short ribs on a 3 hour domestic first class flight? Or chilaquiles for breakfast? I was excited about the food, but it was time to relax. As many of you with young children know, the times to just kick back and relax are few and far between. My son was excited to stare out the window and watch movies on his iPad, and I was excited to kick back and enjoy my Stone IPA.

I’m not sure if it was due to the timing of our train, the fact they had extra food, or what, but the attendant actually offered us a breakfast omelette and fruit to start. I asked if I’d still be able to order short ribs later, and she confirmed that I would. Nice!

We were in New York for five days prior to this train trip, and we had great weather for all five days. Today, however, it decided to rain, and it was fun to speed through the Northeast Corridor in the rain. Our attendant kept the drinks coming, and pretty soon my son fell asleep.

His falling asleep was great timing. Katy and I were able to browse the internet and relax. He even slept through our delicious short rib lunch.

The short ribs were delicious. Also, that pre-packaged blondie… I didn’t expect it to be as good as it was. It was also massive. My wife and I split one, and we saved the other for later. Time went by quickly, and pretty soon we were pulling up to Back Bay Station. Acela First Class was a great way to travel with the family, and I’m excited to do it again some time. My son got one last bit of excitement when the Amtrak Red Cap let him ride on the luggage cart :-).

Read the rest of this article at Review: Acela First Class, New York to Boston, with a Toddler.

After a wonderful five days in Gran Canaria, it was time to head to Barcelona. We were flying Norwegian Airlines on a pretty cheap ticket, but due to Priority Pass, we had lounge access at the airport. We visited the Sala VIP Galdós lounge before our morning flight, and we found it to be a perfectly decent lounge with some excellent planespotting opportunities. It’s also great for kids!

The lounge has a very open design, and when you enter it, there are three main sections. There’s seating on the far left, closest to the runway, and there’s seating on the far right, on the other side of the food section. Food is right in the middle.

We were there in the morning, and food options consisted of a variety of breads, donuts, fruit, chips, nuts, and Spanish tortilla. Don’t expect a hot breakfast here, but it was a totally fine pre-flight snack.

In addition to the breakfast spread, there was a fridge with pre-made salads, sandwiches, and bocadillos.

In terms of beverages, there’s a fridge with sodas and beers. If you want hard alcohol, there’s a pretty good selection as well.

I actually thought the biggest benefit of the lounge was the outdoor terrace for adults and the outdoor kids area. The weather in Gran Canaria was great when we were there, and it was fun to sit and watch the planes take off and land. You have a great view of the action from here, and while you don’t get the thrill of seeing any big birds like A380s or 747s, it is really fun to see the random inter-island prop planes and discount European carriers coming in and out.

Right next to this adults outdoor section, there’s an outdoor kids section as well! This has glass walls, with doors separating it from both the inside and the outside so you can let your little ones run around in there and burn off steam while still having your eye on them from the main lounge area or the terrace. The lounge-provided kids equipment is pretty meager: just a table and a mini house. However, it’s the big open area that I really appreciate. If you bring your own toys, you’ll be in great shape. We always travel with a few toys for Zachary.

Our son is, fittingly, obsessed with airplanes, though. We didn’t need to bring out any toys this time, as he was content to sit at the little kids table, snack on some nuts, and watch planes take off and land.

I suppose I hold a fairly low bar for Priority Pass lounges, and this one exceeds that bar. There is plenty of seating, great plane viewing, an outdoor area, decent snacks, and free alcohol. In my book, that’s a winning combination. Make sure to leave a bit of time to visit this lounge before your next flight out of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria.

Read the rest of this article at Review: Sala VIP Galdós Las Palmas Lounge, Las Palmas (LPA) Gran Canaria.

I got the Club Carlson credit card years ago. Had I ever stayed at a Club Carlson property? Nope. Did I have any intentions of staying at one in the near future? Nope. At the time, the sign-up bonus was high, and it offered an annual retention bonus of 40,000 points. I figured at some point in the future I would use them. I just completed my first ever Club Carlson points redemption at the Radisson Blu Gran Canaria. I absolutely loved the resort, and if this is an indication of other Radission Blu resorts around the world, we will be back for more.

Reason for Trip

We planned out a big trip to London and Barcelona. My wife had been to neither, and it was time for us to make a visit. We wanted to add a beach / pool destination to our trip. I looked at some places in the Mediterranean, but going in mid September, the weather looked like it might be a bit chilly. I went south on the map and found the Canary Islands. I looked at potential hotel options, and lo and behold, I found a Radisson Blu Resort! It had very good reviews on TripAdvisor… time to finally redeem some Club Carlson points!

Location and Check-In

The hotel is located on the southern end of the island. It’s about 15 minutes west of the town of Maspalomas, and it’s just east of the Port of Mogán. Apparently Mogán is a popular stop for those with yachts. We rented a car; the hotel is about a 35 minute drive from the airport, and I do recommend renting a car. Driving in Gran Canaria was very easy, and the hotel offers free parking as well.

The property itself is built into a cliff, and that makes for a very cool entrance. When you pull off the road and walk into the lobby, you enter on the 11th floor. Here on the 11th floor there’s a hotel bar and restaurant, 222º Southwest. We ate there on our last night, and I’ll have more to say about that a bit later into the review.

A gentleman named Jose Luis checked us in, and he made us feel very welcome when we checked in. He offered us a glass of complimentary Cava and informed us that our suite would be on the 5th floor, 6 floors down from where we were. I paid a fee in advance of our reservation to upgrade from a standard room to a 1 bedroom suite. There are only two elevators right in the main area. He referred to one of them as the “panoramic elevator,” as it is glass and offers great views of the room and cove.

Another gentleman brought our bags to the room, and even though I insisted he take a tip, he politely refused and said that he wished us an excellent holiday.

Suite

Our suite was really large. For a full walkthrough, click the video below.

In terms of layout, you enter into the kitchen / living / dining area. There’s a kitchen table, an oven / microwave combo, a large refrigerator, and a freezer. It really was a full kitchen, and if you felt like keeping some food there for lunch or dinner, you could easily cook a meal at home instead of going out to restaurants. We used it just for keeping things cold and heating up milk for the little guy.

There’s a large HDTV, a couch, a chair, and a coffee table. After our previous suite in London, all of this extra space was a welcomed change. There were also shelves that we used to put all of Zachary’s toys on so he could play with them when he woke up in the morning,

The balcony was through the next doors, and I think this really was the best part of our suite! It was huge. It had a full table for four, two comfy day beds, and a rack for drying clothes. Instead of having railings or a wall, there was a full glass barrier on the edge. Not only was this awesome for giving us a better view, but it also made us feel very safe about having our son out there without our laser focused attention on him. The best part about the balcony was, of course, the view. It looks directly out across the pool area. With the Radisson Blu being nestled in the center of a large cliffside cove, it offered great views of the surrounding resorts to the right and left. I thought it was especially beautiful in the evening.

The balcony was huge, and it connected the living room to the bedroom. The bedroom itself was quite large, and they had the baby crib waiting for us in there. Given how large our suite was, we really didn’t spend much time in the bedroom, but my wife appreciated how many closets and drawers there were. We had no problem storing all of our things.

The bathroom had a shower, toilet, and two sinks. It also had a washer / dryer, which was crucial in our trip planning. I knew there would be a washer / dryer in advance of our trip so I planned for us to make it through London without doing laundry, doing it all in Gran Canaria instead. This worked great.

All in all, the suite was fantastic. I actually had zero complaints about it. My wife, on the other hand, did find the bed to be too soft. She also found one of the pieces of furniture in our room to be rather cheap. I literally don’t notice either of these things ever, but some people may :-).

Pool

The pool area is really great. There are two pools, one saltwater and one regular. One of the pools has sections of different height, and there’s a kiddie pool as well. One pool has a section that’s only a few feet tall, and my son loved being able to jump in and still touch his toes to the bottom. The resort was apparently full while we were there, but we never had trouble getting spots at the pool. There are standard pool chairs, but the resort also has a grassy area that you can sit out on. It was fun to let Zachary run around on the grass, when he wasn’t preoccupied with jumping in the pool.

The landscaping of the two pools is really great, and the only thing that bothered me was the more than occasional whiff of cigarette smoke. Being in Europe, this was all too common. At the edge of the grass, there’s a glass wall with a 15 foot dropoff that separates the resort from the public walkway. You can exit the resort to the walkway if you go near the tennis courts, and this is always manned by a security guard.

One more word about the pool – we appreciated the large amount of umbrellas out by the pool. Some resorts we’ve visited have great pools, but no shade. Shade here was plentiful.

Beach

Depending on your perspective, you may find the beach to be the weakest point of the resort. First of all, it’s a public beach. You need to actually exit the resort and walk to the beach. There are two options: a small one to the right, separated from the ocean by a breakwater, and one a five minute walk in the other direction. The second is a much larger beach with larger waves and more people. We never visited that beach, but there are a few restaurants right above the beach. We ate at two of those.

As for the actual quality of the beach, you may also find it a bit lacking. The sand is dark, there are some rocks mixed in, and it’s nothing like you would find in Mexico, the Caribbean, Hawaii, etc. There are some beaches on Gran Canaria with better sand, just none right in front of the Radisson Blu.

Of course, I mentioned that your opinion of the beach is highly dependent on your perspective. If you have kids, it may be perfect. The small beach separated with a breakwater has no waves, and it’s perfect for kids to play in. It also gets deep very gradually so it’s no problem to walk out pretty far. Furthermore, that sand I mentioned earlier that isn’t as nice on your toes as the sand from other places? It turns out it is perfect for making sandcastles. If you have kids, it may be just perfect for you.

Gym

I typically use this section of my review to complain about how crappy a hotel / resort gym is. I’m happy to say that I don’t need to do that with this review. The gym is amazing! Treadmills, bikes ellipticals, weight machines, free weights, etc. This resort has a huge selection of gym equipment!

When we were in London I went running outside most days in lieu of using the Hyatt’s mediocre gym. Here in Gran Canaria, I used the Radisson Blu gym almost eveyday.

Resort Breakfast

A large buffet breakfast is served every morning, and I believe it is included with every rate. It was included even with my points redemption, and they never checked for our room number or gave us a receipt.

The breakfast is a large buffet, complete with complimentary cava (similar to champagne). The buffet is held in a large facility near the pool area, and I loved the setting every morning. Waves are crashing, the breeze is blowing, my champagne flute is full, and life is good.

The hot food section of the buffet always had bacon, sausage, beans, eggs, quiche, and freshly made waffles. If you wanted a pancake instead, the chef was always there to make one for you. The chef also did make-to-order omelettes and eggs.

In the middle of the buffet area there was a section of pastries. Here you could find donuts, cinnamon rolls, banana bread, and a variety of other similar items.

This pastry section was separate from the bread section. The bread area was filled with so many different types of fresh bread, jams, and a toaster.

You could also get fruit, yogurt, jamón, cheeses, cured meats, cereal, and more.

There was even an orange juice station where you could squeeze your own fresh orange juice. This was perfect for making mimosas.

This is a family resort, and the breakfast area also had plenty of high chairs. Starting our morning at the Radisson Blu breakfast area was a real treat!

Resort Dining

Other than breakfast, we had a total of 3 meals at the resort. We at at the pool bar twice, and we had dinner at 222º Southwest on our final night.

The pool bar serves standard pool bar fare. We found the pizzas to be pretty delicious, but we made a mistake with our gamble on “mexican nachos.”

The prices at the pool bar were reasonable for a resort, and the service was always pretty good. The waiters were always so outgoing and friendly with Zachary. The service really made a difference. I’m not going to say the pool bar food was amazing. It wasn’t. I would recommend the jamón serrano and melon, though. That was delicious and refreshing.

If you don’t like the food at the pool bar, you can walk about ten minutes to some restaurants on the beach nearby. One of the restaurants, Valentino’s, is closed at lunch, but served an excellent dinner. Another restaurant, Sagitario, had very poor food for lunch, and the prices weren’t even much better than the pool bar at the resort. My recommendation for guests is to either take a car / taxi to another area of the island completely or just eat at the pool bar for lunch. With such a big breakfast, you may not end up being to hungry for lunch anyways. I’d probably recommend a light lunch of jamon serrano with melon followed by an ice cream. Accompany this with as many 70 cent beers as you like :-).

Our final night, we ate at 222º Southwest. It’s on the 11th floor of the resort, and the views from up here really are great. It was a bit pricy compared to the other restaurants we visited on the island, but we felt that the ambiance and food quality more than justified the price increase.

I had a lovely piece of fresh fish, my wife had ravioli, and our son had some steamed veggies and pieces of our meal. The service was great, the food was great, and the view was even better. I do recommend eating here one of the nights of your stay.

Other Facilities

This resort really had something for everyone. Prefer to play sports instead of lounge at the beach? No problem. The Radisson Blu has a sand volleyball court, grass tennis court, and paddle tennis court. Didn’t bring rackets or a volleyball? The resort had those available, free of charge.

There was also a grocery store on the bottom floor of the resort. It was a “Spar” grocery store, a chain separate from the Radisson Blu. Thus, you can’t charge things to your room. However, the best news was that they didn’t really charge resort prices. I could walk in there with a single Euro coin and buy a “Tropical” beer for 70 cents. Combine that with the fact that our room had a fridge, and we were in excellent shape!

The grocery store also had a great selection of ice cream bars, candy, pasta, milk, etc. It even had diapers and wipes, should you have forgotten to bring enough for your little one.

Kids Club

If I were ending the review right now, I’d say this is a great resort for kids, but it gets even better. This Radisson Blue has a VIC Club. VIC = Very Important Children. Down past the swimming pool near the public entrance to the resort, the Radisson Blu has its very own outdoor playground. It has a mini soccer field, a swing set, little houses, and a play structure. Our son enjoyed this a few times while we were there. There are also sites that may suit those who need a wide fit pair of boots to be able to play comfortable on that soccer field.

At the end of the playground, you can find the VIC club, which is staffed by attendants. It’s essentially a kids camp for kids over 4, and I’m sure it’s not free to leave your kid there for a day, but even if your child is younger than 4, all guests are welcome to take their kids there under supervision. There’s a giant ball pit and indoor play structure, cars, trucks, movies, coloring books, and more. As it’s staffed by an attendant, it was always in very tidy condition. This is just one more thing that made our visit enjoyable.

Service

We had great service everywhere we went at this resort. Jose Luis, the man who checked us in, was there everyday and was always a joy to talk to. He helped give us restaurant recommendations as well, and he made reservations for us at some local places. At the pool bar and breakfast area, the waiters were so friendly to us and our son. The attendants at the VIC club were so welcoming to Zachary. Now to be clear, this hotel doesn’t offer 5 star service like a Four Seasons or anything like that. In fact, the attendants will mostly leave you alone unless you ask for something, but if and when you do ask for something, they’re extremely helpful.

Conclusion

This was my first Radisson Blu experience, and honestly I can’t wait to go back. This was such a fun place to spend five nights after being in London for a week. If you’re a European, this place is such a quick hop away that you owe it to yourself to make a trip here! If you live in North America like us, well, the Canary Islands are a bit of a haul, and like I mentioned, the beaches here aren’t as nice as those in the Caribbean / Hawaii / Mexico. However, if you’re like me and have a bucket of Club Carlson points you’re not sure what to do with, and you’re going to make a trip to Europe anyways, why not pop over here for 4 or 5 nights? Let me know if you have any questions!

Read the rest of this article at Review: Radisson Blu Gran Canaria, 1 Bedroom Suite.

After a great six day visit in London, it was time to leave the drizzle, fog, fish, and chips for warmer weather. Our son, Zachary, isn’t quite two years old so he can technically be a lap child, but he’s too large and active to make that a pleasurable experience for more than the shortest of flights. I researched all of our options, and I decided to redeem British Airways Avios for two business class tickets on Iberia Express. “Business class” really should have quotes around it, as we’re talking about European regional business class, which is barely better than Economy Class. That being said, it comes with better food, a large baggage allowance (necessary when doing a 3 week trip with a baby), and lounge access.

If you’re not familiar with intra-Europe business class, let me paint a mental picture for you. Close your eyes… Imagine three normal economy seats. Then make sure nobody sits in the middle seat. Open your eyes! That’s European business class! Here are a couple shots of the Business Class cabin on our Iberia Express A320.

To divide the cabins, there is just a small curtain.

If it sounds like I’m complaining, I’m actually not really. Booking this cabin was a very strategic decision. With 22 month old Zachary still technically being a “lap child,” using Avios to book two business class seats actually got him his own seat. We just put him in the open one.

I’m jumping ahead, though. We’ll start with check-in. Check-in was very smooth. We went straight to “H” check-in at Terminal 5 at Heathrow. This is where Business / First check in. We had no line, and we went straight to an agent. We had lots of heavy bags, and it was nice being able to check them all without concern of extra baggage fees, as Business Class tickets booked with British Airways allow 2 checked bags per ticketed passenger. I was excited to check out the lounges, but I ended up being disappointed. We had two options: British Airways Galleries Lounge (access due to Business Class ticket) and Aspire the Lounge (access due to Priority Pass membership). The two are right on top of each other so I thought it might be fun to bounce between the two. Instead, Aspire the Lounge was full with a 30+ minute waiting list. Nope. No thanks. The British Airways lounge was super full, and it was difficult to find seating. We posted up in the kids room, which was fine, as Zachary was exhausted, and we were somehow able to get him to take a nap on the couch in there, after he got some time in on the PS4.

It was finally time for us to take a quick walk over to our gate and board. Boarding was uneventful. There were no pre-departure beverages offered, which was disappointing, even with my rather low expectations for this business class product. After reaching cruising altitude, the flight attendant came around offering everyone a round of orange juice. I thought that was a bit odd for a 5PM flight, and I also thought it was odd that she didn’t offer any choice in the matter. I asked if she had sparkling wine, champagne, cava, or anything like that, and she said no.

When she was done with the OJ service, she asked if there were other drinks we would like. I asked her what kind of beer she had. She told me just Mahou. Okay. I’ll take a Mahou.

She asked Katy if we would be having dinner. We asked what our choices were. No choices. Just seafood pasta. Well okay then. We’ll take that!

I didn’t get to choose my beer, and I didn’t get to pick my meal, but the beer was fine, and the meal was quite tasty. The raviolis had some kind of seafood medley filling reminiscent of crab. The salad was nice, and the flight attendant did come by with bread as well. The dessert treat was also good.

Beyond that, service was relatively nonexistent for the rest of the flight. If I wanted a drink, I had two options:

1. Get up, pull the curtain aside, disturb the flight attendant reading her book, and ask for a soda
2. Ring the flight attendant call button

After electing the first option once, I went with the second from there on, as it actually seemed less disturbing than invading her reading space. She seemed to be reading a lovely novel.

The flight landed in Gran Canaria, and we were ready to visit our next vacation destination! I really wouldn’t recommend paying real dollars for this “business class” experience. However, if you have a child under 2 and need some extra checked baggage and an extra seat, it’s certainly better than flying economy, and it worked out really well for our family.

Read the rest of this article at Report: Iberia Express Business Class London, England (LHR) to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria (LPA).

After checking our bags with Cathay Pacific at the airport, we realized that we were now, all of a sudden, traveling pretty lightly. Katy and I were both wearing backpacks. Katy was pushing Z in our travel stroller, which folds up to fit in the overhead bin, and I was pulling a roll-aboard carry-on. Things were all of a sudden seeming a bit more manageable. Furthermore, Z was in a generally great mood. There were plenty of distractions around to stimulate him.

Security took a while, but after security, we had about 90 minutes to kill, and we decided to check out the Cathay Pacific Business Class lounge, which is accessed by making an immediate left after security. You take the elevator up a floor, and there are a bunch of other lounges up there as well. We walked down the long hallway to the Cathay lounge, of course marked by a mannequin.

We were nervous about getting dirty looks with our little man, but the opposite turned out to be true. The little guy quickly made friends with all of the lounge attendants, and they all seemed more excited about his first transpacific flight than we were!

The lounge is split in half at the entrance. You can go right. You can go left. If you go right, you’ll pass a couple small lounging areas, which are followed by a dining area. During our visit, this dining area was stocked with a variety of cold sandwiches, vegetables, and a small selection of warm food. Just to the left of this is a make-to-order noodle station. It’s pretty neat. You choose between a few different types of noodle dishes (wonton noodles, dan dan noodles, or vegetarian noodles), and then they give you a buzzer to let you know when the noodles are ready. I had a bowl of noodles and some other snacks.

I also grabbed myself a beer. I generally prefer self serve alcohol, and this is how the Cathay lounge was setup.  There was a good selection of beer, wine, and champagne. For beer, you could get Tsing Tao, Bud Light, GB Marzen, and another variety or two. The selection was weak compared to the Centurion Lounge’s awesome tap of great local beers.

We found a spot in the corner that we could section off with our stroller, just in case our little one got unruly. He never did, though, and I got Katy and I some food while she stayed with the baby.

In terms of food options,

The lounge had more than enough seating for everyone. The lounge was divided into sections with different styles of seating. For example, you could find standard lounge seating.

Just beyond that, there were some modern, innovative individual couch / chair / desk combo pods. I liked these a lot… If I were here for business travel, I’d probably set myself up in one of these.

And then they had another section of chairs that must have been designed for baby photo shoots…

In my mind, lounges are divided into two categories: lounges that are good enough to pop into during a layover and lounges that I actually make a point to visit. The SFO Cathay Pacific Lounge is in the latter category. It’s a great spot, and it’s a nice place to hang out before you embark on your next journey to Asia!

Read the rest of this article at Review: Cathay Pacific Business Class Lounge at SFO.

Arrival

We flew into London Heathrow (LHR) from San Francisco (SFO) on United. We landed at 7:30AM, and from there, it took almost three hours to finally get to our hotel. Heathrow requires quite a bit of walking, the immigration line was long, and then we had to take the Heathrow Express train into Paddington Station. From Paddington Station, it was just a 7£ ride to the hotel.

Arrival was very smooth, and the hotel has a very unassuming look that blends right into the West End / Marylebone architecture. The hotel lobby is classic and simple, with check-in desks to the right, a bank of elevators to the left, and just beyond that, the hotel restaurant, The Montagu. I would describe the hotel as “Classic London.” We used a Globalist confirmed suite upgrade for the room, and we were assigned suite 820, which is on the 8th floor, the same floor as the lounge.

Location

London is huge, and there are a lot of great places to stay. The Hyatt is in Westminster, right between Hyde Park and Regents Park. The proximity to the two parks was a boon for me, as I went running just about every morning we were in London, and both parks have great running paths! I ran around both parks once morning; looping around each one and connecting the two loops was about 9 miles exactly.

Both parks also have multiple playgrounds, boat rental spots, and other activities for little ones that need to burn off steam. In addition to the public parks, the Hyatt is located right on Portman Square, which is a privately owned, fenced in garden / park. The Hyatt has a key to this park, and they’ll let you in if you ask. There’s a small plagyround for children in there, and we enjoyed it with our son on our last day.

In terms of public transportation, the area was great. It’s very close to both the Marble Arch and Baker Street subway stations. There are also numerous bus stops nearby, and using the bus was VERY easy. We bought unlimited use oyster cards for our trip, and we mixed buses and subways together everyday to get around. If you have a kid that requires a car seat, Uber isn’t really an option. I’m not sure what the official rule with taxis and babies is in London, but we took two cabs, and it wasn’t an issue. We generally try to avoid having to do this, due to safety concerns. The hotel is about a twenty five minute walk from Leicester Square and Picadilly Circus. It was nice being accessible to those areas, but not being directly in them.

If you like shopping, the hotel is about a two minute walk from Oxford Street, which is loaded with shops. Nearby Marylebone is filled with cute little restaurants. The bottom line is that this is a perfectly great hub location for staying in London if you’re looking to site see.

Room

So… what is a suite, really? I suppose the most basic definition of a suite would be a habitation that has the sleeping area separated from the living area. If this is the definition, then yes, we got a suite. I had slightly higher expectations, in terms of size. We really prioritize suite upgrades now that we have a toddler. We want the extra space, and we’d prefer that Zachary’s pack n play could  be in a separate room so that way we can watch movies or hang out while he’s sleeping at night. In any case, this room had a separate living space, and it was separated with a partition in the middle. The partition had a TV on both sides.

I pulled the curtain across the second partition opening in order to block light and enclose his crib area a bit more in order to better section off the room. Also, I apologize for not taking better pictures. I usually take pictures either before I put any suitcases down or at least have the room tidy. In this case, we were literally heading out the door to leave our stay when I realized I hadn’t yet taken pics. Sorry for the huge mess, the toddler jumping on the bed, etc!

The room had a fridge, which was nice. There was also an extra large walk-in closet. It’s probably time for the hotel to renovate, though. The carpet was old, and it was starting to come up. The furniture looked tired. That being said, the room was quite nice. The bathroom was large, and it had both a shower as well as a tub. The tub was great for our son.

Lounge

When you get off the elevator on the 8th floor, there’s a lounge concierge desk that is staffed by someone all day. They were very helpful in giving us directions and guiding us around the local neighborhood. Then on the far left and right there are two separate lounges you can access. They serve the exact same food and are close to mirror images of each other, but the one on the left is off limits for kids. That’s a great setup. It meant that nobody was bothered by our two year old sprinting through the door every morning yelling, “Cereal! Cereal! Cereal!”

There’s a breakfast service in the morning; canapes are early in the evening. We ate breakfast in the lounge every day of our trip. There were always three or four hot items: scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, mushrooms, etc. There was a small section of veggies and cured meats. There were four cereals. Finally, there was a selection of breads and pastries. I found it to be more than sufficient to get our day started, but it’s nothing too fancy.

The evening spread is sufficient enough that if you wanted to stay in and just eat lounge food for a night or two, you could. The lounge is open until 11PM, though, and even when an official service isn’t in session, you can always go in and grab sodas, waters, beers, or some basic snacks. It was really nice to have this place to go to when my son took a nap. I’m actually writing this review from there right now!

Service

Service at the hotel was very nice. Everyone was incredibly friendly. Doors were opened for us all the time. Requests were handled quickly. Most of all, the people who staff the lounge were some of the friendliest people we met on our entire trip. Beyond that, we didn’t heavily utilize any other services from the hotel so I can’t say much more.

Gym

Poor hotel gyms are a pet peeve of mine. I believe that these days every hotel should have plentiful high-end cardio equipment with enough free weights / machines for people. This Hyatt gym is weak. On the bright side, if you’re just looking to jog on a treadmill, the 3 Life Fitness machines they have are top of the line. They’re definitely my favorite kind of hotel / gym treadmill, and you can change the units from miles to kilometers.

In addition to the treadmills, there are two bikes and two elliptical machines. If you’re looking to do any free weights, you’re limited to a small rack of dumbbells.

Luckily, if you’re into the 90s’ hottest fitness device, they have a few ab rollers on hand!

I ended up using the gym just once on our trip there. It wasn’t that useful, and running through Hyde Park and Regents Park was a much more enjoyable experience.

Conclusion

I would certainly stay at this property again. It wasn’t so mind blowing that I feel like next time I’m in London I have to stay here, but it was a great experience, and I would absolutely stay here again.

Read the rest of this article at Review: Suite at the Hyatt Regency London, The Churchill.

When your son or daughter becomes too large or fidgety to remain as a lap child, and you finally decide to plunk down the change for a seat, not all problems go away…

• Why does this kid keep dropping toys on the floor?
• How do I get the baby to sleep during nap time?
• Will my baby be comfortable?
• Will the baby need to sleep across my wife and I, making it so that I can’t really move?

The $29.95 1st Class Kid Travel Pillow aims to answer and solve these questions.

So… what is it? It’s basically a balloon that can be inflated and deflated. This balloon is soft, and it’s shaped to wedge down to fill in the area that would be, for adults, the legroom in front of the seat.

We tested this with our 18 month old son on two different flights: SFO-JFK in Virgin America Economy Class and JFK-SFO in JetBlue Economy Class. For our first flight out, we didn’t inflate the pillow until my son started to look tired and ready to nap.

Inflating the pillow is pretty easy. There’s a valve that opens up, and the instruction manual suggests that you hold it up to the air conditioning vent above the seat. I felt a bit odd doing this, as I wondered if people might be curious about this large inflatable thing that I was holding up high to inflate, but it actually did work to get the bulk of the pillow inflated. I then screwed the primary valve on, and I popped the part off that lets you inflate manually by blowing into it. I had the pillow puffed up in no time. Note: the manual warns against inflating it before you hit cruising altitude, as the increase in pressure may cause it to pop. Once my son was ready to sleep, we stuck the pillow down there and made him a little bed.

It actually worked! We were able to get the little guy to fall asleep, and he looked pretty comfy! The pillow isn’t perfect. It doesn’t take the seat and turn it into a perfect mattress. We found that the pillow was a bit higher than the seat, so our son was on a bit of an angle. Even so, he was sleeping in a much more natural position than if he were across our lap or wedged against the window. He didn’t end up sleeping that long on the plane ride out, unfortunately. His nap was only 30 minutes or so. We wondered if he was comfortable or not, and we figured we’d try it again on our flight home. Maybe he just wasn’t that tired.

On our way back west, we didn’t wait to inflate the pillow. We just inflated it immediately after we hit cruising altitude, and I recommend this approach. We bought this pillow so our son could sleep, but it turns out that it just gave him way more space to play. He had more room to squirm around. Sometimes he sat on the pillow. Sometimes he sat on the seat. We ended up picking way less toys up off the floor. This time when he went to sleep, he really conked out.

He snuggled up with his lovey, and he passed out quickly. This time, he slept super well. He stayed in that position you see above for over two hours, which is in line with how long his better naps are these days. Also, I will let you know that no artificial sleep aids were used in the testing of this product :-). We decided against using Benadryl or anything like that. Since we started traveling with a baby, flights haven’t been the same. They’ve been joyful in many ways, but we don’t get to kick back and relax like we used to. With Zachary passed out for two hours, we found time to enjoy the fast, free JetBlue WiFi and enjoy our flight home.

I definitely recommend the 1st Class Kid Travel Pillow. At only $30, it’s not very expensive. Considering that it’s essentially just a balloon, it deflates to be packed easily. It worked great for our toddler. We’ll have another chance to give it an even more rigorous test when we have a family trip to London in a few months! I’ll make sure to report back!

Read the rest of this article at Review: 1st Class Kid Travel Pillow.

I was relaxing in our room at the Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos. My son was asleep, my wife was working on something else, and I decided that I would start writing a review of the place. I kicked my feet up on the couch, and I started to write. After sinking a good amount of time into said review, I realized to myself, “Hey I think I’ve reviewed this hotel already!” I searched the internet, and yup – I reviewed it in 2014. I loved the resort back then, and the good news is that not much has changed. I still love it! You should take a look at the original review before reading this one. That review was posted from the perspective of a married man with zero kids. This updated post is written from the perspective of a guy traveling with his wife and 17 month old son.

A lot has changed since our last stay. Most notably, the property was completely destroyed during Hurricane Odile and spent many months shut down. The reconstructed hotel looks almost identical to the first version. If you compare the two sets of pictures, you’ll have a tough time noticing that the resort was scrapped in between the two.

Location

If you’ve never been to Cabo before, the greater Los Cabos area spans between San Jose Del Cabo, a smaller town closer to the airport, and Cabo San Lucas, the classic Mexican tourist town. The road between them is often referred to as the corridor, and it’s about a thirty minute drive between San Jose Del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas. If you’re looking for nightlife, Cabo San Lucas is where you should be. If you’re looking for relaxation, San Jose Del Cabo might be more your style, but it’s not hard to get between the two areas. There’s also a public bus that runs both directions of the corridor. It’s a much cheaper way to get between the two towns, but it’s also slower.

The Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos has one of the best locations in San Jose Del Cabo. It’s on the main strip of hotels right on the beach, and there’s a La Comer (a giant Mexican Wal-mart esque store, formerly called Mega) within five minutes of walking from the hotel. La Comer is basically your one-stop shop for things you wish you would have brought: headphones, dress pants, underwear, snacks, pharmaceuticals, etc.

Being closer to San Jose Del Cabo means that airport transportation is a bit cheaper than if you’re all the way in Cabo San Lucas. I recommend booking round-trip transportation ahead of time from one of the many providers, rather than dealing with the onslaught of transportation providers when you land at the airport.

Food

The Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos is an all-inclusive resort. Food, alcohol, and entertainment is included in your rate, mostly. I haven’t been to any other all-inclusive resorts so I don’t have much basis for comparison, but I always figured all-inclusive resorts were typically filled with one giant buffet of slop, overrun by binge drinkers. That’s not the case here. The resort boasts many different restaurants. All of the restaurants require seating via hostess, and with the exception of the main buffet, they are all a la carte dining experiences. While the Ziva line of resorts is targeted at families, the French restaurant, Bon Vivant, is for adults 18 and over only. There’s even a teppanyaki style Japanese restaurant. There are pool bars that serve tacos. The hotel periodically schedules special shows with food, day time BBQs, and more. The variety is extensive. If you’re worried about variety, worry no more.

So how’s the food? It’s awesome. As Globalist members, we had the option of having breakfast in the lounge or at the primary buffet. Of course there’s also a coffee shop if you just want a small pastry and coffee. You could also order room service. Or go to the 24 hour deli. There are so many options! We chose to go with the buffet every morning. Asian resorts aside, this is one of the better breakfast buffets I’ve been to. There’s a section of fresh cinnamon rolls, waffles, crepes, and more. There are multiple make-to-order omelette stations. There are different types of chilaquiles, chorizos, etc. There’s a kid section that is lower in height for the little ones to reach. And with this being all inclusive, there’s no shortage of champagne for mimosas. There are like ten different fresh squeezed juices. It’s great.

While the buffet is open every night for dinner, we changed it up and went to most of the a la carte restaurants. They’re all delicious. Because we had our kiddo this time, we didn’t make it to the French restaurant this time around.

Pools

The pools are awesome. We spent our previous trip at the adult pool, but this time around, we stayed at the kid pool. It’s amazing! It’s essentially a mini water park, which may have utilized services such as a splash pad installation, and there’s play equipment nearby. I put together a little video that showcases the waterpark features.

The main pool in the middle of the resort is also great, and if you’re familiar with large Mexican timeshare style pools, this one is exactly like the others, pool bar included! For a look at the adult pool, check out my previous review.

Beach

The beach is large, beautiful, and great for evening walks when the sun goes a bit lower and the temperature becomes a bit more moderate. We enjoyed playing in the sand with our little 17 month old, and we also utilized the hotel’s photographer to get some family photos. They take your photos for free, but if you want the digital files, expect to shell out a couple hundred bucks. See below for an example of what the beach looks like… and what their great photographers can do!

Note that while it’s a great beach to enjoy, it’s not the best for swimming. There’s a pretty strong riptide, and the hotel was advising not to go in the water. We’re definitely prefer pools over beaches… so it wasn’t an issue for us.

Entertainment, Kids, Etc.

There’s a lot to do here. You can go SCUBA diving. You can go into town. The hotel puts on a show almost every night. Many times they do the shows in their theater, and sometimes they do it outside. One night while we were there, they did a Mexican music show, and our little dancing baby loved it!

They had water aerobics in the mornings while we were there. There’s beach volleyball. There’s a kids club. This place has something for everyone, but recommend just relaxing and having some good family time.

We actually used their baby sitting service one night. You can hire nannies through the hotel. The nannies are all hotel employees, and that made us feel more comfortable, knowing that the hotel wasn’t contracting out to a 3rd party. You do pay the nannies in cash, though, but we didn’t have any problem with that. Our nanny, Maria, did a great job taking care of Zachary while we went out to a wedding one night. Maria must get a lot of gigs, as we saw her with other kids while we were at the hotel for the rest of our stay!

We happened to be at the property during Easter, and I was so impressed with the effort they put in for Easter. I thought they might just have a few egg decorations here or there. Nope… They had an easter bunny. They had face painting. They had an egg hunt. They had live freaking rabbits on-site for kids to see. It was great!

Conclusion

If this review seems incomplete, that’s because it’s more of an addendum. I’ve already reviewed the property! I love this hotel. I’ve been here without kids, and my wife and I never left the adult pool. We returned with a kid, and we never left the kid pool. Go figure. This place is built for family fun, and I highly recommend a visit!

Read the rest of this article at Review: Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos, this Time with a Baby.

We make a point of trying out a new ski resort every year, and this year we decided to try Big Mountain in Whitefish, Montana. Whitefish is about 30 miles north of Kalispell, Montana. Kalispell airport (FCA) has gotten more and more flights in recent years, and part of the reason we were able to make an easy trip to Montana was because United started flying a non-stop flight from our hometown airport, SFO. Kalispell has plenty of mid-range chain hotels, but we wanted to stay in Whitefish, a much cuter town which also happens to be closer to the mountain.

Options for lodging in Whitefish are a bit more sparse. If you want to stay at any sort of chain, you’re mostly out of luck. We were traveling with our 15 month old son so staying walking distance to the restaurants and walking distance to the Snow Bus were important to us. After doing some searching, we finally decided on the Firebrand Hotel. We paid cash for our stay there, and we didn’t earn any points. Sigh… A little part of me dies every time I have to recite that line, but sometimes avoiding a chain is the best option.

The Firebrand is a brand new hotel. It was finished in August 2016, and it has a classy western theme to it. The hotel isn’t huge, but they have a great lobby bar and restaurant. We asked to have a room on the ground floor so we had the ability to put our son down to bed at night and then bring the baby monitor into the bar so we could relax there in the evenings. This worked out great every night. Actually, we only had one snag, and that was when we booked the room. The Firebrand claims to have a couple “King Suites.” I called and asked about the suites, and the person I spoke to seemed to indicate that they included a lot more space than a standard room, but when we arrived there, we found that the King Suite is basically the exact same thing as a regular King Room, but with a fireplace and a balcony. We switched to a standard room, and the Firebrand was great about adjusting our rate back down.

The lobby of the Firebrand has a beautiful, rustic Western look to it. Both a bar and restaurant are built into the lobby. We had dinner at the restaurant our first night there, and we found the menu to be eclectic, varied, and delicious. For example, you could get dishes like sliders with quail eggs, pot stickers, or a beet salad. Here are a few food samples.

While we only had a full dinner there once, I certainly recommend hitting up the bar for some local beers. As much as I don’t typically like the fruit flavored beers, I found the huckleberry beer to be delicious. Zachary often joined us for happy hour, and we made sure to bring those disposable place-mats along!

The rooms themselves are pretty standard hotel rooms. There’s nothing remarkable about them, other than they are all brand new so everything was very pristine.

It turns out that I forgot to take pictures of the bathroom! The best I can give you is of my 16 month old son about to take his first ever shower. As you can see from the picture, the shower is tile with glass doors. While the bathroom isn’t huge, it’s very modern and clean. I have no complaints about it at all.

I was pleasantly surprised by the gym. I typically find that small boutique hotels will often skip the gym or just toss a treadmill into a room and call it a gym.

Thankfully, the Firebrand actually built out a real gym. In terms of cardio, it had two treadmills, a stationary bike, and an elliptical machine. There were free weights, a multi-purpose machine, a bench, and more. Considering the limited size of the hotel, this gym was more than fine.

There’s a rooftop deck on the hotel as well, and I bet it’s going to be awesome in the summer. In the winter it’s just a spot to build a snowman and catch a view of downtown. I talked to the staff about their plans for the roof deck. They said they would likely build a bar up there, host private events, and cater dinners up there. It sounds like it’s going to be a great spot. As much as we enjoyed Whitefish in the winter, it sounds magnificent in the summer.

The Firebrand Hotel is a great boutique hotel in Whitefish, Montana. If we were planning another trip there, I would make sure to stay there again. I do wish they had a few actual suites with extra bedrooms for families, though. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer!

Read the rest of this article at Review: The Firebrand Hotel, Whitefish, Montana.

Our little man is 17 months old now, and we’ve taken him to a good number of places in the USA, Asia, and Mexico. When we’re on the road, we’re eating almost exclusively in restaurants, and we find disposable placemats to be absolutely invaluable. They solve a few problems:

1. Kids are dirty.
2. Restaurant tables are dirty.
3. Kids break things.

Taking your baby to a restaurant can be stressful, but having the right baby products on hand can make it a little easier. That’s where a monthly baby subscription with baby products handpicked just for you can come in handy. For instance, Simply Natural Babies offers eco-friendly placemats that can help keep your baby safe and mess-free during mealtime. These non-toxic mats are an excellent choice for parents who want to keep their babies protected from harmful chemicals. By subscribing to a monthly baby subscription, you can receive a variety of baby products that are carefully curated to meet your needs. This can include feeding essentials like bibs, utensils, and of course, placemats. With baby products handpicked just for you, you can have peace of mind knowing that you always have the right gear on hand to keep your baby happy and safe. Whether you’re dining out or eating at home, a monthly baby subscription is a convenient and easy way to stay stocked up on essential baby products.

Each mat has four adhesive strips on the back. You pop them all off and stick it onto the table. Your little one can eat right off the placemat, and you don’t need to worry about him or her making a mess of a plate or eating food off of the table. By moving everything away from the baby and having them eat off the placemat, you also ensure that nothing in the restaurant gets broken.

Not only are these awesome for us, but while the waiter or waitress is typically surprised by these at first, by the end of the meal, they’re usually thankful that we brought them. When Zachary is done with a meal, we just peel up the place-mat, and it naturally catches all the extra food and mess in there, making it much easier for the restaurant to clean up.

As a kid, I always remember my mom cleaning off tables at restaurants before my younger brothers sat down to eat. Wiping down a table is still never a bad thing to do, but the disposable place-mats add another level of cleanliness. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer!

Read the rest of this article at Essential for Traveling with Babies: Disposable Placemats.

It’s located right across from Gate 15, and you take an elevator up to the club.

The club has smart, simple decor. There is hardwood throughout most of it with carpet in one of the larger spaces. The lounge attendant was extremely friendly, and she scanned my Priority Pass card. I asked her a bit about the setup of the lounge, and she told me that there were buffet items and a full bar, everything complimentary. En route to a guy’s weekend in Scottsdale, that was music to my ears. Walking down the main hallway, there’s a conference room on the left that you can reserve, but straight ahead is one of the main lounging spaces.

I plopped down at the first table on the right. There were plenty of outlets for charging, and I was happy to see that the lounge was a decent spot for plane spotting as well. Next it was time to check out the food and grab a beer.

I was there around 3PM, which is a bit of an in-between time for meals. I am not sure what their food spread looks like during breakfast, lunch, or dinner, but this was definitely a pretty substantial amount of food, but there were no hot items. You could get hummus and pita, chips, popcorn, trail mix, pretzels, a salad bar, granola bars, nuts, jelly beans, and more.

I made myself a little tray of nuts and grabbed a granola bar for the road. I dropped them off at my table, and I went to the bar. I was really impressed with the selection! The bar has two beers on tap. One was a Sierra Nevada Seasonal IPA, and the other was something that sounded less interesting to me. As I was deciding which to get, the bartender also pointed me to the bottled beer selection.

I was impressed! I actually don’t think I’ve ever been to a lounge with that much of a beer variety. Does one exist? Let me know if so. There were also four wines to choose from. If you’re more of a soda person, this lounge has a self-serve fountain, another thing that I appreciate. While having a fridge full of cans is even better, I always feel bad asking a bartender to refill my diet coke so many times in those tiny little glasses they have at most lounges. Making it self serve is much better.

After wandering around and checking the space out a bit more, I went back to my seat and relaxed with a beer while getting some work done. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t go back for a couple more.

While the Club at SJC isn’t on the same level as a Centurion Lounge, I really love having this option when I fly out of San Jose next time. I’m typically an SFO guy, but if I have to be in the South Bay for work, this lounge will definitely make my travel experience afterwards a bit more enjoyable. Have you been? What did you think?

Read the rest of this article at Airport Lounge Review: The Club at SJC.

Entrance, Check-In, and Welcome

Check-In was painless and simple. The only painful part was the $35 valet parking fee and $25 resort charge. That’s over $60 in fees per night. Yuck! Want to go low budget with self parking? You only save $8. That’s $60 in fees above the normal rate for each night. We knew about these fees in advance, but I feel like it is worth pointing them out here. The lobby of the hotel is classy, elegant, and simple. There’s a bar straight ahead and Shor, the hotel restaurant, to the left. Shor is where breakfast is served, and we ate dinner there our first night as well.

The staff did a nice job of recognizing my wife’s Hyatt Diamond Status. They noticed that she had stayed there many times in the past and welcomed her back. The hotel also honored our request to be in the main building on the ground level. Even though we chose points as our amenity, the hotel left a complimentary s’mores dessert and a fully stocked (non-alcoholic) fridge for us in the suite. Those were two great surprises!

The Suite

Our suite couldn’t have worked out better. We requested to be on the ground floor, the same as the hotel restaurant and bar, so that after our 15 month old son went down for bed, we could still go out to dinner or relax at the bar. We feel comfortable doing this only if we’re on the same floor as our son and without any physical barriers to our own hotel room. We use an iPhone baby monitoring app that works over cellular. It’s great.

Speaking of baby friendliness, our suite gave us exactly what we wanted: a separate room for our son. By having two rooms, we could have my brother and his family over for drinks in a room separate from where the baby was sleeping. We could also have the baby nap during the day while we hung out in the other room. The interesting thing about our suite, 135 + 137, is that it’s two hotel rooms joined together with a connecting door. They just took one of the rooms and turned it into a living room, rather than a hotel room.

For a more detailed view, check out my video walk-through:

One great benefit of having the suite formed by two separate rooms is that we had two bathrooms. Other than that, there really wasn’t anything remarkable about the suite. As noted in the pictures, you’re basically looking at your standard Hyatt room.

Breakfast + Dinner

Shor hosts a breakfast buffet every morning, and as a Diamond Member, you can choose from either the buffet or the a la carte menu at no charge. The buffet wasn’t massive like that of some hotels in Asia, but it did the job just fine. We mostly grabbed buffet breakfast, with the exception of the last morning, where I had Eggs Benedict.

Our first night at the hotel we had cocktails at the hotel bar, followed by dinner at Shor. Shor has a slightly pricey variety of American fare. There’s a burger, a few pastas, a steak, a few salads, etc. You should be able to find something you like, and while the food isn’t going to blow your mind, it was just fine for a night in.

Staff

The staff went above and beyond to make our trip really great. When I think back on the weekend, I can think of so many individual moments that combined to just make it a really pleasant stay. When I brought baby bottles of milk to the bar to be microwaved in the morning, they jumped at the opportunity to help. When I brought a baby bottle to be heated at night, the bar tender told me that the microwave was put away in the evenings, but she would happily steam the milk for us. The valet parkers were patient and friendly, always waiting for me to make two trips with all of our luggage. The front desk workers were great. I just felt like it was smiles around every corner, and that attitude was very much appreciated.

Layout, Grounds, Amenities

I find it funny that someone decided to build a resort-style hotel right in this location. It’s not on the beach. It’s pretty close to the Fashion Island shopping mall, UC Irvine, and some offices. If you want to go to Disneyland, it’s close-ish, but there are plenty of closer properties. There’s no point in wondering why it exists. It does. It definitely has a resort layout with multiple buildings, all a maximum of three stories, all connected with paths through well maintained grounds.

It was nice having our suite on the ground floor. We were able to open up our door and go for a stroll or let our son run around outside right in front of our room. The hotel has a pool that is nothing amazing, but if you’re coming with kids, it does have a water slide!

As it’s February, the pool at the Hyatt is closed right now.

Conclusion

I would absolutely stay here again, but it would all come down to price. If I could get a low rate, knowing that it would be inflated by about $60 / night due to parking and resort fees, then I’d stay. Our room was really nice, the grounds are nice, and we really enjoyed how attentive the staff was to just about any request we had.

Read the rest of this article at Review: Hyatt Regency Newport Beach Premium Suite.

However, with the advent of the Chase Sapphire Reserve, card holders can now directly book flights through Chase with a valuation of 1.5 cents per point. If you’re booking a relatively cheap flight and you don’t feel like dropping the cash, consider using Chase points.

Here’s an example. I needed to buy 3 one-way tickets from Missoula, Montana to San Jose, California. There was a pretty good fare on Alaska Airlines at $115.80 with a stopover in Seattle. That being said, I just didn’t really feel like paying $350 for the three tickets.

Out of curiosity, I went to United to check out how much award tickets were. United typically charges 12,500 miles for one-way tickets in the USA, but for some routes like SFO-LAX, they charge a bit less.

As expected, it would be 12,500 miles plus a fee of $30.60. If the fee seems high, it’s because United charges close-in award booking fees now. A total of 37,500 miles plus $90? Forget that! I decided to check Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan options…

With Alaska Airlines, there were plenty of options for 7,500 miles plus $6. That’s a bit more reasonable at 22,500 total miles plus $18, but I really value Alaska Airlines miles. 22,500 miles is almost half of what it takes to book this trip and then continue on with a stopover. Then I decided to take a look at just booking directly with Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

When you book with Chase points, they’re literally just redeeming your points for cash and buying the ticket from the airline. Because of this, that means you’ll actually EARN mileage, both elite qualifying and redeemable, on the flight. What did that option look like?

Check that out. The trip costs 23,160 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, which is only 660 more points than it would take to book tickets with Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan directly. Furthermore, because they’re just converting points to dollars, there are zero extra fees associated with this ticket. It gets better. I’ll earn miles on this trip. If you have elite status with an airline, the case for using Ultimate Rewards points is even furthered by the fact that since it’s just a revenue ticket to the airline, you’re fully eligible for upgrades.

Here’s a final reason I love the option of booking directly with Chase for a subset of flights. If you have a family of three or more people, it can be REALLY hard to find award inventory to book a big trip, especially when it comes to premium cabins. Most airlines just release 1 to 2 premium cabin seats per route so even if you’re incredibly aggressive with searching for award seats, you may never have a chance. If you wait for a business class fare sale and book with Chase points, there’s a chance that you’ll ues less points with Chase than you would with an airline mileage ticket, and a ticket booked with Ultimate Rewards comes with all the same benefits of booking a revenue ticket.

When would I NOT use Chase Ultimate Rewards points to book a ticket? I wouldn’t use them if the cash price of the ticket were high. The math is pretty easy. Take the price of the ticket. Multiply it by 66.66, and that’s how many miles it would cost with Chase. If the 3 seats I purchased were a total of $600, then if I were just looking to maximize point usage, it would have been smarter to use Alaska Airlines OR United Miles. Hopefully this wasn’t too confusing, but the bottom line is that I believe using Chase Ultimate Rewards points with the Chase Sapphire Reserve card can make for interesting “redemptions” on lower cost flights. Have you used them in a similar fashion?

Read the rest of this article at The Case for Booking Flights with Chase Ultimate Rewards Points.

California has gotten pounded with storms this year, and I wanted to go catch the snow while it was fresh. We recently sold one of our cars and became a single car family. My wife needs the car to get to work and take our son to the nanny. As I didn’t have a car available, enter the Bay Area Ski Bus! Bay Area Ski Bus is, as the title implies, a bus service to pick you up and take you back from Tahoe in the same day. If you do it on the weekends, it will drive you up early on Saturday, include lodging, and bring you home on Sunday.

I was planning on using the Bay Area Ski Bus on a Wednesday trip to go to Squaw Valley. The only type of ticket you can purchase is round-trip (you can pick to have your lift ticket included or go bus only), but I was planning on not taking the ride home, instead taking a free shuttle from Squaw Valley to Incline Village to meet up with my brother the next day on the slopes.

The Bay Area Ski Bus runs a schedule that goes about two weeks out, and they keep their website very regularly updated. They change up the resort they go to daily, and some days are categorized as singles only, families only,  21+, etc. There’s an itinerary listed for each trip, and you’ll have to make plans to get to a bus pickup point. A bus will typically make a few pickup stops in the Bay Area before going non-stop to Tahoe. Note that the bus does leave EARLY. My original pick-up time was 4:00AM for the trip I chose, but it ended up getting changed to 5AM.

The best way to do the bus is to arrive sleepy. Hop on the bus and plan to sleep. Then wake up when you’re close to the mountains, and get ready for a fun day on the slopes!

The seats were comfortable enough, but there isn’t a huge amount of leg room. I’m 5’10”, and I was able to get comfy, but I felt bad for my 6’3″ friend. Almost every seat had 120V power plugs, and there was a tray table as well.

Luggage, skis, and snowboards go in the bus storage underneath. It’s inaccessible during the drive, but there are some overheard storage bins that can fit backpacks.

After getting on the bus at 5AM, I was ready to go back to sleep. I had a tough time falling asleep at first. I just closed my eyes and forced it, though, and before I knew it, I was out. My eyes opened up, and the next thing I saw was the following scene outside my bus window.

Sweet, sweet snow! Around the time that I woke up, the TVs on the bus turned on, and we were watching ski videos. Meal service began. The hosts come down the aisles offering a choice of juice or water, a bagel with cream cheese, and yogurt. It’s not exactly first class dining, but if I were driving myself to Tahoe, not only would I not be able to sleep in the car, I’d also have to stop someplace to use the restroom and eat. Speaking of restrooms, I forgot to mention that there’s one in the back of the bus.

It was smooth sailing up to this point, but then literally right after I began to wonder whether or not the road to Squaw Valley would be open, the tour operators came on the intercom and announced that it was closed. They let us know that the Bay Area Ski Bus is always committed to doing their best to find some skiing, though, so we would redirect to Sugar Bowl, which was closer and easier to reach. They apologized to anyone who paid for only the bus ride and was planning on using a season pass at Squaw Valley. They also let us know that they would take care of the lift tickets for those who bought the full package (myself included) and issue a refund for the difference in lift ticket prices. I thought that was a very professional way to handle the change. This did pose a logistical problem for me, though. I was supposed to take the free shuttle from Squaw Valley to Incline Village that night. If I couldn’t get to Squaw and the storm was so bad that no Uber drivers were operating, I wouldn’t be able to get into Tahoe. I’d have to go back home to San Francisco on the bus. To make matters more interesting, my brother was already booked on the Bay Area Ski Bus the next day, which was scheduled to go to Kirkwood. After going through all my options, the only reasonable plan was to go back to San Francisco and take the same bus with him the next day back up. I called up the Bay Area Ski Bus and made a booking for the next day.

Unrelated to the Bay Area Ski Bus operation, our conditions on the mountain that day were pretty miserable. It was a windy blizzard with zero visibility. Only one small lift was open, and it didn’t take us too many runs before we decided to just bag it and go the bar at the base area and put back as many beers as we could before our ride home.

When we were done with our day, the bus had snacks and beers for everyone in the parking lot. That was great. And once on the bus, they put on two movies (Sully and Suicide Squad) for us to watch on the ride home. The only thing that irked me about the ride home was that the bus doesn’t stop for dinner anywhere. If you’re going to take the bus round trip, I’d recommend packing a few granola bars and a couple water bottles for your ride home.

Normally this would be the end of the trip report, but I was booked to do this thing again the next day! I got home at 9PM, picked up my brother at the airport, and then we crashed before getting on the bus again the next day at 4AM. This time the bus was scheduled to go to Kirkwood. Just like the day before, I passed out on the bus, and I awoke when we were in snow country. Haha and just like yesterday, it was dumping snow, and the road to Kirkwood was closed. AWESOME. Just like the previous day, we re-routed. We were able to go to Sierra at Tahoe instead, and it turned out to be more than fine. This time my brother and I were for sure not going to take the bus home. The snow was supposed to let up, and then we would take the free shuttle from Sierra to South Lake Tahoe to stay there. Breakfast service was the same as the day before, and we pulled up to Sierra ready to go.

Unlike the previous day, this day turned out to be amazing on the mountain. The snow stopped falling by 10AM, and there were feet upon feet of fresh snow on the mountain. Even though we opted not to take the ski bus home, we stopped by the bus to get our bags and enjoy a bit of aprés ski refreshments before taking our shuttle to South Lake Tahoe. They were grilling up hot dogs, icing beers, and had a variety of other snacks for us. It was a nice little party.

I mean call me a beer snob, but Budweiser? Bud Heavy? Who drinks that? Sigh… Fiiiiine. Give me one.

All in all, I really recommend the Bay Area Ski Bus for those in the Bay Area who want to get a day in at Tahoe. It’s nice to not have to drive your own car and be able to catch up on sleep. The company is really well run, and if there are any changes in schedule, they do a great job of informing their guests. Let me know if you have any questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Read the rest of this article at Review and Trip Report: Bay Area Ski Bus.

Katy suggested that we get a travel stroller, and she put me on the hunt to do as much research as possible. She initially wanted an “umbrella stroller.” If you’re not familiar with that style of stroller, it folds up long and skinny, kind of like an umbrella. These are apparently great for travel. That being said, you still have to check them on an airplane. You can roll them down the jet bridge, but at the end of jet bridge, your stroller is at the mercy of baggage handlers. I was like, “Wait… we spent nearly a thousand dollars on our last stroller, which was supposed to be some amazing gift to all baby havers, and now we need to buy a ‘travel stroller,’ but this travel stroller still needs to be checked?” There must be something better! I didn’t want to buy ANOTHER stroller if it wouldn’t be able to come on the plane with us.

As it turns out, there are a select few travel strollers that fold up small enough to fit in an overhead bin! I did a lot of research, and we settled on the 2016 Mountain Buggy Nano. My detailed report follows, and you can check out my video review below as well.

If you read stroller reviews on the internet, you’ll find that most of them are on mommy blogs. There’s nothing wrong with those sites, but with the exception of one site that I’m a particularly big fan of, most of those reviewers aren’t road warriors. This site’s readers are, though, and that’s why this review comes after not only a 3 week trip across the world, but also after over six months of sustained use. How do I like our Mountain Buggy Nano? I’ll skip to the point. I love it.

I guess I should start with it in its closed position. It comes with a form fitting cloth cover. It’s not going to protect your stroller if you throw it around, but it does keep everything nice and compact. Although, in mentioning throwing the bag around, I think I hinted at one of the strollers main benefits. It’s LIGHT. At just 13 lbs, you could absolutely throw this little compact bundle across the room. There’s no way I could throw our 27.5 pound Uppababy Vista across the room. When it’s in its case, it measures to be approximately 20″ x 12″ x 22″. This is super small. It fits in overhead bins on planes! When we were crammed into small hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Hong Kong, we were able to put it under the table while we ate. We had Zachary in his fast chair, which clips onto a table, and we were happy that the chair fit in the storage area of the stroller. Taking the bag off is pretty easy. Undo a piece of velcro and pull it off. Opening it is simple as well. There’s a piece of velcro that holds the canopy down. Undo that, lift the handle, and watch the magic unfold in front of you.

I find the opened stroller to look very handsome, and it comes in a few colors. We went with red. The seat for the baby has four straps – two on the side and two over the shoulder – to keep the baby in. I actually find the harness system more secure than that of our Uppababy Vista. With just one button press in the middle, all four snaps release. The canopy that covers the baby’s head seemed more than adequate to us, even if it doesn’t extend quite as far as those of the larger strollers. One thing I was really impressed with was the recline, both in terms of ease of adjustment as well as how far it reclined. We did a lot of site-seeing on our trip, and our son would often fall asleep. If he did, we would just slowly loosen the straps to let the seat recline, and then we would cover the stroller with a thin, muslin blanket to block light / commotion from Zachary.

In terms of using it around the city, it’s certainly noticeable that the wheels are smaller than a full size stroller. If you’re on cobblestone streets or something like that, both you and the baby will feel it more, but we really found it to be more than acceptable. If you’re in a more modern city or in the suburbs with smooth roads, it’s just as good as a larger stroller. The baby was totally comfortable and never had any issue transitioning from his larger stroller to this one. In fact, his seat seemed quite roomy, but considering that he’s still not even a year old, most strollers will seem roomy for this little man!

The storage basket of the stroller is surprisingly large as well! It’s nowhere near as large as a full size stroller’s basket, but we were able to easily fit Zachary’s folded up chair, a couple jackets, and some souvenirs. We also hung a stroller caddy off the back to hold water bottles, phones, and maps. Actually this is another great thing about the stroller. If you have a caddy on the back, you can still fold the stroller up without removing it. This is very useful. It would have been an extra hassle if we had to constantly take that thing off when we folded the stroller up.

Also, this stroller has stood up to some pretty good wear and tear. It’s been taken across the world on multiple flights, it’s been used on old cobblestone streets, it’s been used to stroll 5+ miles per day for around 10 out of 15 days in a row, it’s been splashed on poolside, etc. Honestly it still looks fantastic.

Even when not vacationing, we end up using this stroller a fair amount in our day to day life. If we’re going to go for a stroll to the park or to the store, we’ll use our standard, larger stroller. If we’re going to drive someplace and we’re not sure if we’ll need a stroller or not, we avoid the hassle of having to pack up the giant Vista. Instead, we just toss this in the car, and if we don’t end up using it, we don’t feel stupid for putting something large in the car.

Oh and I started this review by saying that one of my favorite features of this stroller is that it supposedly fits in overhead bins. I was nervous the first time I tried…. All data pointed to it not being an issue, but I was just a bit nervous when I first lifted it up to go overhead. It turns out I had nothing to be nervous about. It fits like a glove! While it’s slightly wider than a rollaboard suitcase, it’s not as tall / deep. It’s a very easy fit.

What are the negatives of this stroller? Well, I suppose one negative is that you have to buy it. While that may sound like I’m joking, many families only buy a single stroller… The idea of spending a $249 on a second stroller may not be very appealing. That being said, parents know that you’ll spend a little extra money to make your life easier, and this device certainly does that.

All in all, I wholeheartedly recommend this stroller. If you have any questions, just leave a comment, and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Read the rest of this article at Review: Mountain Buggy Travel Stroller Nano 2016 Edition.