Radisson Boston - hotel review

October. Boston.


OK, you know the setting. My friend and I were trying to figure out where to stay in Boston. I'd never been before and so knew nothing about the city. I thought it might be nice to stay close to the Berklee Performance Center since we were going to see a show there. Well, it turns out that since it was kinda close to Fenway Park in the middle of the Boston Red Sox's pennant run, rooms were a bit difficult to find and fairly expensive to boot. We'd be sharing the room, so that halved the cost, but that didn't mean we wanted to pay the price of one regular room for just our share of the room.

We found a hotel that we thought might suit our needs, but then my friend ended up getting a really good deal at the Radisson Hotel Boston because of her membership.

The hotel has a parking structure, though the spaces themselves and the layout of the multi-floored structure were a bit odd. We arrived about mid-afternoon and drove around a bit before finding a space. There's an elevator in the structure that takes you down to the main floor, and then you have to enter other doors to get into the lobby of the hotel. At one point during our stay, when it was a bit later at night, we discovered that the doors from the parking elevator to the lobby were closed, so we had to go around to the valet parking entrance to get inside the lobby.

And there are stairs everywhere - coming in from the parking elevator, there's a couple steps down to get to the elevator area for the hotel itself, and then a few more steps to get to the main lobby area and then yet more steps to get to the reservation desks. Being from California where wheelchair accessibility is fairly common, it was a bit odd to encounter so many steps (which we noticed because we were pulling our rolling luggage) as that would not be wheelchair friendly at all, but then Boston is a much older city, and I expect this hotel has been around for a while.

The room itself was very nice, with two beds - I can't remember if they were doubles or queens. There was a little balcony area outside the room that we peeked at.



The view from the balcony. No, I have no idea what the view is of.



The view looking in a different direction. I'm not sure that the water from the harbor is readily visible in this picture. You could tell when looking out the window.


The room was clean and comfortable and suitable for our needs. The showerhead in the bathroom was extremely high up, so it was pretty much raining on me when I took a shower, but I find that a lot of hotels are set up that way. Too bad for us short people who don't prefer to be rained on.


The hotel ended up being fairly conveniently situated. We had a lovely dinner at Rustic Kitchen, which is pretty much right next door, across the covered driveway, and the hotel site even refers to Rustic Kitchen as on-site dining. Then just a couple blocks away, there's the lovely Finale. And the nearest subway entrance is only a couple blocks away as well, so that's convenient for travelling around Boston. We ended up taking a cab to Berklee, and that worked out just fine.

I will admit that I have no idea what the regular pricing is on the room, but I definitely would consider staying at the Radisson again on a future visit.

Thanks to Sherry for letting me share her room with her.




Radisson Hotel Boston
200 Stuart Street
Boston, MA 02116
1-800-395-7046
(617) 482-1800

space (hotel) ... the final frontier

Wanna stay in a hotel that's out of this world, literally? Well, you're going to have the chance in just a couple of years. Yeah, it'll cost you a bit though. The article doesn't say if meals are included during the three-night stay. Or if a bed is included for that matter.

Personally, there's about as much chance of me wanting to stay in a space hotel at this point in time as there is of me spending a night at the ice hotel.

Travelodge Cathedral City - hotel review

We had occasion to be in Palm Desert for a show, and not wanting to make the drive back home that night, we decided to stay locally. The last time we did this, we ended up at a Marriott vacation club at a really inexpensive price. We weren't quite as lucky this time, so we ended up at the Travelodge in Cathedral City for a really good price. There are a number of cities that are very close to each other, so we weren't that far away from where we'd be having dinner and seeing the show.

We parked and checked in, and while we were in the lobby, another couple came in looking for a room, and the clerk told them that they were completely sold out, as were most hotels in the area because there was a golf tournament and a number of other events going on that weekend, so we were lucky that we booked early enough not only to have a room at all, but to get one for such a good price - even the clerk commented on the great low price we'd gotten.

I'm used to motels having room access doors on the outside, so I was surprised that such was not the case in this instance. The clerk directed us to go to a door on the complex and said that our room key would open the door, which led to the corridors down which the interior room doors were located. Our room was on the second floor.

The hotel ended up working out really well for us. We didn't really need any amenities since we really just needed somewhere to sleep. We weren't in the room very much. The husband appreciated that the room had an iron and ironing board, and we were only in the room long enough to get changed, and then we were off to dinner and the show, and we didn't return until much later that evening. We were in the room mostly just to sleep for the night, and we were up and gone by about 10am the next morning.

I'm not sure if the hotel has a pool or any other amenities like that since we had no interest in it. There was really no view to speak of from our room - I think it was the back of the building next door. The hotel had a sign outside about being renovated, and the place didn't look completely run down, but there were various rips in the carpet, and I think the elevator to the second floor wasn't working. None of that really bothered us since we didn't need a place with frills.

They do offer free WiFi in the room, which the husband knew because he'd seen it on the website, but there was nothing in the room that indicated they had free WiFi. The husband tried to get to it, and then he called the front desk, and the clerk gave him the password needed to get into the network. I just thought it was really weird that nothing in the room even mentioned the WiFi and there was nothing to tell you that you needed to get the password from the front desk.

If you're going to be spending some time at the hotel or want a nicer place with better amenities, this probably isn't the place for you. But if you just want a clean, inexpensive, convenient place to stay, I think this place works fine.




Travelodge
67-495 Highway 111
(Golf Club Drive & Eagle Canyon Way)
Cathedral City, CA 92234
(760) 328-2616

Tropicana Hotel and Casino - hotel review

When we've spent time in Las Vegas, we've stayed at various hotels for various reasons. I'm not one to be willing to pay large amounts of money to stay in a fancy hotel if I'm not going to be doing much more than using the room for sleeping. If I'm going to be spending time in the hotel or using their amenities, then that's a different situation, but to me, it doesn't make sense to pay for a multitude of luxuries that you're never going to use.

On our recent trip over Easter weekend to Las Vegas, we decided we didn't want to stay at one of the nicer hotels because we were going to be busy and not spending much time in the hotel. With the holiday weekend and spring break and the NCAA tournament, prices were higher than normal. However, we knew that we wanted to be near Las Vegas Blvd. and Tropicana, since that area was where we'd be spending a lot of time, so after finding a good deal on a room at the Tropicana, we decided to stay there. The hotel is on the fourth corner that includes MGM, New York New York and Excalibur, so it's a terrific location.

We drove from the airport to the hotel, and immediately, you could tell it was an older hotel, which in and of itself wasn't a problem. However, a lot of the escalators in the hotel weren't working, and from the looks of it, they hadn't been running for some time. There was a lot about the place that also seemed very run-down. Down one hallway on the way to the parking area, there were some nice black-and-white photos of Las Vegas' early days which were interesting to look at. I understand that the Tropicana is one of the oldest hotels on the strip - I'm just not sure it should look so obviously like one of the oldest hotels on the strip.

The decor of our room was bamboo-themed but the theming extended to everything, including the dresser and the walls, so that was a bit much. Our room ended up being in a wing at the far end of the hotel, so we had to walk the gauntlet of merchandising carts/kiosks every time we went back and forth to the room, and it was also fairly far away from the parking.

The view out the window of our room gave us the Hooters Hotel and Casino on one side and a nearby church on the other side, so I thought that was pretty funny. When in hotels, we've become accustomed to having some kind of refrigerator so that we can get some water and other drinks and keep them cold. Since the room did not already have a refrigerator, the husband called the front desk to ask for one. "What do you want it for?" was the question he was asked. Ummm, to put things inside to keep cold? What do most people want a refrigerator for? To make toast? To put their shoes in? The person asked if we needed it for medication, and we said no, so he said ok, they're going to have to charge us. Ummm, ok. From that part of the conversation, I'm presuming that if we *had* wanted it for medication, then they wouldn't have charged us, but since we just wanted it for normal, ordinary refrigeratory stuff, they would charge us. Ok.

One of the worst parts of our stay was that at the bottom of the stairs leading to and from the casino floor were people working for Tahiti Village, and they were VERY AGGRESSIVE every time you walked by. They were very intrusive and on several occasions, even belligerent if you didn't stop and talk to them, all the while playing the "but I'm just trying to give you something nice for free" card. No, actually, you're verbally assaulting me several times a day. It's one thing to get that on the street (not to mention the other bank of Tahiti Village people right outside the hotel) when so many people are handing our flyers and trying to get you into their show, but I didn't expect to have to deal with that in my hotel. I guess it's worth whatever money Tahiti Village pays the Tropicana for them to allow the people to assault their own customers. If I had ever wanted to even consider looking at Tahiti Village, the behaviour of their reps would turn me away. Besides, why would I do something Tanya Roberts wants me to do?

I don't envision ever staying there again, given the combination of the state of the hotel, the long walk to and from the room, and the obnoxious Tahiti Village people assaulting you at every turn, making a bad start and end to your day. If we need to stay in that part of the city, we'll spend the little bit more to stay at one of the other hotels.

Of course, then there's the question of how much longer the hotel might be there. I happened upon this news story last week that the owner of the Tropicana Hotels in Las Vegas and Atlantic City has filed for bankruptcy. It's a bit interesting that the branch in Atlantic City lost their gaming license several months ago and so the property is in the process of being sold.

Maybe someone can come in and buy the place and renovate it so that it's "classic" and not just "old".