Travel Tuesday: What’s New in Vegas?

We’d not been to Las Vegas in more than a year and half and part of the reason was that from McCarran Airport to The Strip, it was becoming a comfortable -- but an almost too predictable -- travel experience.

Not so, this trip! What a difference a bit of time makes. . .

McCarran International Airport - Las Vegas, Nevada

We had a slightly disconcerting moment as we entered the concourse from the jet way; had it not been for the slot machines, we would have almost thought we’d arrived at the wrong place.  There was nothing familiar or predictable, about this airport!

The new wing in which we found ourselves opened a year ago in July 2012.  Its now wide, sleek hallway is interspersed with moving walkways, retail outlets andtempting eateries.

There are numerous easy access points to  the lower baggage claim area and ground transportation. (yea!).








And The Strip also had several surprises including:

Where once stood the Imperial Palace Casino and Resort (across from Caesar’s Forum Shops), we found The Quad. From reviews on TripAdvisor it sounds as though the revamping of the old hotel is still a work in progress. For those of you who saw the Australian group, Human Nature, performing on stage there, don't despair. You can now see them at The Venetian.

To the side of The Quad, Caesars Entertainment is reshaping the the Vegas Strip with The LINQ, a 200,000 square-foot open-air retail, dining and entertainment district, anchored by what they claim to be the world's tallest observation wheel, known as the High Roller (that’s its beginning in the photo below).

Construction begins on High Roller - Las Vegas

Developers say “the High Roller at 550 feet and measuring 520 feet in diameter, will eclipse both the London Eye and Singapore Flyer. Facing north and south (parallel to Las Vegas Boulevard), the wheel will feature 28 glass-enclosed cabins that will unveil broad views of the famed-resort city in the 30 minutes it takes to complete one full revolution. Each cabin will accommodate up to 40 people and will be available for individual or group experiences.”

We even encountered this new centerpiece on display outside the Encore Theater, at Wynn/Encore, where we were staying. Some of you might recognize the piece by Jeff Koons, as the one that was previously on display outside Christie’s (Auction House) Gallery at Rockefeller Center, New York City.
The piece was made in five versions over a time period spanning 1995 – 2004 and is the culmination of Koons’ “Celebration Series”. Tulips, says the creator, are a symbol of spring, hope and fertility.

As the story goes (in the in-house Wynn Magazine publication) the piece was auctioned last November 2012 and the highest bid was from a telephone bidder by the name of Steve Wynn (owner of the resort).

The small print on the sign in the first photo above says, “Price available upon request.”  We were told  that if it doesn’t sell, it will be moved to the rotunda of Cotai, Wynn’s new resort/casino opening in Macau, China.

If you are interested in buying the piece, I should tell you, that we were also told that Wynn wants a bit more for it than what he paid.

His purchase price was $33,682,500.  

By the way, if you do buy it, let him know that we sent you – it’s a gamble, but we might even get a free overnight stay (in Macau, we hope) as result!

That’s it for this Travel Tuesday – thanks for joining us today. Hope you'll be back Thursday and  that you'll recommend us to others as well!

Travel Tuesday: A Vegas Room with a View. . .

After being somewhat regular ‘sun seekers’ to this Nevada hot spot (figuratively and literally) we’ve recently had so many other places on our ‘travel bucket list’ that we hadn’t made it back here for a year and a half.   Until last week. . . when we stayed at Encore, a resort on the northern end of the town’s famous, Strip. It is a sister resort to Wynn, which is pictured below.

Our view from Encore’s 51st floor was nothing short of spectacular (and for those inquiring minds out there, we did pay an additional $30 a night over the standard room rate, for the room on a higher floor that provided us this view – but it was worth it in our estimation).  When the mercury topped out in the triple digits, we sat in air-conditioned comfort and gazed at this view.

One morning we were amazed to watch these two workmen ease their scaffolding past our window, so very high up on this building that it made me nauseous just taking the photo.

A few hours later, what went down earlier in the already hot morning, came back up again in the hotter afternoon.  These two and so many other unsung heroes of the hospitality industry do the work that keeps travelers like us wrapped in cozy, comfortable digs.

We are guilty of taking such work for granted until we witness such hair-raising scenes as this.  Today I wanted to take a moment to honor – and thank -- all those behind-the-scenes folks (we were told Wynn/Encore alone employs some 12,000 employees) who made our stay such a treat!

Have you had any similar sightings on your travels? Or moments that made you pause to think about all the behind-the-scenes folks? 

As always, thanks for your visit today; we hope to see you back again as regulars and definitely on Thursday for our weekly travel photo fest!

Vegas Odds: Lucky number. . . “60!”

The precise hour isn’t important, but at some point today right here in the heart of Las Vegas my biological clock started clanging, “60!” -- just like slot machines do with big wins!

I chose to be in this city known for odds making, when I rolled the birthday dice this year because I knew they’d land on ‘60’ – hopefully marking the start of a winner of a decade filled with all sorts of travel jackpots.

Birthday Travels

Traveling for my birthday actually began at age 10 when I traveled to Meridian, Idaho, then a distant suburb of – and now contiguous to Boise. I stayed with an aunt and uncle – all by myself! They owned a bakery – note that cake. . .lucky me!!!

My 40th birthday marked the beginning of the end of our conventional life – another lucky roll of the dice. We were DINKS – double incomes, no kids – and we owned homes in Mexico where I celebrated the big birthday. Those same homes prompted us to quit our 8 – 5 work lives for this vagabond lifestyle we now lead.

As those of you who read this blog regularly know, I chose to return to Greece this April/May for my 60th birthday gift.  And you know, that it was such an incredible trip – an incredible gift – that we are already planning a return next year. . .

Upper Left: Age 10 Meridian, Idaho; age 40 in Bucerias Mexico,
and to the right,  Elounda, Crete in April celebrating  the coming 60

The Birthday and The Travel Bucket List

While I feel no different than yesterday and somewhat younger than I did at age 40, the reality is that the travel window opening narrows just a bit more with each passing year.

We find ourselves contemplating a re-shuffle of  our travel bucket list . . . items like hiking Crete’s Samaria Gorge and pack horse camping in the North Cascade’s of Washington State, have moved up considerably higher. The ‘let’s do someday’ we are now changing to ‘in next couple years’. 

We’ve even heard ourselves say, “Let’s do this while we are able. . .” Yikes! When did we start talking  like that? We used to say, " We have to go there someday. . ."

But, for today, I am in the Land of Lady Luck, soaking up as much of the devil-may-care, roll-the-dice atmosphere as possible because I am betting on lucky number 60! Not just for today, but for the coming decade as well.

That’s it for Travel Tuesday. Thanks for coming along with us. If you’ve not signed up to receive our posts in your inbox please do so (it’s free and we don’t SPAM) or . . .
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Travel Tuesday: Christmas in July

We meet some of the most interesting people when we travel.

Many times, it is while sitting at a bar during Happy Hour.  Like that evening in Hawaii . . .

 Doug and Carla Scott, were sitting a couple bar stools away from us one evening at  Chuck’s Restaurant on the Ko Olina property on the western shores of O’ahu, Hawaii. 

While sipping our Happy Hour Mai Tai’s, I overheard Doug  tell someone they were sailing to Fiji.

Because we are heading that way ourselves this fall, I asked about the cruise line they’d be taking.

Silly me!  These people are sailing themselves to Fiji.

As is the case when strangers, who share a passion for travel meet, the conversation continued long past Happy Hour.

Doug and Carla Scott

These two nautical vagabonds met and married in Oregon. In fact, the first time they sailed together was on the Columbia River. Then their work lives took them to landlocked Albuquerque, New Mexico for the next 18 years.

Leaving the Conventional Life Behind

Just as we decided to jump ship and leave the conventional world behind for our Mexico adventure and subsequent life of travel, you might say they jumped to a ship and left  the conventional world behind.

Moondance

They didn't shake their sailing 'bug' in the high desert and by 1988 were researching sailboats; they also had decided to sell  ‘almost everything’ and buy one.  In 2000 they found Moondance, a blue water cruiser for two, (pictured above) had her shipped to California and lived aboard her for eight years getting ready to begin the life of cruisers.

After leaving San Francisco in 2008, they spent a year and a half sailing around the Sea of Cortez and by February 2011 were in Banderas Bay on Mexico’s west coast preparing for the Puddle Jump to French Polynesia.

In April 2011 they spent 22 days sailing to the South Pacific; they spent seven months there exploring Marquesas, Tuamotus and Society Islands, Moorea, Huahine, and Bora Bora. The photo above was taken at Tuamotus Bay.

They arrived at the Ko Olina Marina in January 2012 and decided to make it home for the next year and a half. 

Our chance Mai Tai encounter happened at the end of their stay, just as they were beginning preparations to head out again for the South Pacific.

The four of us planned to continue our conversation while we were all at Ko Olina  (we were at our Marriott timeshare home) but never quite managed to get in more than a brief chat . . .usually during that popular Chuck’s Happy Hour.

But we’ve stayed in touch and are now following Doug and Carla as they are sailing to the South Pacific.

They’ve sailed 1,200 miles from Hawaii to Fanning Island and on July 4th arrived at Christmas Island, both part of the Republic of Kiribati  made up of  33 islands spread over 2,400 miles.

If their story has sparked your wanderlust, check out their blog, by clicking this link:  Following Moondance for their tales of the South Pacific.

That’s it for Travel Tuesday the day we feature either tips or tales about people and places! If it is your first visit, we hope to have you return soon. And to our many regulars – thanks so much for continuing to travel with us!

Travel Tuesday: Remembering Prescott, Arizona

Travel makes the world smaller. It turns places on a map into people; their kindness and your experiences remembered long after the trip has ended.

Prescott’s Courthouse Square – gathering place for families and friends

For that reason, our hearts today are back in Prescott, Arizona.  Our travels have taken us to this warm and welcoming town three times in the last two years.  Prescott is a vibrant college town draped in old west history about an hour and a half north of Phoenix.

By now, you’ve probably heard of it. Prescott has been in both national and international headlines the last two days because the community is mourning the deaths of 19 firefighters based here – 14 of whom were in their 20’s. They were highly trained members of an elite team, known as  “Hotshots” and were killed on Sunday while battling a blaze that today continues to defy efforts to contain it.

So on this Travel Tuesday we want to pay tribute to this wonderful town, while joining with countless others who are sending prayers and condolences to the entire community.

Prescott captures you with its old west hospitality.  No matter who you meet there or why, there’s a warm feeling about the memory of that encounter. 

For example, one evening last December we paused to look at the menu posted at a café near the Square. We chatted with the owner briefly, saying we’d already eaten.

The next morning though we returned and she called out, “Oh, it’s good to see you two again! Glad you came back for breakfast!!” (It was a hearty plate of Huevos Rancheros we were served, I might add.)






It is a town that normally this time of year is focused on its July 4th rodeo.  They’ve held one here every year for more than 125 years.  This monument to rodeo riders is outside its City Hall. 


The town’s filled with public art that is  touching and whimsical – you never know what you might discover when strolling its sidewalks or entering a store.

These two were inside a small mall, and we found the delightful fellow below guess where?

Outside the public library!

You might recall a post I wrote about Prescott last December when I declared it PC: Pure Christmas!  Prescott is Arizona’s self-proclaimed Christmas City and we believed them after watching one of several Christmas parades they have each December!

What really struck us was the ‘neighborliness’ of the townsfolk. Although a vibrant, growing community there still exists a small town feel; the kind where neighbors know each other – they celebrate the good times and help each other through the bad. 

And that may be what helps this town get through the coming days.


How You Can Help:
A Facebook page has been created honoring the firefighters. Click the link and ‘like’ the page.
NBC News Los Angeles reported on several ways to donate to funds for the firefighters’ families. Click the link for article.
Huffington Post has also listed ways to donate. Click the link.

Summer in Scottsdale? Say, Spa-aahh!

The  air was thick – a 111-degree blanket enveloped us – as we made our way across the expansive grounds of the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess to the resort’s Well & Being at Willow Stream Spa, an air-conditioned 44,000 square-foot oasis of health and beauty. A place so large, there’s a greeter who escorts you to your destination within its spacious confines. It’s like a resort within a resort.

 

The Well & Being concept -- introduced just last January -- combines health, wellness, nutrition, integrative medicine, skin care and fitness. Folks here say they are the first luxury resort in the United States to implement such a comprehensive approach.

So health-serious are they, there’s a full-time doctor (a real M.D.) on staff at the spa. 

We toured the facility that offers a demonstration kitchen and workout areas as well as some 30 treatment and consultation rooms, (some of which open  to the patio pictured above). We watched a class doing exercises on surf board machines while a video of waves was projected on a large screen behind them.

 

One feature neither of us were inclined to try was the Aerial Yoga where yoga poses are done (think upside down yoga) with the support of these suspended cloth slings (which, they say, allow for greater stretching).

Say Spa-ahhh. . .

Following the tour I headed to the large and luxurious dressing/locker room and, while sipping some Prickly Pear lemonade, suited up in a fluffy robe and slippers. I was about to have my first-ever facial. Rose Marie, an aesthetician who’s worked here for 11 years, introduced me to its wonders.

Because I’d never had a facial before  I chose it over a list of seemingly endless spa treatments.  Mine, a 90-minute treatment, began with an up-close and personal face photo (Brace yourselves! The images on that computer below are me and quite frightening). The two images, Rose Marie said, show sun damage and capillaries – I think they showed age as well!

The ‘reality show’ was followed by applications of  the ‘lotions and potions’. It was a botanical bonanza that included, but not limited to, an aloe cleansing, mists of lavender honey and rose geranium, a sweet cherry enzyme peel and a carrot seed soothing serum.  . .you get the idea. . .

 

One thing to keep in mind about spa treatments in resort settings like this one, is the cost of the treatment gives you access to all the other spa amenities and features on the day of your treatment (come early, stay late; a resort within a resort). 

Here those amenities include: steam rooms, saunas, a eucalyptus inhalation rooms, a private rooftop pool, and a three-story therapeutic waterfall, inspired by the real thing in the Grand Canyon, Havasupai Falls.

If you are like The Scout and not ‘in to’ spa treatments,  you can purchase a day pass here to use the non-treatment facilities.  (Free access is included with those booking the Fairmont Gold option).

TravelnWrite regulars will recall we nabbed a good deal on November’s Black Friday for our stay here last December. The new spa concept was introduced about a month after our visit. Now that we’ve tried it, we can’t imagine a stay that  didn’t include significant time at their Well and Being Willow Stream.

The Scottsdale Spa Experience

Whether a long-time spa enthusiast or a newbie to the spa world, summer in Scottsdale is the time you’ll find both great hotel rates and good deals on spa packages and treatments.

To see a few of this summer’s deals: click on Experience Scottdale’s link:  Summer Spa Series

For information about the Well & Being at Willow Stream Spa, www.scottsdaleprincess.com or call 480-585-2732.

An example of their Seasonal Offerings is this, one of  their June specials:

• 45-Minute Treatments Monday - Thursday
  Need a quick mid-week spa fix? Choose from these 45-minute energizing spa treatments designed for the person on the go. Available Monday – Thursday all day long. 45-minute Energizer Massage or Customized Facial. $129 each

That’s it for this week’s Travel Tip Tuesday!
If you have a tip about spa treatments or where to find deals that you’d like to share with other readers, please write a comment in the section below or send us an email to travelnwrite@msn.com   Small print: We want to thank the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess for hosting our spa visit and treatment.

If you’ve not yet signed up to receive TravelnWrite posts, please do so on the blog’s home page, top right hand corner.  If you want to follow us on Facebook, click this link!  And, as always, thanks for stopping by today!

Travel Technology: 'Lloyd the Droid' does Europe

Let me be quite upfront about this post:  it doesn’t have tips for great apps nor for enhancing photos.

This is a reality travel post written by traveling ‘techno-dino’s’  for “techno-dino’s” (those who are several leap-years behind current technology). If you are teetering on the edge, not sure whether to ‘take the plunge”  or if you took the plunge and find yourself in a whole new world, this post’s for you.



It is about that colorful little guy above, “Lloyd the Droid”, the newest addition to our travel team ~ the smart phone we acquired 10 days before setting off for Greece.  We finally gave in to society’s pressures and friends’encouragements (not to mention the lure of all those apps that would enhance our travels and even better, save us money).

Shortly after bringing this ‘being’ home (smart phones didn’t get that name out of thin air, they aren’t phones, they are little brains packaged into small metal and glass casing)– I named our Droid, Lloyd.

Our little gifted one has so many talents (sorry about the bragging, but you know how it is. . .) include an ability to talk: he calls out “Droid!” in a croak much like a frog to alert me to a new FB post (sometimes I think he just likes to hear himself talk). Lloyd corrects me when I tried writing with him (sometimes choosing words that aren’t correct, but he never gives up) and the little fellow even responds to our voice commands to write text messages, find a web site or make calls for us!

And then came our trip to Greece and Amsterdam. . .

1. First thing our service provider advised, cautioned, warned and admonished us to do was to turn off half of Lloyd’s features as we boarded the plane – all mobile data was shut off to assure we wouldn’t have those astronomical charges based on international roaming. 

So, we had no phone nor text ability until our return, but we had Lloyd! 

The only time we could have used a phone was at the Amsterdam airport  to connect with our waiting driver and that resulted in some Keystone Cop type antics before linking up. When we finally met up, he suggested we get a phone to use while traveling. Sigh.

(We had purchased an add-on package that allowed us to make calls at some still-ridiculously-high cost in case of emergency – thankfully, we didn’t need to activate that plan nor did finding the driver constitute an emergency.)



2. Lloyd is equipped with GPS – but that also proved to irrelevant as we found ourselves in the midst of the Peloponnese and Crete, on narrow, looping roads that took us into, up, down, and around mountainous areas – places way beyond GPS connections.We used a paper map – in Greek/English (so that we could ‘read’ the road signs).

A fellow traveler in the Peloponnese from North Carolina rented a car equipped with GPS. She reported that it kept calling out, “Turn left ahead” as soon as they left the major freeway. (It wasn’t just Lloyd).

3.  Lloyd was a great backup for internet access.  We checked emails, Facebook and used other social media and the few travel applications we had loaded. (Lloyd did take photos – although limited in style and technique –and it was simple loading those to FB and/or Twitter. If I could do it, any techno-dino could!)



By taking our Netbook (which I used for writing and posting) and Lloyd on which Joel could check the internet – we cut our computer time in half, giving us more time for travel. Sharing the Netbook always required one of us to be in the ‘waiting’ mode.

Note to you writers out there: Lloyd is great for consuming information – he will never replace the computer keyboard for producing written communication or the camera for photos.



4.  Finding those great deals : we did book a room using Lloyd during our trip.  For these two old techno dino’s with fat fingers, it was a laborious and irritating process – we hope our skills improve over time, because. . .
There are hotel and other travel deals being offered to ‘mobile app’ users – savings of up to 10% in some cases and in others, offering ridiculously cheap last minute hotel rates. (Expedia and Hotel Tonight, among them).
As for Lloyd. . .he’s part of the family now. We won't be leaving home without him.

Are you a techno-dino who took the plunge? What were your experiences?

Tuesday Travel Classics: The Majestic Hotel

Our Travel Classics feature takes us back to the United States’ Pacific Northwest this weekend for a stay at The Majestic Inn and Spa in Anacortes, Washington. . .

Telling friends that we celebrated The Scout’s birthday a few weeks ago at this charmer in the middle of the Historic District in Anacortes, a city about an hour and a half north of Seattle, their response is the same: 

“Anacortes? Isn’t that where you catch the ferry to the San Juans and Victoria, B.C.?”

One and the same! 

But if you’ve only driven to the ferry, you’ve missed some great Northwest history and a true Travel Classic hotel.

One of our favorite places in this wood-framed charmer -- that houses a spa, bar, restaurant and meeting rooms -- is its teeny-tiny top where there’s a surprisingly spacious sitting room for the use of guests.  From its comfy chairs there’s a 360-degree view that takes in a bit of the San Juan islands, Guemes Channel, the town’s sprawling commercial district and its Cap Sante Marina.

The hotel building dates back to the late 1800’s; a time during which the town was booming with hopes of being the transcontinental railroad terminus.  Staff members told us that this enormous building was moved to its present location in the early 1900’s from one several blocks away. The move, done by horse teams pulling the building on log skids, spanned an entire summer.

Guest rooms have been modernized and an elevator carries guests to all but the top, the fifth, floor these days. 

We’d opted for one of the favored corner rooms on the top floor which required climbing a flight of stairs. . .but the room and its deck made that climb worth it.

(It was too cold to sit outside but we often stepped outside to enjoy the view from our perch high above town. That’s our deck just on the roof line.)


Our room, one of 21 in the hotel, had a sitting area and wet bar with small refrigerator, television, and en suite bath.

A French press coffee maker was provides and the front desk provided as many packets of fresh ground coffee as we wanted.

We paid $147, plus tax, for a mid-week stay in February. Rates on this room can go as high as $309 in mid-summer (and these corner view rooms go fast).

The hotel’s popularity has prompted the construction of an annex, scheduled to be opened in late Spring 2013.  We suspect those rooms will also be luxurious, but we’ll be opting for the old building every chance we get.

What's there to do in Anacortes? Come back on the weekend when our travels will take us out and about in this charming waterfront town and nearby Guemes Island  in our WAWeekend series.

If You Go:

The Majestic Inn and Spa, 419 Commercial Ave., Anacortes, 98221, toll-free 877-370-0100, www.majesticinnandspa.com

Have a Travel Classic to recommend? Use the comment section below or if you’ve received this in your inbox, send us a quick email. Happy Travels and thanks for stopping by today!