Which hotels were worth it
My job, loosely defined, is traveling the world in search of fun and value.
I recently stumbled upon five years of hotel receipts — a long, strange, global list. Some nights cost as little as $71, some as much as $631. The cheapest lodgings weren’t the best bargains; the costliest weren’t the worst.
Here, from cheapest to priciest, is an annotated look at hotel bills from Buellton to Belgium.
Pea Soup Andersen’s Inn, Buellton, Calif.
Cost: $71 a night
Stay: One night, September 2012. Pea Soup Andersen’s Inn, in the middle of Santa Barbara County’s wine country, is a throwback to the days of 29-cent-a-gallon gas. Clean rooms, heated pool, putting green.
Verdict: Good deal.
Moore Hotel, Seattle
Cost: $118 a night.
Stay: Four nights, August 2014. This was a somewhat updated 1907 hotel on a semi-dodgy block of 2nd Avenue in downtown close to Pike Place Market, where I would be spending four days reporting. I spent four days shouldering past the desperate (and sometimes menacing) souls who hung out on the hotel block. Inside the hotel (which includes a hip coffee shop), all was fine. Not great, but fine.
Verdict: Next time I’ll say no, Moore.
Hanalei Bay Resort, Kauai
Cost: Two nights at $179 each, two nights at $206 each.
Stay: Four nights, February and March 2014. For a story on Hanalei Bay on Kauai’s north shore, I found few lodging options, but I didn’t want to pay a fortune. The Hanalei Bay Resort, a vacation condo complex, was being renovated but that gave me a shot at a great bargain — a one-bedroom condo with a livingroom sofa bed, full kitchen and balcony overlooking lush gardens. The unit was so big that I slept in the bedroom, and Times photographer Mark Boster took the sofa bed. The grounds also included a pool, tennis courts and a path to the beach.
Verdict: Big win.
El Tovar Hotel, Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz.
Cost: $321 per night.
Stay: One night in March of this year. I tend to love grand old hotels, especially if they’re in national parks, but I didn’t love El Tovar, which has been perched on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon since 1905 and retains much historic charm. But the place has seen all manner of renovations. I was surprised to find another renovation was in progress when I arrived: The grounds had been scraped bare for a re-landscaping, and half of the hotel’s log-cabin-style lobby was hidden behind black tarp. The $321-anight rate seemed wrong. At checkout, when I told a reservationist that the renovation was a bad surprise, he immediately cut $100 off my bill. I still don’t love the hotel, but I admire management for empowering the desk staff to right wrongs.
Verdict: Before the $100 discount, a bad deal. After: adequate.
Holiday Inn Brussels Airport, Belgium
Cost: $379 (279 euros at 1.36 dollars a euro)
Stay: One night, May 2014. I still can’t believe I spent $379 to sleep at a Holiday Inn. Why? Because I needed to be in Belgium to write a story about the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I. Unfortunately for me, the European Parliament was in session during my visit, and when Brussels is full of European public servants on expense accounts, nobody’s wallet is safe. Most everything was booked; I should have made my reservations sooner.
Verdict: They took me to the cleaners.
El Encanto, Santa Barbara
Cost: $575 a night.
Stay: One night, April 2013. El Encanto dates back generations; families remember pleasant meals on the hillside patio, or the wishing well, or its dozens of cottages. Then the global luxury chain Orient-Express (now rebranded as Belmond) came in and spent about $130 million updating it. It reopened to mixed reviews. Including mine. I stayed here with my wife and daughter in its first few weeks of reopening. We thought the hotel fell short of a $575 experience. But since then, the hotel has gone on to win a five-star rating from Forbes, along with solid TripAdvisor ratings. Its official rates still start at $575 (before taxes and $35 resort fee).
Verdict: Poor value.
Brooks Lodge, Katmai National Park, Alaska
Cost: $631 a night.
Stay: Two nights, July 2014. How do you put a price on the experience of watching grizzly bears fish and frolic, at close range, in an Alaskan wilderness area only accessible by air and sea? That’s what you get in July at the Brooks Lodge. The room rate was for a bunk in a rustic twoman cabin, meals extra. The landscape and animals were jaw-dropping. This was the most memorable work trip of my last five years. In the end, the price was right. And that figure did include round-trip floatplane flights between Anchorage and the lodge. (For the summer of 2015, the price has edged up to $1,419 per person, double occupancy, for a two-night package.)
Verdict: The stakes were high, but the thrills were worth it.