It’s hard sometimes to differentiate between the experiences you have at a hotel from the hotel itself. We went to the De Vere Latimer Estate in Chesham, Buckinghamshire for a wedding, and it’s difficult to separate the great time we had at the wedding with the experience of staying at[…]
The Location At 306 metres tall, The Shard is the tallest building in Western Europe and the Shangri-la Hotel at the Shard London is a 5 star hotel occupying the 34th to 52nd floors. It’s centrally located and very handy for public transport, being built literally on top of London[…]
A sign of a good hotel is what they do when things go wrong. When we arrived in London after our flight from Iceland, we caught the free bus that let us off at the Ibis Styles Heathrow Airport Hotel, however, they had trouble finding our reservation. After a few[…]
Painted on the wall at Hotel Klettur: “Welcome to Hotel Klettur Klettur means a big rock. Or a cliff. If your name is Cliff Rock we will make you our guest of honor.” It’s always cold in Iceland – there’s nothing to stop the cold wind ripping across the island[…]
Arrival Our plan for staying at the Silica Hotel in Iceland was this: because we’d be flying overnight landing in the early hours of the morning, we’d spend the day at the Blue Lagoon with the complimentary Premium Pass, have lunch at the Lava Restaurant and then spend the rest[…]
Day One We flew into Portland from Vancouver. We’d been pre-screened so the arrival procedure was shockingly quick in its speed. One minute we were on the puddle jumper, ducking because of the low ceiling, the next we were standing with luggage in hand beside the belt realising we’d some[…]
I want to like the Plaza Premium Lounge in the US departures wing of Vancouver airport. It’s small and cosy and has a great view over the customs arrivals area. There’s a waterfall alongside the escalator greeting visitors to the airport as they get off their planes. But I must[…]
Day Zero We got off the WestJet flight from San Francisco to Vancouver in bright afternoon sunshine and were some of the first of the plane as we’d managed to get seats on the 5th row because we’d checked in so early. As we walked through the airport it felt[…]
I must admit I really liked the Air France – KLM Airport Lounge San Francisco located at the International Terminal. We had a few issues getting in – they accepted my Dragon Pass but had to do it manually which flustered the check-in staff member a little, but with a smile and[…]
Day One – City Sightseeing San Francisco Arrival We roll off the plane in San Francisco, surprisingly highly functioning given the paucity of sleep we’d been able to get on the Air NZ flight from Auckland. Our gate is the one closest to passport control and we look longingly at[…]