The cost for the 2 days was $104 for the first night and $137 for the second. We booked it a couple of days before we intended to leave Burnaby.

Trying to save on yet another taxi fare, we decide to catch the Skytrain from Burnaby to downtown Vancouver. Fortunately, the Skytrain leaves from right outside our hotel but we also have our luggage with us and we have to consider whether there will be a heap of stairs to contend with. We decide to take the risk and check out of our Burnaby hotel and head to the 2nd floor which has direct access to the Skytrain.

We find one set of stairs before we even get to the Skytrain station but we manage and head through the overpass to get to the ticket machines. It will be 2 zones to get us to downtown Vancouver so it will cost us $3.75 each.

We head to the station and since the signs are well posted we are easily able to determine which side of the platform to catch the train from.

The trains arrive every few minutes so we don’t have to wait long before we are on our way.

We had checked Google Maps the day before and found that Granville station was the closest stop to the Holiday Inn Downtown Vancouver. The trip takes about 15 minutes and once on arrival we drag our luggage off the train and start the trek to our hotel.

Of course the directions from Google Maps are no real help since we get out of the station at a totally different exit and we are already disorientated. After going into a store to ask someone for directions to Howe St ,we are once again on our way.

Unfortunately, it is raining and cold and after walking close to a mile with our luggage we arrive at the hotel feeling a little sad and sorry for ourselves. Fortunately, however, we are given a room straight away, even though we are a little early for check-in. The young lady behind the counter is friendly and helpful and provides us with a map of Vancouver.

As we are Priority Club members we are given a few extra benefits including designated parking closest to the main entrance, complimentary appetizers in Medleys Lounge (on the lobby level) between 4-6pm on weekdays, a daily newspaper delivered to our door and complimentary local phone calls.

It is well worth becoming a Priority Club member. It’s free and you can rack up points to use for free accommodation.

We head up to our room on the 5th floor (#529). The lift is not very big and with us and our luggage it is just about full.

Our room is not particularly close to the lift but we do pass another lift before we get to our room. We do end up trying this lift at another time but find it is just as easy to walk the extra distance to use the main lift.

The room looks like a typical Holiday Inn room. This is a good thing as so far we have loved our time at each of the Holiday Inns we have stayed at.

The room is a double with two double beds that are very comfortable. Both have clean fresh linen and a padded mattress. There are four pillows on each bed. Two are labelled ’soft’ and the other two ‘firm’.

In the room is a tv cabinet with a 26in tv, a desk and chair, a padded lounging chair with foot rest and a mini-bar fridge hidden in a wood cabinet. On top of the cabinet is a 4 cup coffee maker with coffee and tea bags. There is also a bottle of water but at a cost of $3.50 per bottle, we decide to give this a miss.

The mini-bar is sealed but has a key to open it. Since the contents of most hotel mini-bars is way overpriced we don’t bother opening it.

Next to the lounging chair is a small table with an ice bucket and 3 glasses. We later find the ice machine near the lift. There is also a Coke machine with drinks at $1.25 each. This seems really cheap to us but when we have lunch the next day at a Food Court we buy a bottle of water and a can of Coke for $1.05 each. Not sure why Vancouver has such cheap drinks but we aren’t complaining.

The bathroom is relatively small with only a bathtub with shower and a toilet. The sink is separate from the bathroom, which I personally don’t like but we have seen this sort of set up in a number of hotels we have stayed at. The bathroom has a lockable door but the sink area is open.

In the alcove where the sink is situated is a hair dryer, a kettle for boiling water, an ironing board and iron and open hanging space. There is also a metal folding luggage rack.

Lighting in the room is okay - we are yet to find a hotel room with really good lighting. The bathroom, entryway and sink area have ceiling lighting while the rest of the room is lit by lamps.

Noise wasn’t too much of a problem. Street noise wasn’t too bad and we couldn’t hear people in the rooms on either side of us. The main noise came from doors shutting and people talking as they walked past the rooms. When other guests closed their doors they would often bang loudly and reverberate through the room.

This Holiday Inn provides free wireless internet. We were hoping for wired internet as it is much more stable. We didn’t have a problem connecting initially. It was just a matter of opening up a browser window and the Holiday Inn connection page opened up. We needed a code to get access and had to ring the front desk for this as it wasn’t anywhere to be seen in the room. We found the connection wasn’t good at all - it was slow and would constantly drop out.

This hotel has a coin operated laundry on level CD which must be accessed with a room key. There are 2 washing machines in the room and 2 dryers. We went to the front desk for change and they were happy to provide it. Both the washer  and the dryer cost $1.50 each to use and soap powder is also available for 75c per load. We found that the dryer didn’t dry our clothes enough so we had to put in another $1.50.

We found the room to be clean and well maintained. Housekeepking did a thorough job of cleaning the room each day.

One thing we don’t like is the lack of safe in the room. We carry a laptop with us so we like to lock this up when we leave the room. Leaving it with the front desk to lock up in the hotel safe is possible but not very convenient.

The view isn’t terribly spectacular. Just a city street and plenty of buildings. There is a small balcony but it was too cold for us to be out there.

The hotel is in a convenient position but it isn’t right in the city centre. It took us about 15 minutes to walk from the main shopping street back to our hotel however, it was an easy walk. We are just around the corner from the entertainment area which includes a large number of adults only shops.

There are plenty of places to eat near the hotel. We ate across the road for breakfast one morning and for dinner we ate in the hotel restaurant downstairs. The food was absolutely delicious and reasonably priced.

We took advantage of the hop-on, hop-off bus which has a stop across the road from the hotel. It cost us $35 for two days. This takes you to the main sites around Vancouver and you can get on and off at the various stops on the way. It was a shame that it was too cold and wet for us to get off the bus to look around.

There are buses and the MT Trolley which will get you to all the main attractions, there is also a hop on, hop off sightseeing bus and the Old Town Trolley Tour - not to be confused with the MT Trolley system.

We decided to start with the MT Trolley which meant leaving our hotel and turning right into El Cajon Blvd. Walk up past the Howard Johnson Hotel and the Fitness centre and turn right into College Ave and walk to until you come to the San Diego State University (SDSU) which will be straight ahead.  The walk is 1.5 miles from the hotel to SDSU and it is a nice easy walk. When you get to the Transit Centre go down the escalator or stairs and purchase your ticket from one of the vending machines.  We intend to be out and about so we brought a 4 day pass for $15 each. Go through the doors to the left of the vending machines and go downstairs to the platform.

The trolley’s run every 15 minutes and it’s not too long before ours arrives. The transit center and the trolley are extremely clean and there is no graffiti anywhere. It is such a nice change to find a place where the people take pride in public property.

Another thing I noticed is that when an elderly or infirm person hops on the trolley, the young people stand up and offer their seat straight away. None of this ignoring them or looking the other way as is often seen in other centers.

We are on the Green Line trolley which takes us to Old Town.

The Plaza del Pasado or Old Town in San Diego is a historic town that captures the festive spirit of Mexico and where some of the old buildings have been turned into restaurants and shops and others such as the old courthouse and the dentist rooms are preserved so todays youth can see how things were in the past.

It is a beautiful day to spend time strolling around the shops and outdoor markets and we take our time enjoying the exotic aromas and colorful decor of the plaza. Old Town is considered to be the birthplace of California and in 1769 it became the first permanent Spanish settlement in California.

In 1846 the population numbered 250 and had grown somewhat and it was incorporated as a city in 1850 with the government activities centred around the Plaza Viejo.  After the business district of Old San Diego was burned down in 1872, the business centre moved to the present day site of Downtown San Diego.

Some of historic buildings still standing are the Casa De Machado which was built in the adobe style of construction by Corporal Jose Manuel Machado for his daughter Maria Antonia Machado de Silvas, The Temple Beth Israel which was the first synagogue built in San Diego in 1889. Most of the other buildings are recontructions such as the Brick Courthouse and the George Johnson House. But all are worthy of a visit.

Then it is off to catch the Blue Line Trolley, which leaves from where the Green Line ends, and head off into the Civic Centre in Downtown San Diego.

By now it is lunchtime and we head over to Anthony’s Seafood Grotto which is right on the water of San Diego Bay. The food is absolutely delicious and our waitress is friendly and chatty. Once again our accents cause comment, most seem to think we are English and are pleasantly surprised when we state we are Aussies. This generally leads to conversations about how long it took us to get to the US, where we have been and how long we will be in town.

After lunch we head off down to the USS Midway Museum which has a 4 acre flight deck and gives visitors the opportunity to explore the ship with the aid of an audio presentation.  The tickets are $15.00 and the ticket office suggest making sure you have 1.5 to 3 hours to complete the tour.  We decide that we will return another day and do this tour.

By now we have picked up a number of maps and public transport timetables and routes and it turns out that we have a bus that stops right outside our hotel which will take us to the trolley transit station.  Before we discover this piece of information we decide to hop of at another stop, other than the SDSU to see if it is closer to our hotel.  So we hop off at the 70th Street stop, and turn right from the carriage and set off in what we hope is the right direction. The No.1 bus (which runs past our hotel) goes by, so we figure if go in the same direction we will at least be heading the right way.

We turn left into 70th Street and walk up a rather steep hill until we reach El Cajon Blvd.  Here we turn left and continue. It is simply a matter of walking along El Cajon Blvd. We are at number 6900 when we turn onto the Blvd from 70th Street and our hotel is numbe 6474 so we have a way to go.  We pop into Ralph’s on the way and pick up some groceries and a Ralph Card that gives us some excellent discounts on our items.  I am a sucker for saving money and will join just about anything if it gives me a bargain.

Our feet are getting tired - thank goodness we brought good quality ARA walking shoes before our trip because we have walked many miles since we arrived in the States, and we are very happy when the hotel looms into sight.

After a nice hot cup of tea we head out to do some washing at the laundromat which is almost next door to the hotel. Turn left as you leave the hotel reception area and walk  just past the Chicken Rotissere store where there is a block of shops with the laundromat.  After putting the washing into the washer we go back to the hotel to watch some more Stargate episodes. Our hotel has more stations than any other we have stayed in so far and one is a sci fi station so this makes us very happy.

Paula also spends time on the phone to the internet company as we have been unable to connect to our hotel’s internet, which is included in the price of the room. It turns out that we have to update the drivers in our Acer notebook before it will connect to the right service. 

Once the washing and drying has completed and we once again have nice clean clothes, we set off for dinner.  We had intended to  eat at the buffet at the Howard Johnson hotel that is just up the road, but it is closed when we get there.  We continue up the road and come to a Mexican restaurant.  The food turns out to be awesome and of course way more than we can eat.

Tomorrow we are going to head off to Tijuana on the blue line trolley.

We actually got a great deal through Hotwire which included return airfares from Las Vegas and 5 nights accomodation for $376 each. This is the first time we have booked through Hotwire and the process was quite simple. The only drawback is that you don’t know your flight times until after you have booked and paid for the package. So after booking we found that the outbound flight was leaving Las Vegas at 7am (which meant we had to be up at 4.30am) and our return flight was leaving at 9pm. Not the best times but then it was worth it for the cheap deal.

We got a door-to-door shuttle to our hotel from the airport which cost $16 each and it took about 30 minutes or so to get to our hotel.

When we got to the front desk we found only one person behind the counter so we had to wait a few minutes to be attended to. The girl at the reception desk was very competent and quick and even though it was only 9.30am and well before check-in time we were given a room. This may have had something to do with the fact that we are Priority Club members. However, during our entire stay we found that the staff at the front desk were very helpful and friendly to everyone who approached the reception area.  This same friendly manner and professionalism was also displayed by the staff at the Holiday Inn in Tusayan when we visited the Grand Canyon recently.

On the way to the lift to get to our room we notice the clean, modern lobby area and the eating area where people are still eating breakfast. The hotel has a nice feel about it and appears to be well maintained from what we can see at a first glance.

When we get to our room we are pleased with what we see. Our room is big enough to accommodate two people comfortably and looks clean and fresh.

Our room is a double room on the 2nd floor (#268) with two double beds, a TV cabinet with a 26in(68cm) TV and a table with two lounging chairs.

Next to one of the beds is a closet with hanging space. It also contains an iron and ironing board and a fold up luggage rack. There is also a safe in the closet which is large enough to hold our 14in laptop. The safe uses a key rather than the digital keypad password that you see in most hotel room safes these days.

There is adequate storage with closet hanging space and the three drawers in the bottom of the TV cabinet.

Lighting is fairly good. There are ceiling lights in the entrance way but the rest of the room is lit by lamps - one between the two beds and a standard lamp next to the table.

The beds are very comfortable with padded mattresses and clean fresh linen. Each bed has four pillows with each pillow slip embroidered with either the word ’soft’ or ‘firm’.

The view from our room is not what I would call a view. We can see what you might call a courtyard and we look across to another room. Subsequently we keep the net curtains closed for our entire stay.

The bathroom is not huge but it is bright and clean and actually looks like it has been recently renovated. There is one sink, a toilet and a bathtub with shower.

The water pressure from the shower is okay. It’s not really strong but it’s pretty good. The showerhead also allows you to adjust the flow to suit your preferred spray type.

The towels are plentiful and are soft and clean.

The bathroom also has a 2 cup coffee maker and the hotel provides both tea and coffee. This is something we really missed when we stayed at Caesar’s Palace and The Golden Nugget in Las Vegas. After there is nothing quite like sitting down with a nice hot cup of tea after a day of sightseeing.

The air conditioner in the room does the job although it was a little noisy. While it was on we had to turn the TV up in order to hear the programs.

Just near the lifts on our floor is a room with an ice machine and a vending machine which sells drinks. To get into the room we needed to use our hotel key.

As we need access to the internet in order to run our business we love staying at Holiday Inn hotels as the internet is free - at least it has been in the ones we have stayed in so far. The connection is wired. To connect just open your browser and it will connect to a screen where you just need to click on a link and then you will get immediate access to the internet.

While we were here we took advantage of the coin operated laundry in the next building which is also part of Holiday Inn. To get to it, exit at the front of the hotel and turn right. Keep walking and cross over the first road you see which will get you to the other Holiday Inn. Walk through the lobby until you see the lifts and take the lift to the “G” (garage) floor. This will take you to the parking garage. Walk straight ahead and turn to the left and you should see a room against the wall which will be the laundry. Make sure you have plenty of quarters. The laundry powder was $1.50, the washing machine was $2.00 and the dryer was $2.00.

This hotel is located in an ideal position. It took us around five minutes to walk to Fisherman’s Wharf, around 10-15 minutes (uphill) to walk to The Crookidest Street and about 5 minutes to get to the pick up point for the hop-on/hop-off bus.

There are also plenty of restaurants and cafes close by. Denny’s is actually in the building itself and there is a bar and grill across the road but there are plenty of other restaurants and cafes within easy walking distance.

Overall we really enjoyed our stay here and would definitely come back again.

Our Rating of the Holiday Inn Express - Fishermans Wharf:

Checking in and out 5/5
Room 4/5
Position 4.5/5
Price 5/5 (Based on our Hotwire package deal)
Cleanliness 4/5

We booked this package through Hotwire.

The lobby houses the largest gold nugget on display worldwide. It weighs  61lb 11 ounces and is called the “Hand of Faith”. The nugget was found just inches below the surface near Wedderburn in Victoria Australia.

As usual getting to our room required a packed lunch. This hotel is huge so we had to go quite a way to get to the hotel lifts. We pass by the pool area which has as its main attraction a huge aquarium filled with sharks and other smaller fish. We find out later that a 3 storey clear waterslide travels right through the middle of the tank.

We also pass by a Starbucks, clothing shop, restaurant, some slot machines and a gift shop.

The hotel lifts are separated into two sections, one set of elevators service floors 2 to 9 and further along there is another set of elevators that service floors 9 to 22.  This definitely speeds up the time it takes for the lift to arrive.

Fortunately our room on the 22nd floor (#2281) is quite close to the lift so we don’t have too far to walk.

Our first impressions of the room are positive. This is a big room with nice décor in muted warm earth tonings with flowery curtains and bed coverings, there is also a beautiful aroma in the room that  is very refreshing and welcoming.

We have a double room which has two double beds, a table with two sofa chairs, a TV cabinet with what looks like a 26in (68cm) TV and a desk with a stool. The desk is more of a vanity area where you would put on makeup rather than sit and work at your laptop as the internet cable is actually over on the table. This makes working at a computer a little less than comfortable since the table has low sofa seats so we found ourselves sitting a little low in the chairs to make it the ideal for computer work.

The beds in the room are quite comfortable with a padded mattress and clean, fresh linen. Each bed has two pillows.

There is plenty of storage areas in the room with four drawers in the TV cabinet and a closed wardrobe with hanging space near the bathroom.

Lighting is okay although as with the majority of hotels we have stayed at in the US there are no ceiling lights but instead a series of lamps scattered around the room.

The view from our room includes the mountains, buildings and various carparks. As with most Las Vegas views it is usually better at night when the lights turn on and this one is no exception. We aren’t talking The Strip here but even so we enjoy the night view of casino lights from our room.

The bathroom is a reasonable size and has one hand basin, the toilet and a bathtub with shower. The toiletries include shampoo, conditioner, lotion and two bars of soap. There are plenty of towels although we found them to be a little worn and rough. I think they should consider replacing their towel collection.

The wardrobe contained two cottonweave bathrobes which neither of us used, and these are available for purchase. We noticed a lot of people wore these down to the pool area.

The closet also contains a hair dryer, two fold up luggage holders, an iron and ironing board.

The room has a safe but it is very small. We could only fit our passports and cameras in it. It is way too small to fit a laptop.

One fault we found with the room was the air conditioner/heater which was very noisy. We had to turn it off at night so that we could get to sleep. Howeve  the air con  unit in the next room was so loud that we could hear it churning away day and night.

And speaking of noise, we could also hear noise from the street even though we were on the 22nd floor. It wasn’t constant however and it was mainly police sirens, cars beeping horns or cars revving their engines loudly.

Another fault was the lack of a coffee maker in the room.  This was the same problem we had at Caesars Palace.

The room has a wired internet connection which cost $12.99 for 24 hours. We found the connection to be reasonably fast and stable.

Overall we enjoyed our stay and found it good value for money. If you are looking for entertaiment on The Strip then we advise you to stay away from this end of town as you are at least a $20 cab drive away and there is no way you would want to walk it. You can get on The Deuce bus which will take you up to The Strip for $2.50 or if you pay $5 you can get an all day pass. However, there is plenty to keep you entertained without the need to go to the Strip.

If you are on a budget we would recommend the buffet over at The Plaza Hotel and Casino.

Our Rating of the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino:

Checking in and out 4.5/5
Room 4/5
Position 5/5 (For Downtown location - right on Fremont St)
Price 4/5
Cleanliness 4/5

Booking this hotel is easy through: Expedia.com!

The hotel is located in an absolutely prime position on The Strip. You really can’t get much better than this.

Yesterday we checked in and it was an interesting experience. The gentleman at the front desk offered us an upgraded room. He told us it would be an extra $180. We declined the offer as we thought that even a basic room at this hotel would be pretty good and we would be happy with that. He then said we could have it for $120. We declined again. He proceeded to type away into his computer and then finally told us that we could have the upgrade for nothing!

We have now learnt that if someone offers us an upgrade at an extra cost then we shouldn’t take it as what it probably means is that they don’t have available what we paid for anyway and we are likely to get the upgrade for nothing. Read our Alamo Car Rental review for another example of this.

So now we are quite pleased with ourselves as we head up to our room as we realise we got the upgraded room for nothing.

As with most Las Vegas hotels, it is a major epic finding our room. We almost need a packed lunch to get us to the elevator which in themselves are as ornate as everything else in the hotel.

We are on the 25th floor in the Palace Tower and we make our way to our room (#2505) with high expectations thinking that the upgraded room must be something a little more special than what we originally going to get. On entering the room however we were a little disappointed as it looked like just any other hotel room in many respects. Perhaps our expectations were just a little too high but I know that I would have been very disappointed if we had paid extra for the upgrade. I think we were expecting our room to be a little more like our room at The Rio Hotel where we had a lounging area.

Having said that however, we think we got a great deal for our $150 per night rate.

The room is large and easily accomodates the two double beds, a desk with one chair and a TV cabinet with a mini-fridge which is stocked full of food and drinks - at a cost of course.

The cabinet also has a collection of goodies including a digital camera for $50, cell phone charger for $20, golf balls for $18 and a cocktail shaker kit for $16.

The TV is a flat wide screen with remote control and sits facing both beds. There are 30 or so channels plus the usual paid movie channels - $12.99 each for the latest releases.

There is plenty of storage space including 2 deep drawers and one half drawer in the TV cabinet and shelving and hanging space in the closed wardrobe.

The bathroom is quite large and includes a separate toilet with a lockable door and a walk-in shower which is separate from the bath. It also has a pair of side-by-side sinks and a jet bath which is probably just large enough to accommodate two people. The jet bath is just lovely to soothe aching muscles after a long day of sighteseeing.

The toiletries in the bathroom include the regular shampoo and conditioner - a skincare bar of soap and another bar of soap for the wash basin. There is also a box in the middle drawer that contains a shoe mitten to shine up shoes, a sewing kit, vanity pack and a shower cap.

There are three phones in the room - one by the bed, one sitting on the desk and one in the toilet.

The room contained a safe large enough to fit out 14in laptop.

The noise level between rooms is very low. I didn’t hear any noise through the walls although it may be that the rooms are empty or we have quiet neighbors. Because we are so high up we have no trouble with street noise.

The lighting in the room is adequate. We are yet to find a hotel in the US with good lighting. They seem to all use lamps scattered around the room instead of ceiling lights. When we first tried the lights in the room we couldn’t believe how dark it was but later we realised that each lamp has three levels of brightness - we just needed to turn the switches a bit more. That made a huge difference.

What we didn’t like about the room was that there was no coffee maker. We aren’t coffee drinkers but we use the machines to boil up water for a cup of tea. We couldn’t get over the fact that this caliber of hotel didn’t have them. We rang down to the front desk to ask about this and they told us we could have one for a small fee. It seems the more expensive the hotel, the less you actually get.

We were able to connect easily to the wired internet connection which cost $12.99 for 24 hours. The connection was reliable without any disconnections.

The view from our room was pretty spectacular at night. We could see up The Strip towards The Mirage and Treasure Island.

Overall we had a lovely stay at Caesars Palace. The room was restful and relaxing but we missed the free added extras you get at some of the cheaper hotels like coffee makers, newspapers, free internet and free local calls. These were all at a cost at Caesar’s.

Everything else is also more expensive here like the meals at the restaurants, room service and spa treatments but this just goes with staying at a place like Caesar’s Palace. Just don’t do what we did and buy an icecream at the small cafe in the Forum Shops area - one scoop was $7.95!! …and it wasn’t that great.

Our Rating of the Caesar’s Palace Hotel and Casino:

Checking in and out 4/5
Room 4.5/5
Position 5/5
Price 4.5/5 (based on our $150 per night rate)
Cleanliness 5/5

Booking this hotel is easy through: Expedia.com!

The Holiday Inn hotel is situated on Highway 64 and there are a number of other hotels in close proximity as well as a few shops and foodmarkets within walking distance. The IMAX theater  where they show an excellent movie about the Grand Canyon, is also only a few minutes walk away.

We got the best deal through the Holiday Inn website for about $70 a night. If you walk off the street and book this room direct with the hotel (which we did for another two nights) it is $99, which is still a bargain considering the amenities and conveniences that you get for your money.

We stayed a total of 4 nights at this hotel on two separate occasions in March 2008. The first two nights we were in room #332 and for the other 2 nights room #324 . Both of these rooms were marked “Priority Club” as we are both members.

Membership is free and entitles you to earn points for staying at any of  more than 3,500 locations. The Priority rooms were all overlooking the front of the hotel so I assume this meant a better view although I can’t really compare as we didn’t get to see any of the other rooms.

The beauty of having the room at the front of the hotel is that we could see our car parked in the parking area below. And speaking of parking, this is a great hotel if you are bringing your car along. Parking is free and there were plenty of spaces right near the entrance making it easy to get our luggage into and out of the hotel.

Check-in was quick and easy. We found during our entire stay that the staff at the front desk were just a delight. They were all very friendly and went out of their way to help whenever they were approached.

Our room was on the third floor which was the top floor and we got there via the elevator (which we always found to arrive quite quickly). We also found another elevator down the other end of the hotel which  didn’t seem to be used very often so this is worth keeping in mind during busy times of the day.

On walking to our room we noticed that the hallway had a wonderful smell as did the room. I am not sure what they use but it was always a nice feeling to walk to our room after being out all day.

We had the twin room which had 2 double beds and the room was large enough to accommodate two people comfortably.

The beds themselves were very comfortable and each had four pillows which were marked with the words ‘Firm’ and ’soft’ which we thought was a great idea and not a luxury that you would normally see in a three star hotel. The linen on the bed was fresh and clean.

The facilities in the room included a TV, table and two chairs, an alarm clock, a mini fridge (which was empty), a microwave and coffee maker.

The wardrobe area, which was to our right on entering the room, contained an ironing board and iron.

The room was made up of four separate areas - the entrance way which had the open hanging wardrobe, the main area with the beds, the bathroom with the bathtub and toilet and finally the dressing room area which held the sink. This bathroom had a lockable door but the dressing room area was open. I prefer bathrooms where the sink is included and don’t really like the open dressing room arrangement but this is just a personal preference.  An open dressing room doesn’t really work where friends are travelling together, so changing meant going into the bathroom.

Overall both rooms were in great condition and were clean and well maintained and we felt comfortable in the rooms.

All was not perfect however as we did find a few faults. The first was the minor chipping on the toilet seat in the first room we were in and again in the bathtub of the second room. We also found that the second room didn’t have a plug for the bathtub. These were all very minor problems however and didn’t affect our stay in any way. If either of us had wanted to take a bath we could have easily rung the front desk and they would have brought up a plug.

Now to what makes this hotel such great value for money. The first is the free internet connection. We connected via a wireless connection and with just a few clicks we were on the net. We did find the connection dropped out quite often until we connected the laptop to the blue cable which we found in the TV cabinet. It seemed to work fine after that with only minor drop-outs.

The second value for money part of this hotel is the free breakfast. This is held until 9.30am. Wish it was held until 10am but it’s free so I am not complaining. The hotel advertises this breakfast as being a Continental Breakfast but we would have to say that it is better than that. It includes omelettes or scrambled eggs (depending on the day), sausage patties, muffins, bagels, danishes, boiled eggs, yoghurt, whole fruit and about four different juices and of course coffee and tea. The eating area had plenty of seating and room to get around.

A nice finishing touch was the free newspaper which was outside our door in the mornings.

We really enjoyed our stay at the Holiday Inn at the Grand Canyon and would have no hesitation staying there again.

Note : If you need somewhere to wash clothes there is a coin operated laundry at the next hotel and you don’t need to stay at that hotel in order to use it.

For a 26 minute load it cost us $1.50 and the laundry powder was $1.25. The dryers cost 75c for 30 minutes and 25c for each extra 10 minutes.

Make sure you have plenty of quarters before you head on down there as the coin change machine wasn’t working when we were there. Wanda went to the reception area of the neighbouring hotel to get some change and this involved a long walk and conversations with various staff with limited English. However, she finally got change from a machine in the sportsroom. 

We actually went and bought a bottle of liquid washing soap at the shop across the road from the hotel which was much  cheaper than buying from the soap dispenser at the laundromat.

Getting to the laundromat was a bit of an act, we had to go out the back of the Holiday Inn and walk through the car park until we came to a retaining wall which we had to jump down from.  Someone had thoughtfully placed some rocks to make this easier, however Wanda still had a struggle to get up and down the retaining wall because she is so short.  We then walked through a short pathway to get to the second building on the right, behind the hotel.  There is no signage to tell you how to get to the laundry or even that you have arrived until you get right up to the laundry door. So as silly as this might sound - you don’t know you are there until you arrive.

 Our Rating of the Holiday Inn & Suites - Tusayan:

Checking in and out 5/5
Room 4/5
Position 4/5
Price 5/5
Cleanliness 4.5/5

We booked this hotel through the Holiday Inn website

When we did return at around 2.30pm the room still wasn’t ready so we sat in the lobby with a number of other people who were also waiting to check in. The young lady behind the counter said she would list us as being in the hotel so that housekeeping would move our room up the list of rooms to be serviced.

Check in for the Kachina Lodge is done through the El Tovar Hotel. The El Tovar is quite an historic hotel and the lobby reflects this with its dark wood theme and deer head decorations.

Once we received our room keys we had to get back to our car and drive around to the Kachina Lodge. We were warned that parking may be sparse and were considering keeping our car space outside the El Tovar but luckily when we got to Kachina we found a space right by the entrance. If you were arriving at a busy time of the year you may find it difficult to find parking so keep this in mind.

Our room is #6313 and is situated on the bottom floor of the hotel on the Canyon side. Kachina advertises their rooms as having partial Canyon views but we found that the only thing obstructing the full view of the Canyon were a few trees. We were probably about 30 feet from the Canyon edge.

The room is similar to all the others we have been staying in. There are 2 double beds, which are comfortable, a TV cabinet with a 26in (68cm) TV and a table with one chair, large clock radio, and the usual bedside telephone.

Each bed had two pillows and one of the pillow slips had black stains which were ingrained, and although the pillow slip had been laundered the stains made it look very unappealing.

The décor is restful with nicely presented artwork and attractive lamps.

Lighting in the room is okay although as with most hotels we have stayed at in the US, there is minimal ceiling lighting and instead the room is lit by a series of lamps. As a result the room is not well lit but once the blinds are opened there is plenty of light.

The bathroom wasn’t huge but there was enough room to move around easily. The ‘Ecossential’ brand toiletries smelt almost good enough to eat, with a tangerine citrus aroma.

The room was very clean and comfortable to be in. Unfortunately there is no internet in the rooms which meant we were unable to keep up with our business committments. The internet in the Bright Angel Lodge lobby area costs $2.00 for 7 mins which is just enough time to send a couple of emails.

This hotel is expensive for what you get, but you need to keep in mind that you are paying mainly for being right on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Our Rating of the Kachina Lodge Grand Canyon:

Checking in and out 3/5
Room 3/5
Position 5/5
Price 3.5/5
Cleanliness 4/5

The hotel is situated at:

4000 W Flamingo Rd
Las Vegas NV 89103

Although the hotel is not on the strip it is not too far from it and there are always the shuttle buses which run every 20 minutes.

Check-in was quick and the gentleman behind the counter was friendly. We were given the keys to room 857 which was on the eigth floor.

Our first impression of the hotel lobby and casino was positive. We did notice that a good majority of the clientele were mature aged or couples with children.  This hotel is definitely not as up market as the Rio Hotel which we stayed in earlier in the week.

The decor is Spanish/Mexican. I personally found the carpet which runs through most of the casino to be a little gaudy, however Wanda found it fitted well with the theme. The carpet in the hotel area was much more appealing in my opinion.

Our hotel room was a long way down the hall. It seemed to take us forever to get to our room especially after a long day of walking. Las Vegas hotels are just huge!

On the way to the room we pass an ice machine and a drink machine with Pepsi, Mountain Dew and other soda drinks.

Our room has quite a nice decor. It’s slightly outdated with it’s wood veneer finish but overall in excellent condition. The room is not huge but has plenty of space and is a comfortable size.

The room has a view of the the Palms Hotel and at night there is quite a spectacular view of the lights of the city. You can also see the surrounding mountain range from the window.

The lighting in the room is quite dark, however we found the same problem at the Rio Hotel across the road. There are no ceiling lights but instead a series of lamps located around the room. This makes the room a little dark for working in.

The room has two double beds with wood veneer headboards. The beds are quite high off the ground so if you are short, like Wanda, you may find yourself having a little difficulty climbing into bed. The beds are comfortable with a nice padded mattress topper. What we found annoying was the fact that there were only two pillows per bed, which is not a major issue, however the pillows were about three quarters the size of normal pillows. We heard someone else mention this in the lift.

There is plenty of storage space including a six drawer cabinet, a luggage rest which will hold one large suitcase or two small and an open wardrobe in the dressing room area.

In the corner of the room is a table with two chairs which holds the one cup coffee making machine.

Facing the beds is a flat wide screen tv. We don’t the size of the tv exaclty. Wanda thinks its a 32in but I think it might be a 26in. The picture is excellent and there are something like 32 channels to choose from. In-house movies are also available for $10.99 each.

The room has an air conditioning unit that is a little noisy. We found that we really didn’t need to have it on much at all anyway, as the room had a comfortable temperature.

As with most US hotels, there are no facilities for making tea so we have to use the coffee maker to boil water. Tea bags are not usually available unless you specifically ask for them. It took a long time for us to clean the coffee grains from the machine so that the water was drinkable for tea.

The room has a dressing room area which is quite small. It contains a sink which is separate from the bathroom and an open wardrobe to hang clothes. It also includes a hair dryer and a iron and ironing board.

The bathroom is quite small and includes the toilet. The bathtub itself is a moulded plastic unit with a shower. The water pressure in the shower is quite strong and it was easy to control the water temperature. The bathroom doesn’t have a fan but instead has a small window that opens out.

The toiletries in the bathroom included Ecoessential products including a massage bar of soap, nourishing shampoo, conditioner, body lotion and a shower cap.

What I didn’t like was the fact that the sink is separated from the bathroom. The bathtub and toilet are in one room which has a lockable door. The sink on the other hand is in the dressing room area and does not have door.

The bathroom lighting was very dark and once the shower curtain was pulled across it got even darker.

There is no safe in the room. We carry a laptop and like to store it during the day while we are out so we missed having this feature. There is also no mini-bar or fridge if you have any food or drinks that you want to keep cool.

The room has both wired and wireless interent connections. We went for the wired connection which was $11.99 for a 24hr period. Connecting was a little confusing. We plugged in the laptop to the cable and it came up with a page that said ‘You will be charged $11.99′ and after we confirmed payment it went to another page that said ‘you have been granted access to the internet’. However when we tried to open up google.com, a page was returned linking to the Cheetah network which asked us to register again for $10.99. This process was confusing as we thought we had already paid and connected so had we continued to complete the Cheetah registration we would have paid twice for this service. A quick call to the service desk resolved the issue. Apparently we were automatically connecting to the wireless service so we had to disconnect the wireless connection and then everything worked fine.

The sign on the table states that the wired internet connection has five times faster speed. We found the speed to be excellent with no time-outs.

We ate a number of times in the casino restaurants. The buffet is fantastic value at $7.95 for lunch and $11.95 for dinner. These rates are for if you stay at the hotel or are a member. We signed up for the membership rewards card which was free and it took less than 5 minutes to register.

We also ate at the Monteray Restaurant for breakfast which cost us only $5.95 for two eggs, bacon, 2 sausages and two flapjacks which were huge. They came with syrup and creamery butter. It was way too much for us to eat.

The hotel also has a bowling alley and a pool although we didn’t get the chance to see either of these.

Our overall view of this hotel is that it is great value for money. We paid $59 per night online via Expedia.com. The food at the hotel is the cheapest we found during our stay in Las Vegas and there is excellent variety and quality for the money. This hotel is rated 3 stars and we would agree with this rating.

We would definitely stay here again.

Our Rating of the the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino:

Checking in and out 5/5
Room 3/5
Position 3.5/5
Price 4/5
Cleanliness 5/5

Booking this hotel is easy through: Expedia.com!

The airport shuttle dropped us off right outside the door and there was a queue to check in.  Check in was quick and simple and the chap behind the desk was pleasant.  We were given the keys to room 1534 along with a folder of special deals for shows and meals.

We walked through the slot machine area to the elevators and came to a somewhat confusing muddle of corridors and it took us a moment to work out which direction we had to head in to find the room.  Mind you at this stage we were a little stir crazy from the constant travel.

The room was very large, with two queen sized beds, (love how the beds are all queen sized here in the States, so far), a lounge, coffee table, table for the computer and two chairs, a seperate dressing area and bathsroom with shower over the bath.

The toiletries were a bit sparse, only one small vial of shampoo, which isn’t quite enough between two women. Also included was a small bottle of body lotion and a bottle of mouthwash.

The bathroom was separated from the dressing room with a lockable door. It was large and the bathtub was bigger than what you would find in most hotels. The shower water pressure was excellent and it was easy to control the temperature of the water.

The toilet was nothing out of the ordinary apart from the fact that it had a label which stated that each flush would use 1.6 gallons (6 litres) of water. For the uninitiated, toilets in America are similar to those in Asia in that the bowl is full of water that drains away when flushed and bowl refills.

There is a single cup coffee making machine and coffee provided. We left a note requesting some tea bags and the housekeeper obligingly left these for us each day.  There was a mini bar in the television cabinet and also a seperate (empty) fridge in the dressing room area, which we found really convenient for drinks and fruit that we brought during the day.

There were no problems with housekeeping - the room was well cleaned each day and the various toiletries and other bits and pieces were replenished.

The safe was big enough to take the laptop, bearing in mind our laptop only has a 14″ screen.  The safe has an electonic keypad where you enter a four digit code and the instructions were easy to understand.

The internet wired connection cost $9.99 for a 24hr period and the connection was reasonably quick. We never had a problem with the connection dropping out.

The dressing room area also had an ironing board, iron, hair dryer and a separate sink from the bathroom.

The TV cabinet contained a 26in (68cm) TV which faced towards the window rather than towards the beds. Paula, thinking she wouldn’t be able to watch TV from her bed was most concerned, however we realised that the TV was on a pullout platform that enabled the TV to be rotated to face the beds.

Lighting was very dull. There were no ceiling lights but instead a series of lamps which really weren’t terribly bright. This may suit the holiday maker but for business people who want to do a bit of work it really isn’t bright enough. The dressing room area on the other hand was very well lit with Hollywood style lighting over the mirrors.

The view from our room was out of Las Vegas towards a mountain of which we have no idea what it is called. Quite spectacular!

The rooms were quit quiet although we could hear our neigbours next door at times as we had a connecting door.

The hotel is huge, like most Las Vegas hotels, and the Affiliate Summit was held in the convention area of the hotel which was a good 10 minute walk from the hotel rooms. Although the convention area is in the hotel it is set apart from the casino so there is no noise or distractions from the slot machines.

We found that in general the staff in the hotel were friendly and helpful. The shuttle bus drivers were helpful and pleasant and the restaurant staff were much the same.

The casino itself is large and noisy and a typical casino. If you are a male you will have fun watching the drink hostesses wandering around the casino in the smallest of outfits. In fact, of all the hotels we went into, the girls at the Rio where the least.

One thing not to miss in the casino areas is the Masquerade in the Sky Show which is held on the hour from 6pm till midnight in the Masquerade area. It’s free but if you would like to star in the show it will cost you $12.95.

The Rio Hotel is not on The Strip but you can walk it in about 20 minutes or there are free shuttle buses which run every 30 minutes from 10am till 1am and take no more than 10 minutes. They travel to Caesars Palace, Harrah’s, Paris and Bally’s and back again. You don’t need to show proof that you stay in the hotels to travel on them.

We only had one meal at the hotel which was at the American Bar and Grill. This was reasonably priced at about $35 for two, for quite a large, tasty meal (of burgers and fries with a milk shake) and the service was fine.

Checking out was very smooth and the attendant behind the counter was very friendly and genuinely showed an interest in how we were doing and where we were heading.

Our Rating of the Rio Hotel:

Checking in and out 5/5
Room 5/5
Position 3.5/5
Price 3/5
Cleanliness 5/5

Booking this hotel is easy through: Expedia.com!

After a rather long day having set out from our Hawaii hotel at 5am,  and finally arriving at The Celebrity Hotel at around 6pm we were just looking forward to having a shower and having a cup of tea.

Paula had already advised me not to expect too much from the hotel as it was only 2 star. So it was nice to be pleasantly surprised when we arrived.

The check in process was easy and the receptionist was friendly. The foyer has pictures of stars and some comfortable chairs to sit while you wait for transport and it is spotlessley clean and well kept for a two star hotel.

Our room (#106) is on the first floor right next to the breakfast bar and on the first evening a group of very loud people seemed to be having a sort of trivial pursuit contest. We would recommend that if you have a problem with noise that you request a room on one of the other floors. The noise didn’t really bother us as apart from the group of people mentioned previously as otherwise it was reasonably quiet during the night.

A continental breakfast is included free in the price but there is no dining room. People just mill around a small area eating their bagels and croissants with philly cheese or they take it back to there room. This is what we did, and as we were right next to the breakfast bar this was quite convenient for us. The continental breakfast included coffee, tea, orange juice, bagels, cream cheese, butter and croissants.

There are urns with hot water, tea, decaf coffee and coffee available 24 hours a day in the breakfast bar area and up a few stairs there is a soda machine if you want coke etc.

The room is spacious and has 2 very comfortable queen sized beds, with 4 pillows on each.  There is a small table and a couple of chairs which are handy for working on the laptop. We also chose the room with the kitchen which has a microwave, gas oven, large sink and all the utensils for cooking and eating.  The stove unfortunately didn’t have a rack to place food on to cook, so we resorted to only using the microwave. 

Our wall has a mural of Gene Kelly from Singing in the Room in keeping with the Hollywood theme.

There is a walk in robe and the usual bathroom with a shower over the bath, which took some time to figure out how to work but then a lot of hotel showers can be confusing to work out.

It also has an extra wash basin separate from the one in the bathroom and includes the hair dryer.

Unfortunately there is no safe in the room, however you can leave valuables at the reception desk.

The view from our includes includes a pathway between the buildings and because we are on the first floor we have bars on the window so we feel pretty safe.

The hotel is situated in a really convenient position, just around the corner from Hollywood boulevard where you can find the Kodak Theatre, Hollywood and Highland Centre, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, The Wax Museum,  Gruman’s Chinese Theatre and also find tour buses to go out and see the stars homes.

We would definitely stay here again. For a 2 star hotel it is in excellent condition and kept spotlessley clean. It is great value for money.

Our Rating of the Hollywood Celebrity Hotel:

Checking in and out 5/5
Room 4/5
Position 4.5/5
Price 4/5
Cleanliness 5/5

Booking this hotel is easy through: Expedia.com!