Posted by Seth on May 8, 2012 under Hotel, Review, Trip Reports | 
There are many, many reasons the El Conquistador Resort, located on the north-eastern side of Puerto Rico near Fajardo, is a great place to spend a few days. The hotel has been around a long time, moving between brands over the years. It is currently operating as part of the Waldorf=Astoria Collection under the Hilton HHonors flag and in just about every way the service provided spoke to the expectations of such a resort. And, despite its age, the facilities seemed to be quite well maintained as well.
The resort property is a sprawling complex atop a cliff overlooking the water. There are rooms in several buildings and the views from just about every angle were top-notch.
We were also fortunate that for most of our stay the resort was quite empty. We pretty much had run of the facilities, with no lines or difficulty accessing the various services. This did come back to bite us on occasion – the spa closed early due to lack of demand one day, for example – but it generally worked out in our favor.
The location of the resort presents a few challenges for guests. First, the multiple buildings can mean long walks between parts of the resort. To get from the spa to the marina, for example, could easily take 30 minutes, with multiple elevators and long walks in between. Getting to the Marina also means a ride in a funicular, which was fun but also got to be a bit of a pain to wait for several times a day. It also meant the non-stop sound of it running audible from our room, day and night. Eventually I managed to tune it out, but it was not at all quiet.
Getting to the beach was an even greater adventure. There isn’t actually a beach at the resort. Instead they have a private island just a couple miles off-shore with a beach as well as hiking and various other activities. The 20 minute ferry ride is only slightly annoying but the limited service – only hourly most of the week due to low occupancy rates – was much more unfortunate. Even the regular half-hourly schedule isn’t all that great. On the plus side, once you get out to the beach, the water was lovely and the facilities both broad and reasonably priced for a resort facility.
The biggest disappointment of the stay, by far, was the food served on the resort. We had one good meal out of five. That’s not the sort of rate you’re looking for when access to alternative dining is so limited. We ate at two of the "fancy" restaurants for dinners, the Italian place and Strip House, the steak restaurant. The steak was great and that whole experience was pretty much awesome. The other meals, not so much. Breakfast in the café was cold, both the first time if was served and the second time after we asked them to try again. Lunch on the island with the beach was limited to three sandwich options because the main restaurant was closed for repairs during the low season. And the one I ended up eating was just mediocre. At least the pina coladas served on the beach were reasonably tasty. Truly disappointing just how bad the dining was. Especially given the ridiculous mark-ups charged.
We got off-property to eat a couple times, too, and that was much better. A few posts about those options will be forthcoming.
Oh, and apparently their version of the business center is stuck in 2002.
There are a couple "bodega" type shops on the property if you want sundries, snacks or self-serve booze and the prices aren’t completely horrible. That said, if you have a rental car it is highly recommended to stock up at a grocery on the way in from the airport. That was definitely useful for us.
Overall the property really is very nice. We were treated wonderfully from the moment we arrived until our departure. And the facilities were lovely. I sortof wish the bad meals didn’t leave me so bummed about the overall experience. Alas, it seems they have. Maybe because the worst of the meals was our last on the morning of departure.
Posted by Seth on May 7, 2012 under Trip Reports |
Given the opportunity to spend time underwater, I find it hard to resist. Facing five days on the beach in Puerto Rico – hardly a burden to begin with – I was quick to schedule about as much time as I could diving with the operator at the hotel. That meant three days of spending the morning below the surface. The plan seemed sound.
The good news is that I was underwater, breathing canned air and generally at peace. The bad news is that the diving, particularly the first couple days, was not particularly great. I wasn’t expecting the best conditions or most amazing dives of my life, but the 20-30 foot visibility and minimal life of the reefs was below even those limited expectations.
There were some moments of awesome, scattered through the monotony of silty fan corals, that ultimately made the dives worthwhile. Day one included a spotted ray, swimming along not too far from us.
On day two we caught glimpse of a turtle at one point, and the conditions started to improve a bit. The parrot fish, plentiful throughout the week, were a bit less skittish and willing to pose for photos.
Day three was the best in terms of animal sightings, with a few different turtles spotted on the dive, including one that was not particularly skittish as I swam nearby, snapping a few photos.
Mostly for convenience we dove with the operator based at the El Conquistador Resort where we were staying. One of the crew, Nick, was awesome and diving with him for two of the three days was great. He was willing to respect the different skill levels of the divers on the boat and made sure that everyone was able to maximize their experience. The other guys were less than stellar, arbitrarily cutting dives short, stirring up silt as they guided and otherwise making things less pleasant during the dives.
That all said, I would still recommend them as an operator, in part because the overall level of care and comfort for customers was high. They took care of our gear between dives and overnight. They had great snacks on the boat for between dives. And, in a first for me, they had beer in the cooler for post-dive refreshments. Only for consumption after the second dive, of course, but it was a nice way to lead in to lunch time on the ride back to the dock.
That was quite nice.
I ended up with a few more photos, shared in the album here, that I’m reasonably happy with. Still, the overall quality and quantity of marine life left much to be desired. If I’m in the region again I’ll probably go diving again, mostly because sitting on the beach for a week would drive me bonkers otherwise. But I definitely wouldn’t go out of my way to dive the north eastern coast of Puerto Rico. There just isn’t much there to recommend it.
Posted by Seth on April 30, 2012 under frequent flyer, Mileage Run, points, Trip Reports |
Lots of folks have dinner in Portland, Oregon on any given night. Or course, most of them actually live in Portland and aren’t visiting from New York City for 3 hours, but that’s just part of the entertainment value to me. A couple weeks ago I found myself flying out for dinner, thanks to the $120ish fares United Airlines offered back in January.
I took a whole bunch of photos and videos over the 20 or so hours I was on the road, from snacks to planes to trains, and then edited them together into a roughly two minute time-lapse of the trip. I think it came out pretty well; I hope you agree.
The trip was, by nearly every standard, textbook. Upgrades cleared, flights were on time and I even managed to get home an hour early, albeit in the very last row of coach rather than my original upgraded seat. I slept a little bit, ate a little bit and drank a little bit (probably more of this last category than the other two).
I’m looking forward to the two more of this fare I’ve got booked, as well as a few other similar trips over the coming weeks. Really a pleasant way to spend a day.
Posted by Seth on March 29, 2012 under Flying, Review, Trip Reports |
I was bored in Singapore. Apparently that happens from time to time. I wasn’t going to take it lying down, however. I was determined to find something entertaining to do, and for me that usually means some sort of ridiculous travel-related event. The region is filled with LCCs and there are plenty of options for day trips. Why not have some fun with that?
I started searching for destinations that were close enough I could actually do a day trip and get out of the airport. I wanted to fly different carriers each direction if at all possible, and bonus points were on offer for routes and carriers that were less well known. Needless to say, when I found a carrier called FireFly operating from Singapore into Subang, the old Kuala Lampur airport, I was sold.
FireFly is a subsidiary of Malaysian, operating a small fleet of ATR72-500 aircraft and serving a dozen or so destinations in the region. They are based out of Subang’s Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah airport. This is the field that operated as the main airport for KL until 1998 when the current facility was opened. Since then Subang is used mostly for a single cargo operator, for a charter holiday carrier and for FireFly. It doesn’t have rapid transit to downtown like KLIA does, though the terminal is reasonably new and nice and taxis aren’t particularly expensive (~USD$20 to KL Sentral). Plus, I wanted that line.
FireFly operates out of the LCC terminal in Singapore. It is actually a pretty decent facility, with a number of shops and restaurants available both inside and outside security. I bought my ticket at the counter there and then had a quick snack waiting for check-in to open for the flight.
Once checked in I was through immigration and security and then waiting for the flight. There is also a small garden on one side of the terminal. It happens to also be the smoking area, but there is enough space out there that you can enjoy it without being overwhelmed by the smokers if that’s your thing.
I headed over to the gate a few minutes early, mostly because it let me wander down one hall of the terminal that was otherwise empty and there were some fun plane spotting opportunities (Jett8 74F and the Qantas A380 with a blown engine, anyone??). As I was taking photos I heard an announcement for a gate change of a different FireFly trip. Okay, not my flight so I shouldn’t be worried, right? Except that the new gate for that flight was the gate mine was supposed to be departing from. Ruh-roh.
We swapped gates with that flight and managed to push back only about 20 minutes late, so not a huge deal, though there was certainly potential for things to go badly there. Our boarding was called and there was much queuing to prepare for the flight. As I had one of the few seats in the boarding area I chose to stay seated and board near last but most others on the flight seemed to very much enjoy the queuing process. We walked out from the terminal to the aircraft and I quickly settled in to my seat.
Pitch was a bit tight, but hardly bone-crushing. It also helped that I had an empty seat next to me.
The LCC terminal is close to the end of the runway so it was a short taxi over to runway 20C and we were soon off to Malaysia.
The service in-flight was reasonable. The flight is only about an hour in the air so there isn’t a whole lot of opportunity for things to go very well nor very badly. Still, there was a complimentary snack and juice service and then we were on approach into Subang.
As flights go I would be hard-pressed to classify this as an LCC, certainly in the traditional “no-frills, all fees” context of the term. They offer up to 20kg free checked bags, free snacks and pretty good service during the trip. The delay was minor and having service into Subang isn’t all that much worse than the remoteness of the LCC terminal at KLIA, so long as you’re starting or finishing in Kuala Lampur anyways; if you need to connect to mainline then being at KLIA is obviously better.
Overall, a completely reasonable travel experience. Nothing too crazy, either on the good or bad side of the ledger. That’s basically what I hope for when flying, so I was pretty satisfied.
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Tags: FireFly, Flying, in flight, Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, Photos, review, Singapore, SINtacular, Trip Report, video
Posted by Seth on February 22, 2012 under Trip Reports |
Break out the bunting and the balloons: it is time for a birthday party! In this case the birthday was of Istanbul‘s Tünel transit system, second oldest subway system in the world. The system is now 137 years old and, while it has seen a number of upgrades over the years, it is still more or less providing the same service as it did when it was put into service.
The Tünel connects the waterfront of Galeta to the commercial district of Taksim up on the hill. The elevation difference isn’t huge – about 60 meters – but at the time the Tünel was built there was only one narrow road connecting the two areas handling around 40,000 pedestrians daily. Something better was needed and it was delivered in January 1875, with a tunnel built into the hill and trolley cars carrying passengers up and down the hill.
The current iteration is only slightly different from the original. The original was two parallel tracks; the current version is a single track with a passing section in the middle of the run. Also, the original was (obviously) not powered by electricity. That was changed about 100 years into the life of the Tünel and the current system is electrified and climate controlled.
For the anniversary celebration the Tünel was decked out in ribbons and balloons. It was quite festive, though I was a day late for the actual party. And, while there are now many more roads connecting the two ends of the Tünel line, the funicular is still in business as part of the Istanbul mass transit network and it continues to carry folks up and down the hill every few minutes of the day.
It is a quick ride and not particularly amazing, other than that it saves walking up the big hill and the history of the tunnel is pretty impressive. I make sure to give it a ride every time I’m in town. There is another, newer funicular on the other side of Taksim Square but it doesn’t have the same history as the Tünel.
Posted by Seth on February 20, 2012 under Dining, Trip Reports |
I arrived in Istanbul on a crisp, cool afternoon following a short flight in from Skopje, finally finishing off my four day journey that started in Stockholm. I had managed to parlay a single one-way award ticket into a three-night adventure where every stop was wonderful in its own way. Istanbul, however, was the jewel in the crown, so to speak. It was wonderful. It was beautiful. And it was snowing.
Apparently snow is rare in Istanbul. This was my 5th consecutive city over the previous 7 days where my arrival was heralded by snow. It was a light flurry, no real accumulation, and it gave the city a beautiful glow, over and above the regular level of amazing that its history and culture provide.
I watched the sun set as I rode the metro into town from the airport and quickly dropped my bag off in the hotel room in order to enjoy the sights at night, a view I had not previously experienced. It was awesome.
The streets of the Sultanahmet were quiet, save for the occasional taksi or streetcar rolling through. A few tourists wandered about near me but nothing like the crowds of a summer day. I was nearly alone with the Blue Mosque and Topkapi Sarai, able to celebrate them all by myself.
The cold eventually started to set in, as did hunger; it was time to find dinner. As I walked back towards my hotel – I had seen plenty of restaurants in the neighboring streets – I happened past an outdoor café with a group of musicians playing in the back. And there was just enough heat available that I figured I probably wouldn’t completely freeze. I settled in for an Iskender, an Effes and a set with the band.
I’m sure that it wasn’t the best music ever, but they were clearly enjoying themselves and that was all it took for me to also enjoy the experience. Not every night on every trip has that magical sensation. This was a special night in many ways.
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Posted by Seth on February 13, 2012 under Dining, Flying, Review, Trip Reports |
Day number four of my January Euro Hopping trip saw the end of my visit to Ljubljana, Slovenia and another flight, again on Adria Airways, to Skopje Macedonia. Before the flight I actually had a bit of time at the airport and got to visit the observation deck café at Ljubljana’s airport. The views were great, even with the relative lack of activity at the airport.
I also hit up the lounge at LJU for a few minutes before the flight. Nothing special to speak of and the terminal is nice enough, but there is something there with snacks, soup and booze if you want it.
Much like the inbound flight to Ljubljana, the departure was rather uneventful once I wedged myself into the annoyance that is a window seat on the CRJ-200 aircraft. And, once again, I had the seat next to me open, which helped to mitigate the pain a bit. And, much like the flight in, the scenery was top notch throughout the flight.
This flight was also long enough to rate a snack service. It was, ummm, interesting. Neither good nor bad and it had flavors that seemed to match what was printed on the label, but it certainly isn’t something I’d go out of my way to try again.
And then we were on final into Skopje’s Alexander the Great airport. It is a brand new terminal and pretty nice overall. Getting through immigration took about 3 minutes and the agent barely looked at my passport before waving me through.
Another successful trip in the coach cabin, along with arrival at a new (to me) airport and a new (to me) country. No complaints at all.
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Tags: Adria Airways, Dining, EuroHopping, Flying, Ljubljana, Macedonia, Photos, review, Skopje, Slovenia, Trip Report, video
Posted by Seth on February 5, 2012 under Flying, Review, Trip Reports |
The route network of Adria Airways is a bit limited, as is their overall fleet (13 planes, 10 of which are CRJ-200/900s), but when Ljubljana is your destination, as it was for me, they’re definitely the carrier of choice. OK, fine, the CRJ-200 is a pretty miserable experience, even with the friendly Adria flight crew, but the flight actually wasn’t bad at all.
Adria actually blocks the front few rows of the CRJ200 as “Business Class” though the offerings aren’t particularly impressive. I was flying in economy and, other than no mini bottle of water prior to departure, I think the service was pretty much the same. I was fortunate to have an empty seat next to me so I was relatively comfortable for the flight.
The trip from Munich to Ljubljana is a quick one, only about 35 minutes in the air, so no service during the flight though I didn’t mind much. I was rather distracted by the beautiful views out the window. I love flying over snow-capped mountains.
The approach into Ljubljana was similarly beautiful, particularly with the mountains off to the side behind the airport. It makes for quite a first impression getting off the plane.
The flight was quick and pleasant. No service to speak of but really not an issue for 30 minutes in the air. And given their awesome connectivity in the region I can see flying Adria more often if in the area again. And, given how beautiful Ljubljana is, I hope to be back in the region sooner than not.
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Posted by Seth on January 9, 2012 under Trip Reports |
Climb up on top of your very own elephant and come along for a ride. Ahhh….a typical day in the life as a tourist in Sri Lanka.
After negotiating with a half dozen or so different providers (apparently bookings were high for that day) we finally were up on top of our very own pachyderm for an hour ride through the village and the marshlands behind it.
Not surprisingly there was an enterprising local hanging out on the path selling bags of small bananas to feed to the elephants. Incredible markup on the prices, but that’s what you get for being in the right place at the right time. And having the elephant take the banana out of my hand with its trunk was simply awesome.
We made it through the tour with only a small bit of traffic on the route, passing three or four other groups essentially doing the same route we did.
One of the main differences on our ride, however, was that we were not on a platform on the elephant. Out driver insisted that we ride directly on the animal’s back to get the full experience and there is no doubt in my mind that it was a very different experience. The feel of the shoulders and back undulating under us as we lumbered through the walk was most definitely interesting.
This was a very different experience from that at the bath time in Kerala. That offered us the opportunity to get up close to the animals and to watch them but not to actually ride them around. Getting to feel the texture of their skin and the hot breath coming out of the trunk as it exhaled on me while also jonesing for bananas was quite a bit of fun.
And then the hour was up, we headed back to the "shop" and climbed down off the beast. A quick hug of its trunk (still looking for bananas, I might add) and then we were back in the car and on the road again, heading off to our next awesome adventure.
Posted by Seth on December 16, 2011 under Trip Reports |
It is always a bit strange to me when I grab my stuff and head out to the airport knowing that I won’t be boarding a flight that day. But every time JetBlue announces one of their “Live at T5 Concert Series” shows I check my calendar and se if I’m otherwise busy that day. The shows generally are awesome and so is the fun of sitting at the airport, making new friends and enjoying a free concert. And I must say that Chris Isaak put on a phenomenal performance.
He did one song as a sound check and then came out for a 35 minute set. There were a couple Christmas Carols mixed in, including the “political statement” Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Most of the songs, however were old standards and it was a lot of fun.
He also cracked a couple jokes at the TSA‘s expense, noting the difficulties he had getting through security in his sequined jacket.
Also in the play list were:
Great Balls of Fire
Pretty Woman
Can’t Help Falling in Love
Love it Up (I think that’s the title; the first 30 seconds have a shout-out to JetBlue and the TSA crack)
Wicked Game
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Posted by Seth on November 3, 2011 under Flying, Review, Trip Reports |
It was day three of scheduled commercial service for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, operated by ANA, and I was on board. No, it was not the actual inaugural flight, but I still managed to get there within the first week of operations and I could not be more excited about the experience. It was awesome. That’s not to say that everything about the aircraft is perfect, but the experience certainly was.
My flight on the Dreamliner was from Hiroshima to Tokyo‘s Haneda airport. The trip is only about 400 miles and the total time in the air was just over one hour so it wasn’t really sufficient to try out everything on board, especially the effects of the higher pressurization (though I don’t recall my ears popping like usual, but I’m also not great at noticing that because it happens so often) and the more moist cabin air, but I still managed to put it through the paces as best I could.
Boarding was quick and efficient, as expected from the Japanese. Still, they allotted an extra 5 minutes to the process as they knew this was a special experience. There was something of a crush of gate lice to the self-boarding gates as they announced that boarding was available. Fortunately my Star Alliance Gold status (and being the big, ugly American) got me towards the front of the crush and on reasonably early in the process.
Business Class Cabin
Nothing really to say here; looks pretty comfy but this also is not their premium long-haul configuration so I’m not too worried about it.
Economy Cabin
There has been a bit of concern since Seat Guru published their guide to the seat map of the aircraft about the seat width in coach. The 2-4-2 layout (which really is more like 2-2-2-2 without an aisle in the middle) lends itself to a very generous seat width yet the reports on the site show the width as a hip-crushing 16.5". Good news, folks. That data is just plain wrong. The bulkhead rows, where the tray tables are in the arm rest, have the narrower width but the rest of the aircraft has a quite generous 18.5" or more width. The seats are quite roomy.
Seat recline is an interesting change from a typical airplane configuration. The seat back doesn’t actually move. Instead the seat-bottom slides forward about three inches and the back slides down a bit, creating the same effect as reclining. But it does so without imposing the seat on the passenger behind you. This sucks if you have long legs and also want to recline as you’re basically stuck but it is great for folks (like me) who hate having someone reclined into you.
The AVOD system is pretty nice, with 9" screens in coach. That’s about as big as you can get being so close to the screen and still be able to watch comfortably. There is a seat-to-seat messaging system and the screens can be used either as touch screens or with the controller. I was rather unimpressed with the music and video selections; no movies (though maybe because the flight was too short) and only a couple dozen short video programs plus maybe a dozen CDs for music. I hope that’s just because they don’t have the content fully loaded and not because it is going to be such a paltry offering going forward.
I’m also a big fan of the built-in cup holder in the tray table. They have two, one if it is open and one if it is closed, meaning that you can use the tray table for a laptop or other purposes and still have somewhere to stow a drink. Definitely a nice touch.
And then there is the mood lighting. Lots of fun there. The flight attendants were playing with this feature a bit, particularly during boarding and de-planing. It is fun, but I’m not sure it adds much value to the in-flight experience. It does demonstrate the ability to control the lighting levels to a very granular level, which I suppose is a very useful thing.
The windows are HUGE. It was a night flight so I’m not sure how much this really matters, but they were noticeably larger than on older aircraft. We’ll have to see what the net effects of this are in the long term but it certainly was nice. The electronic dimmers on the windows were a bit sluggish to react but they behaved exactly as advertised in the end. Again, a night flight made it hard to really evaluate the impact of this but it was certainly neat.
In the lav
The Japanese and their toilets. Touchless flushing (it puts down the seat, too!) and bidet functions (designed by Toto) are built in to the toilets. There’s also a window in the lav by 3L (though not at 3R). I do like a lav window.
It isn’t perfect
OK, maybe my expectations are just too high. Still, like one of the notes in a review offered up by Kerwin I noticed a few quirks in the flight. It was VERY quiet at cruise, and I was sitting just aft of the wing so I should’ve had engine noise to some extent if there was much. During the flight there wasn’t. That said, the mechanical noises surrounding the operation of the flaps and other wing control surfaces were pretty loud. Again, maybe just because I was sitting basically on top of them, but Kerwin noticed it, too.
There was also a strange "whine" going on throughout the flight. It was very high pitched – like an old tube TV going bad – and I have no idea if others noticed it or not. It kept going even after the engines were shut down upon arrival so I’m guessing it has to do with the electrical power plant on board. No matter what, it was pretty annoying. Not enough to ruin the experience, but if it really is like that going forward I can see it being a problem for me flying on this aircraft.
Finally, the new overhead bins, while well designed for baggage, are not particularly well configured for an adult to climb in. I’m thoroughly disappointed in that development.
It was a great day and a great trip. I’m definitely looking forward to getting back on board soon.
Oh, and if you want to check out the pre-flight safety video it is here:
Read more from this Trip Report under the Dream2011 tag here.
Tags: 787, ANA, Boeing, Dream2011, Dreamliner, Hiroshima, Japan, Photos, review, Star Alliance, Tokyo, video
