Five Days in Puerto Rico

Do you know that moment when you pull up to a hotel for the first time,

holding your breath, hoping it's going to live up to your expectations?

After days -- sometimes months -- of scrutinizing photos online,

and reading every single Tripadvisor review,

sometimes you are relieved...

sometimes you are disappointed...

and sometimes you are ecstatic.

This time?
I'm pretty sure the hotel's video cameras caught me doing 
a happy jig as I walked into the lobby.

I had super-high expectations for our stay last week in Puerto Rico.

We had booked the St. Regis Bahia Beach, 
a AAA 5-diamond resort in the Rio Grande area
and it did not disappoint.

If you have read some of my other travel posts, 

you may know that more often than not, we don't pay for hotel rooms. 
Huh, you say?

We've been Starwood Hotel members for 10 years,

which means that we accumulate hotel points, 

and use them for free hotel stays. 

For our Christmas week vacation,

we had just enough points for five nights at the St. Regis.

The hotel is about 35 minutes from San Juan, 
near the El Yunque national rain forest.

Translation?
Kind of in the middle of nowhere,

meaning that we'd pretty much be at the hotel 24/7.

It had better be good.  

We had a 7:00am flight on Christmas morning.

By the time we arrived in Rio Grande, we were good and tired,  

but the approach road had our eyes popping out of our heads. 

The resort is spread over 483 acres, which scared me a little. 
I mean, too big could feel, well, TOO BIG,
especially in high-heeled sandals.

The resort abuts the rain forest, and the entrance had a lush, tropical feel.

An enormous fountain greeted us.

It felt like a long ride from the entrance to the Plantation House, 
the hotel's main building.
Heck, it was a long ride. 

Plantation House at night.

Koi pond at Plantation House at night.

The porter took our luggage into the lobby, 
and offered us a welcome cocktail.
"Would you like it strong, or not so much?"
Hell, yeah, I wanted it strong, but didn't think a tipsy mommy before lunch
would set a good example in front of the teenager, 
so I compromised, and said "medium."

Always the blogger, I was tempted to fluff up the pillows and clear away 
the cup and water bottle before taking my picture,
but I restrained myself.

Hotel lobby

I had to sneak a peak at what was outside all of those doors.
Ahhhh...the veranda.
Siri, take a note: 
Sit here in the morning with a cup of coffee... 

...and savor that view!

The fact that we didn't have enough points to upgrade to ocean or pool view, 
meant that our room was in East Jabib, overlooking the golf course. 
It was pretty, but seemed far from everything.

Did you spot Junior Goo Shoes?

View from our room

 Actually, once we got our bearings, 
it was only about a 2-minute walk to the Plantation House,
and five minutes to the pool and beach.
Oh, and that walk?
Boardwalks through the tropical foliage with soft music playing on speakers 
hidden in the trees isn't a bad way to commute.

The foliage was so spectacular,
that I'm saving it for a separate post.

The hotel grounds were immaculately groomed.

There was a beautiful golf course...

 ...and a lake with slides, kayaks, and paddle boards.
We didn't do anything. 
We were just beach slugs.

There were many fine spots for morning coffee...
or afternoon cocktails.

The beach was spectacular. 
It was just how we like it - lots of room to spread out.

"The Spot" was a cute place to have a bite to eat, or a tropical cocktail.

When it got too windy at the beach, we went to the pool.
And by pool, I mean POOL.
It was huge!

So many pictures, but it was just so photogenic :)

The St. Regis in Puerto Rico was definitely one of the nicest hotels we've stayed in.

As soon as I left, I wanted to go back.

We better start saving up those hotel points. 

Linking with:

Tweak It Tuesday
Wow Us Wednesday
Weekend Travel Inspiration
Our World Tuesday  
Take Me Away

WEEKEND TRAVEL INSPIRATION: BEST HOTEL ROOM VIEWS PT. 2

How important is a hotel room with a view?

I mean, who wouldn't want one?

But...depending on where you are staying,

it's not always necessary.

We just booked a few nights "down the shore"
 in Long Beach Island, NJ.

We had a choice of two rooms...

One had an ocean view,

with a double bed and a pullout;

the other had two queen size beds 

and a partial ocean view from the terrace.

Long gone are the days when Mr. Goo Shoes and I

could squeeze into a double bed, 

and like it.

These days, one of us would end up on the floor.

And Junior Goo Shoes is now old enough

to understand that sleeper sofas are usually mighty uncomfortable.

In this case, comfort trumps view. 

Way back when I first started blogging,

I wrote a post called
Best Hotel Room Views.

No one saw it, because I had no readers back then...
so I thought I'd bring it back

for today's Weekend Travel Inspiration party
over at Reflections Enroute.  

And while I'm at it,

I'm adding a few more.

Westin, Grand Cayman 

Hotel Adornes, Bruges, Belgium  

Harborside Inn, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts   

Sheraton Niagara Fall, Canada  

Sheraton Tel Aviv, Israel  

Westin Bayshore, Vancouver Canada 

Happy Travels!

Linking With:
Weekend Travel Inspiration
Our World Tuesday 
Wow Us Wednesday




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Best Hotel Room Views Part 1

 

Floridaaahhhhh!

Is this winter getting you down, or what?

I can't remember a winter more mood-altering than this one. And I mean that in a bad-mood kind of way.

After months of frigid temperatures, and record snowfall, it got to the point where the Goo Shoes family had to...

Staring out the window at mountains of snow day after day got Mr. Goo Shoes and I thinking a lot about relocating to a warmer climate someday. Many of our friends are planning to head down to Florida eventually, so it's a pretty good bet that we will, too. I mean, do we really want to go some place else where we'd have to make new friends at that point in our lives? As long as the current ones still think we're ok, we'll just go where they're going.

We decided to fly south for a few days and start to get a feel for areas we might be interested in, as well as some much-needed solar therapy.  Unfortunately, we only had four days, since that's all the time that Junior Goo Shoes had off from school. 

It was actually a small miracle that we were able to leave as planned the night of February 14 (remember I told you we were doing something fun on Valentine's Day?). Mr. Goo Shoes came down with the flu earlier that week, the dog was sick for a few days, and we had a huge nor'easter that dumped about a foot of snow right before we left. But the stars were aligned...it all worked out, and even our flight was on time. 

We stayed at the W Hotel in Ft. Lauderdale. There are other areas of Florida that we like far better than Ft. Lauderdale, but we wanted to use our Starwood Hotel points for a free stay. As long as there were palm trees, a beach and no snow, we weren't complaining.

The hotel decor is very contemporary, which is meant to appeal to a younger, hipper clientele, but they let us in anyway, LOL! Despite it's quirky feel, we enjoyed it. It's an excellent hotel, and the service was wonderful, with a special shout-out to Raul, the Concierge.

One thing did crack me up, though. Apparently, the rooms are not cleaned...get this...they are "styled"...not by housekeeping, or maids....but "room stylists."  LMAO!

Check out the lobby...

How cool is this bookcase? LOVE the fabric on those chairs. 

The lobby extends outside, overlooking the ocean. Every time I saw that fire pit, I was tempted to ask for a giant pair of chopsticks -- looks like a humongous wok, if you ask me.

I forgot to take a picture of our room before we messed ours up. You don't want to see one with Junior Goo Shoes' stuff all over the place, do you? You can see a nice, neat one here. We didn't have that view -- we had this one...

Not too shabby. There are times when a hotel view really matters to us, but it wasn't a priority this time. This time, we just wanted to be near the ocean.

The hotel isn't directly on the beach...it is across the street. Because it's a public beach, the hotel can't supply chairs. We had to rent them ($12 per chair; $20 per umbrella per day). It really bugs me to have to pay extra for basic amenities, but in this case, I don't think the hotel has a choice.  Mr. Goo Shoes and I are past the point of parking our butts on a towel, so we had to fork over the bucks. Actually, they do let you charge it to your room, which was nice.




We spent the first day on the beach...the weather couldn't have been better! Slowly, the icicles begin to thaw from our bodies...we felt human, again! 

We also had a good amount of time chillaxin' at the hotel pool. Look -- they're serving orange beef at the pool, too! If you sit on those white cement seats, I guess you're between a wok and a hard place...ba-dump-bump.

The alarm clock had to be set pretty early for us to get lounges facing the ocean, but it was worth it. It's a much nicer view than looking at people in the pool who shouldn't be wearing bikinis.

See that plexiglass awning over the pool? 

It is actually a stairway from the 4th floor lobby to the 5th floor pool. When you ascend, you can see into the bottom of the pool as if you were looking at a human aquarium. Some of those "fish" were scary looking!

I had a great time standing in the stairwell taking about a hundred "underwater" photos of Junior Goo Shoes. Be thankful I didn't post them all.

We did get to play "House Hunters" one day. I kept waiting for the HGTV announcer to introduce us...

 "The Goo Shoes family is looking for an escape from 

cold winters in NJ. Will they buy the ugly duckling 

with golf-course views, or the gorgeous home in the 

community where the average age is 95? "  

There is no way we are buying anything now, but all Junior Goo Shoes had to hear was "house in Florida," and he took it upon himself to become our real estate agent. Before we left for Florida, he researched houses, and put together a slide presentation for us. Of course, he should have been studying Biology, but that's another story.

Wouldn't you know it, he found some great houses...one in particular that we really liked, so we called the listing agent and arranged to see it. It was awesome! But, there was an even better one in that community. Can I tell you, that if we were truly ready to buy, we would have taken this house in a heartbeat?

The beach in Delray is what attracted us to this area. Love the dunes! The sun was setting as I snapped these, so pardon the shadows and washed-out sky.  Delray also has a very "happening" downtown with great restaurants and shopping. Yeah, I could be happy there.

  




The four days went quickly, and before we knew it, we were back in NJ, which had two more small snowfalls while we were gone. The weather has really warmed up these last couple of days, so all that snow is finally melting!

It was a great little break, enough to refresh us, and sustain us for the rest of winter a few days.

For those of you who are bloggers, I am SO behind in reading all of your posts after being away. I'm going to try to catch up over the next few days...because I've missed you all!

Cheers!

Linking With:
Weekend Bloggy Reading 
TIckeled Pink Times Two 
Fabulously Creative Friday
Feathered Nest Friday
Oh, The Places I've Been 
Skywatch Friday
Best of the Weekend 
Mosaic Monday 
Our World Tuesday 
Travel Photo Thursday 
Best of the Sunday Traveler