amazing nj
Sep 8, 01, 7:06 pm
The trip ends...
Last Day (9/2/2001): We wake up before the kids for the first time. They slept til about 8:30 which is late considering that we had an 11:35am flight home. We had packed the night before. The kids got quickly dressed and we packed the last minute stuff like pajamas and went downstairs for a quick and last breakfast. I went to the desk and checked out and asked for a bellman to meet me in the room and for our car to be brought out. About 10 minutes later as I was looking under the chairs and beds for toys and things the bellman took my luggage. I said goodbye to the room and and all its luxury including things I neglected to mention in the past parts of this report like ironing boards and a fancy spray for the clothes when they are ironed, shoe horns, a flashlight in the side table draw in case of emergency, the sign that you hang on the door each night to choose your morning paper which is delivered in a plastic bag hanging on your doorby 7am, a nightlight in the kids bathroom, sink near the minibar, a bag for complimentary shoe shines, hand lotions, and a cute metal ice bucket and claw that is NEVER left unfilled. During the morning and turndown service the bucket is filled and also it seems to be filled at other times by the minibar server when they check each day.
When you check out you are given you bill in one of those postage paid questionnaires which is placed in the envelope. I guess they want you to comment on the hotel and send it in. We did. Most answers were "exceeded expectations." I had a fun debate with my wife about these answers. If, on one hand, we expect great service then did the great service that we expected "exceed" our expectations. On the other hand if we answer that the service "met" out expectations is that like saying the service was not great. So we put "exceeded" for most answers except for the restaurant, but we explained in words and by name how the asst manager solved the problems and handled it well.
As we loaded the car the valet handed my wife four bottles of water "for the road" and wished us a safe trip.
During the evenings there is security (wearing suits) in the elevator lobby. Most nights it was a man named Tony who never failed to talk to the kids and address them by name and ask questions such as "how was Hoover Dam Josh, was it big?" Josh was very upset that he did not get to say goodbye to Tony, I guess they bonded. He soon got over it.
We drove away for the 7 minute drive to Alamo which as usual is located in the middle of nowhere and not near the other rental cars. We pulled in and there were over 20 cars waiting for the two roving employees holding the portable computers to give us the receipt. Everyone was standing near their car waiting. Both employees were about 4 lanes away from us so I went and got one and got a receipt. Everyone else ganged up on them and insisted they do them next. Alamo should have more parking lot check in workers. We took the shuttle to the airport. It let us off in the center aisle and we had rent one of the carts to bring our luggage across the street into the terminal and quite some distance to Continental. There were only 5-10 people in the coach line and maybe 3-4 in the first class line but no one except employees were standing near the eticket self service kiosks so I went up put in a credit card and out popped our boarding passes and a few feet away we received the luggage tags for the checked in pieces.
We took the elevator upstairs and were going to see if our President Club passes would get us in the America West club which is before the security. But the two lines into the security x-rays were enormous and we were uncharacteristically running late so we waited on the line a long time and proceed to gate A18. We arrived at the gate at 10:45. A little after 10:55 boarding began. We boarded and took our pre selected seats of 1A 1B 1E and 1F on the domestic configured B757-200, which is bulkhead.
Some people do not like bulkhead. I love them for two reasons. No one reclines into and when the kids want to stand or kick or pull on the phone etc they are not bothering anyone. On the 1AB side where Noah and I sat we had two windows and cut outs in the lower bulkhead wall large enough to fit a filled (with treats and toys) backpack. Noah had the window seat since the airline prefers car seats in the window seat. Across the aisle Josh took the aisle seat and Margo the window. On that side there is no cut out in the lower bulkhead wall for luggage and there is only one window. Where the second (forward) window should be is a wall. The seats are CO's usual first class leather seats with no foot rests and overhead video only. Don't get me wrong I prefer the front of the bus, but after the international first class configuration on a widebody on the way out to LA, the narrow domestic first class on the return seemed small. The overhead room was ample for carry on luggage. Since we entered the plane at the front of coach, there was no traffic through first class and the Flight Attendant was able give everyone pre departure beverages. There was a full flight but no volunteers were needed. We were planning on volunteering if the compensation was right. We would have even taken coach on a later flight if the compensations was $500 per person or higher. (That would have netted us $2000). But we took off on time and headed home.
The pilot made an annoucement that the first part of the 4 hour 19 minute flight would be bumpy and that he may consider delaying meal service if it got too bad. It was moderate to heavy chop but meal service continued. After the Rocky Mountains everything calmed down.
About a half hour into the flight meal service began and Noah fell right asleep for about 2 hours. (He was up for the last 2 hours...more on that later). There were no menus and meal orders were taken front to back.
The meal service served on a tray consisted of...
-Warmed roasted nuts and beverage
-Roll and butter
-Bowl of Asian Noodle Soup with vegetables
-Choice of Large Salad served with Roasted Chicken slices on top or Italian meat sandwich.
-Choc cheesecake
-Prior to arrival: cookies
I must admit that while there was nothing wrong with the food I thought there should be at least one more choice of entree and I had thought that ice cream sundaes were served on this flight but it was not. Since we don't non kosher meat we had the salad without the chicken. It was large and surprisingly good. Josh did not want this but he had noodle soup. (I know some soups are served with meat based broth, but we took a chance that this one was a veggie broth). I had considered ordering him a kosher meal but we have always had a pasta option on lunch or dinner flights before so we did not. We had brought him some muffins from breakfast and snacks so he ate fine.
There were no seconds offered on the rolls. Dessert was served after the main course was removed and I passed since cheesecake is one of the very few foods in the world I do not like, but asked them keep a piece for Noah for when he woke up. They did. Drinks were refilled often. About one hour before landing freshly baked oatmeal raisin cookies were served with milk. Service was fine and friendly but not as enthusiatic as the trip out (but there was nothing wrong with the service either, just making the point that the other flight was really great).
When Noah woke, he ate his cake and then I guess he had had enough. He wanted to get out of his seat and he wanted to make noise. We played and tried to make him happy but he had ants in his pants and he wanted to speak alot and loud in that language toddlers speak before really learning to speak well. My wife and I both took turns holding him, reading to him but all he wanted to do was throw things. He was not screaming or crying or anything and he wasn't all that bad, but the people in row 2 were getting really annoyed at his chatter and movement. A couple of times I overheard their whispers and I saw them rolling their eyes. They glared at me a couple of times so I said to Margo as I was standing in the aisle next to where she was sitting loud enough for those in row 2 to hear: "how many times have we told Continental to please seat us in coach since we are flying on free tickets, but they keep insisting we sit in first class due to the problem we had that one time." I made that up but I wanted to see their reaction. If looks could kill...
Speaking of fares we did get a bargain. Margo and I paid $324.40 each roundtrip and the kids $110.50 each roundtrip since I used two $99 plus tax companion certs for them. We used upgrade certs to upgrade (which we did receive as a result of a huge delay). So we paid $870 for 4 people to fly first class EWR-LAX and LAS-EWR. That is about as good as it gets. And we all received mileage for this trip which has already posted.
We landed 20 minutes early, got our luggage, took a cab to my office about 20 minutes away, picked up my work so I could spend Monday (Labor Day) catching up at home and drove my car home. We arrive dabout 9:30pm where our one goldfish was still alive waiting for us to return. We gave the kids baths, unpacked, and opened all the mail and slept very well. On Monday we slept late and I did my work and paid all the bills that came in mail. It was back to reality.
We took some video and still photos this trip but I still can't figure out how to post all of that online. You can check out the Four Seasons website www.fourseasons.com (http://www.fourseasons.com) and go to the Las Vegas hotel and view the rooms and floor plans.
Final thoughts. Everything went smoothly and safely and I give the following ratings to the elements of the trip:
CO EWR-LAX service: excellent
Alamo Car: excellent
Alamo Service: fair
Queen Mary hotel: good and unique
Queen Mary service: good
Lake Arrowhead resort: very good
Lk Arrowhead service: very good
Four Seasons hotel: excellent
Four Seasons service: extraordinary
CO LAS-EWR service: very good/excellent
The four of us had a great trip and can't wait to our next one. However, due to my work and Josh's school schedule we may not travel until January and if we do it will probably to visit Margie's family in Miami Beach, Florida where we go all the time. Thanks for reading and I really do want your comments (positive or negative) regarding this report.
The end.
Last Day (9/2/2001): We wake up before the kids for the first time. They slept til about 8:30 which is late considering that we had an 11:35am flight home. We had packed the night before. The kids got quickly dressed and we packed the last minute stuff like pajamas and went downstairs for a quick and last breakfast. I went to the desk and checked out and asked for a bellman to meet me in the room and for our car to be brought out. About 10 minutes later as I was looking under the chairs and beds for toys and things the bellman took my luggage. I said goodbye to the room and and all its luxury including things I neglected to mention in the past parts of this report like ironing boards and a fancy spray for the clothes when they are ironed, shoe horns, a flashlight in the side table draw in case of emergency, the sign that you hang on the door each night to choose your morning paper which is delivered in a plastic bag hanging on your doorby 7am, a nightlight in the kids bathroom, sink near the minibar, a bag for complimentary shoe shines, hand lotions, and a cute metal ice bucket and claw that is NEVER left unfilled. During the morning and turndown service the bucket is filled and also it seems to be filled at other times by the minibar server when they check each day.
When you check out you are given you bill in one of those postage paid questionnaires which is placed in the envelope. I guess they want you to comment on the hotel and send it in. We did. Most answers were "exceeded expectations." I had a fun debate with my wife about these answers. If, on one hand, we expect great service then did the great service that we expected "exceed" our expectations. On the other hand if we answer that the service "met" out expectations is that like saying the service was not great. So we put "exceeded" for most answers except for the restaurant, but we explained in words and by name how the asst manager solved the problems and handled it well.
As we loaded the car the valet handed my wife four bottles of water "for the road" and wished us a safe trip.
During the evenings there is security (wearing suits) in the elevator lobby. Most nights it was a man named Tony who never failed to talk to the kids and address them by name and ask questions such as "how was Hoover Dam Josh, was it big?" Josh was very upset that he did not get to say goodbye to Tony, I guess they bonded. He soon got over it.
We drove away for the 7 minute drive to Alamo which as usual is located in the middle of nowhere and not near the other rental cars. We pulled in and there were over 20 cars waiting for the two roving employees holding the portable computers to give us the receipt. Everyone was standing near their car waiting. Both employees were about 4 lanes away from us so I went and got one and got a receipt. Everyone else ganged up on them and insisted they do them next. Alamo should have more parking lot check in workers. We took the shuttle to the airport. It let us off in the center aisle and we had rent one of the carts to bring our luggage across the street into the terminal and quite some distance to Continental. There were only 5-10 people in the coach line and maybe 3-4 in the first class line but no one except employees were standing near the eticket self service kiosks so I went up put in a credit card and out popped our boarding passes and a few feet away we received the luggage tags for the checked in pieces.
We took the elevator upstairs and were going to see if our President Club passes would get us in the America West club which is before the security. But the two lines into the security x-rays were enormous and we were uncharacteristically running late so we waited on the line a long time and proceed to gate A18. We arrived at the gate at 10:45. A little after 10:55 boarding began. We boarded and took our pre selected seats of 1A 1B 1E and 1F on the domestic configured B757-200, which is bulkhead.
Some people do not like bulkhead. I love them for two reasons. No one reclines into and when the kids want to stand or kick or pull on the phone etc they are not bothering anyone. On the 1AB side where Noah and I sat we had two windows and cut outs in the lower bulkhead wall large enough to fit a filled (with treats and toys) backpack. Noah had the window seat since the airline prefers car seats in the window seat. Across the aisle Josh took the aisle seat and Margo the window. On that side there is no cut out in the lower bulkhead wall for luggage and there is only one window. Where the second (forward) window should be is a wall. The seats are CO's usual first class leather seats with no foot rests and overhead video only. Don't get me wrong I prefer the front of the bus, but after the international first class configuration on a widebody on the way out to LA, the narrow domestic first class on the return seemed small. The overhead room was ample for carry on luggage. Since we entered the plane at the front of coach, there was no traffic through first class and the Flight Attendant was able give everyone pre departure beverages. There was a full flight but no volunteers were needed. We were planning on volunteering if the compensation was right. We would have even taken coach on a later flight if the compensations was $500 per person or higher. (That would have netted us $2000). But we took off on time and headed home.
The pilot made an annoucement that the first part of the 4 hour 19 minute flight would be bumpy and that he may consider delaying meal service if it got too bad. It was moderate to heavy chop but meal service continued. After the Rocky Mountains everything calmed down.
About a half hour into the flight meal service began and Noah fell right asleep for about 2 hours. (He was up for the last 2 hours...more on that later). There were no menus and meal orders were taken front to back.
The meal service served on a tray consisted of...
-Warmed roasted nuts and beverage
-Roll and butter
-Bowl of Asian Noodle Soup with vegetables
-Choice of Large Salad served with Roasted Chicken slices on top or Italian meat sandwich.
-Choc cheesecake
-Prior to arrival: cookies
I must admit that while there was nothing wrong with the food I thought there should be at least one more choice of entree and I had thought that ice cream sundaes were served on this flight but it was not. Since we don't non kosher meat we had the salad without the chicken. It was large and surprisingly good. Josh did not want this but he had noodle soup. (I know some soups are served with meat based broth, but we took a chance that this one was a veggie broth). I had considered ordering him a kosher meal but we have always had a pasta option on lunch or dinner flights before so we did not. We had brought him some muffins from breakfast and snacks so he ate fine.
There were no seconds offered on the rolls. Dessert was served after the main course was removed and I passed since cheesecake is one of the very few foods in the world I do not like, but asked them keep a piece for Noah for when he woke up. They did. Drinks were refilled often. About one hour before landing freshly baked oatmeal raisin cookies were served with milk. Service was fine and friendly but not as enthusiatic as the trip out (but there was nothing wrong with the service either, just making the point that the other flight was really great).
When Noah woke, he ate his cake and then I guess he had had enough. He wanted to get out of his seat and he wanted to make noise. We played and tried to make him happy but he had ants in his pants and he wanted to speak alot and loud in that language toddlers speak before really learning to speak well. My wife and I both took turns holding him, reading to him but all he wanted to do was throw things. He was not screaming or crying or anything and he wasn't all that bad, but the people in row 2 were getting really annoyed at his chatter and movement. A couple of times I overheard their whispers and I saw them rolling their eyes. They glared at me a couple of times so I said to Margo as I was standing in the aisle next to where she was sitting loud enough for those in row 2 to hear: "how many times have we told Continental to please seat us in coach since we are flying on free tickets, but they keep insisting we sit in first class due to the problem we had that one time." I made that up but I wanted to see their reaction. If looks could kill...
Speaking of fares we did get a bargain. Margo and I paid $324.40 each roundtrip and the kids $110.50 each roundtrip since I used two $99 plus tax companion certs for them. We used upgrade certs to upgrade (which we did receive as a result of a huge delay). So we paid $870 for 4 people to fly first class EWR-LAX and LAS-EWR. That is about as good as it gets. And we all received mileage for this trip which has already posted.
We landed 20 minutes early, got our luggage, took a cab to my office about 20 minutes away, picked up my work so I could spend Monday (Labor Day) catching up at home and drove my car home. We arrive dabout 9:30pm where our one goldfish was still alive waiting for us to return. We gave the kids baths, unpacked, and opened all the mail and slept very well. On Monday we slept late and I did my work and paid all the bills that came in mail. It was back to reality.
We took some video and still photos this trip but I still can't figure out how to post all of that online. You can check out the Four Seasons website www.fourseasons.com (http://www.fourseasons.com) and go to the Las Vegas hotel and view the rooms and floor plans.
Final thoughts. Everything went smoothly and safely and I give the following ratings to the elements of the trip:
CO EWR-LAX service: excellent
Alamo Car: excellent
Alamo Service: fair
Queen Mary hotel: good and unique
Queen Mary service: good
Lake Arrowhead resort: very good
Lk Arrowhead service: very good
Four Seasons hotel: excellent
Four Seasons service: extraordinary
CO LAS-EWR service: very good/excellent
The four of us had a great trip and can't wait to our next one. However, due to my work and Josh's school schedule we may not travel until January and if we do it will probably to visit Margie's family in Miami Beach, Florida where we go all the time. Thanks for reading and I really do want your comments (positive or negative) regarding this report.
The end.