How did you start your habit of staying in luxury hotels?
Only very few of us are born in a luxury hotel. Now we love to stay at them and do that as often as we can/budget allows or whatever.
I am wondering how you started your habit of staying in a luxury hotel:
- Did you use to stay at such already when you were a cild going on holidays with your parents?
- Did you first experience such great hotels during business travel?
- Did you first allow yourself such a visit during your honeymoon?
- or something else?
My wife was an event planner for her former company. Numerous times each year she took groups of co-workers and clients to luxury hotels for functions. I attended a number of them and got used to "the lifestyle". Now we try as much as possible to continue to stay at these (or similar) resorts. It requires some diligent saving and maximizing points and rewards, but we've enjoyed some pretty nice vacations over the last few years. Could I go back to "lesser" properties? Sure. But as long as I can find promotions or reward stays at luxury properties, I will.
I first stayed in a luxury hotel during my first holiday with my husband, just months after we had met. Our budget did not allow for too much splurging by then (we lived in different countries and spent all our money travelling to see each other or making phonecalls ), but we wanted to do something very special during our first holiday together and spent one (out of three) nights in Florence in a luxury hotel, full of antique furniture etc. - whereafter we had to sleep in a very small, cheap hotel for the last two nights. Afterwards, I have realised that the hotel we stayed in, was not a real luxury hotel, but this experience opened up our interest for great hotels. Our honeymoon two years later, took us to some great hotels in Italy (La Posta Vecchia, San Pietro de Positano, Santa Caterina Amalfi) and from then on there was no way back, especially after spluring on Amanresorts and Four Seasons around Asia. Not many friends understand us in this matter. They think we should rather spend our money on durable goods instead of "throwing them out of the window", but who cares as long as we know that our holidays together is the best there is!
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A sort of chronology of my fall into the "dark side of the force":
At age 10, the Radisson Hotel in St John, Nfld piqued my curiosity in nicer hotels.
At age 15, JAL Executive Class to NRT on a Japanese Government scholarship reinforced my curiosity of, and desire to somehow continue, grand class travel
-At age 21, my first luxury hotel stay was the Waldorf Towers in New York City (a hotel to which I frequent today).
-At age 23, stayed at my first and second Four Seasons Hotels -- the FS Philadelphia and New York.
-At age 26, experienced Grand hotels in Europe for the first time - des Bergues in Geneva, Le Bristol, de Crillon, and the George V in Paris.
Now, corrupted forever!!
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About 30 years ago I stayed at one of the first Four Seasons Hotels; The Clift in San Francisco. They made a point of knowing my name, something unheard of in those days. One night they knocked on my door to deliver freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk. I have now stayed at almost 40 FS hotels and most of the major luxury hotels worldwide.
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When I was 6 I started flying F with my parents and staying at 4* and 5* hotels with them on business trips when I tagged along and on family vacations when we all went. It is sad to say that it is hard to go back once you have started. This is the same for flying F at such a young age as well.
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Grew up in a family that never went on vacation (well... we went to the Grand Canyon once) and never went out to dinner. As an adult, I also rarely went on vacation (though I quickly developed a taste for trying all the new restaurants in town).
Then I met my partner and a couple of years into our relationship, she finally convinced me to take a vacation. As a fluke, she responded to an offer to stay at the new Club Intrawest in Zihuatenejo for $99 per night. Reluctantly, I agreed to go.
Turns out we got the nicest suite in the entire (brand new) resort. Looking back, I wouldn't necessarily call it luxury -- but when it's brand new and when it's the nicest room and when it's $99 per night -- the impact was pretty powerful.
Since then, I've been to a few FS resorts (Lodge at Koele, Scottsdale, Whistler, and soon to visit Manele Bay). I think one of the reasons I even opened my mind to travel (esp. any international travel) was due to the luxury hotel.
At the end of the day (or at the start of the day or in the middle of the day)... I want to feel like I'm happy to be where I am. Not wishing I was home. Being thrilled at spending my time in a lovely place where the service is excellent (even though I really don't care about service as much as I care about the room itself).
In the mid-70's, my father was transferred at short notice, and we lived in an apartment at the Ritz Carlton (not part of the chain) in Montreal for a month. That probably started it, although there was a long period of Westins and Hyatts in my early career.
Luxury did not really return until I was in NYC with my (then) boss, we were very dissatisfied with the Plaza; we were out to dinner with some bankers from Morgan Stanley who suggested the (then) new Four Seasons on 57th. I stayed there next time and was hooked (although I was a bit nervous about submitting that expense report). Since then, business travel, let alone holiday travel, was never the same.
I was an exchange student in Singapore, feeling a bit lonely for my 20th birthday. I decided to show up at the Raffles Hotel reception. I stayed at the Somerset Maugham Suite, it was my first luxury hotel and now I would just prefer not to go on holidays rather than staying in a bad hotel.
When I was a teenager, my father had an important post that allowed him to travel in F and stay in suites / penthouse suites. I often got to go with him. There were many grand hotels but the Waldorf Towers was an annual event, right before Christmas.
Today, I've got Mr. Ericka hooked as well. We aren't wealthy. And we're pretty conservative with money in other areas. Our approach is to tightly manage our mileage programs so that we can fly anywhere in the world 1st class for free. Then we take a year to set aside fun money for some really nice hotel experiences. Save first. Then spend.
My parents were relatively poor, and 75% of our holidays involved a 90-mile drive to stay in a caravan at the nearest coastal resort. My father never left the UK in his life. I never, to the best of my knowledge, stayed in a hotel with my parents (B&B's, yes).
However, I'd always had a fascination with smart hotels. Years before I could afford to stay in them I used to visit them - I remembering visiting The Oriental in Bangkok when I first went to Thailand, and the grand Banff and Lake Louise hotels when visiting family in Canada. In fact, my first real exposure to a smart hotel may have been my Canadian aunt, who was building manager of the residential arm of a hotel / condo mixed-use complex in Saskatoon.
Honestly can't remember the first 'luxury' hotel I stayed at ... I sort of worked my way up from the Hyatt type places I would occasionally use when a junior banker as I started earning more money. Banker salaries and coming late to parenthood helped.
It certainly became an expensive hobby, though! In 2006 (last pre-baby and pre-pregnancy year), over 50% of ALL money we spent went on travel, although admittedly we were mortgage-free.
It wasn't until I was my early 20's, I think, that I really began to have interest in staying at the better hotels. Probably because of childhood experiences staying in average American hotels and motels, I wanted to experience things beyond that...well, really beyond that. I was based in Asia by that time, and luxury hotels were more of the norm than the exception. Even if you didn't stay in one, there was always dinners at these hotels, functions, meetings, and many of the popular clubs were there, too.
Holidays around Asia were relatively inexpensive, and it didn't take long before I started staying in more upscale hotels around the continent. I had to travel for work a lot as well, and by the time I owned my own company, I wouldn't hesitate to book myself into the nicer business hotels on work trips.
But probably it was when I met my wife almost ten years that I really became fond of luxury hotels. She loved to travel as much as I did, and when you have someone permanent to share experiences with, it seemed to be worth it so much more. We made it a point to try to stay at the best hotel or property in any city that we went for holiday, taking about three or four trips a year, and soon we graduated to only wanting to stay in suites. Probably because of our inexperience, we always wanted to stay in a better room than we did in our previous trip. Many of our holidays were to resort towns around Asia, so villas began becoming an option, as they were quite common and affordable. We started to love the service of these resorts, loved going to spas together and getting massages, loved getting picked up by a golf cart to go to the clubhouse or the beach, and just loved the laid-back atmosphere of these properties, which were an oasis especially since our normal daily lives in were high-stress Asian urban environments.
We had stayed in various resorts around Asia before we came across our first Aman. I was aware of Amanresorts before from reading various articles, but no one I knew had stayed in one, so I didn't really have an idea of why or how they would be better than the resorts that we had stayed at. It wasn't until a friend had their wedding at an Aman did I understand. The villas they rented for the ceremony and the reception were just flat-out amazing. Not just huge and with epic ocean views, but the architecture was truly stunning, even within the villas. Really blew me away in terms of the grandness of the spaces, and opened up my imagination to this almost "fantasy" world, and made me realize it was real and within grasp.
After that wedding, we decided to do our first Aman trip, which was the Aman Bali Experience a few years ago. That was easily our best trip together up until that time, and we have never looked back!
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When I was a child and throughout my twenties I would travel and stay in good 3-4 star hotels (obviously chosen by my parents when I was younger).
On my first trip to Asia about 20 years ago I booked a multi center tour using 4 star hotels. About 2 months before we were due to travel we were told our hotel in Singapore was undergoing a bit of refurbishment and were given the choice of paying about £5 a night extra for another 4 star or £10 a night extra for a 5 star - the Mandarin Oriental.
The 4 star hotels on our trip were excellent cw what we had stayed at in Europe and America but the 5 star MO in Singapore (then) was completely on a different level.
With the advent of the internet I now dont do the travel agent tours - we do our own research and hunt for the bargains. I still find it difficult to justify paying huge sums of money sometimes asked for at luxury hotels but where I can get a good price and the extra seems to be worth it we will generally go for the most luxurious hotel we can afford.
I do, however, still believe there are some fantastic non lux hotels 3 star hotels out there that offer 95% of what the most luxurious hotels off for a fraction of the price - I would love to see a thread on "luxurious 3 star finds"
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), but we wanted to do something very special during our first holiday together and spent one (out of three) nights in Florence in a luxury hotel, full of antique furniture etc. - whereafter we had to sleep in a very small, cheap hotel for the last two nights. Afterwards, I have realised that the hotel we stayed in, was not a real luxury hotel, but this experience opened up our interest for great hotels. Our honeymoon two years later, took us to some great hotels in Italy (La Posta Vecchia, San Pietro de Positano, Santa Caterina Amalfi) and from then on there was no way back, especially after spluring on Amanresorts and Four Seasons around Asia. Not many friends understand us in this matter. They think we should rather spend our money on durable goods instead of "throwing them out of the window", but who cares as long as we know that our holidays together is the best there is!
