Palm Springs at The Avalon for Mother's Day Weekend
May 21, 2017, 1:14 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: MRY - CNX - TXL
Programs: UA 1K / *G / Marriott PE / Expedia Gold+ / Hertz PC
Posts: 7,058
Palm Springs at The Avalon for Mother's Day Weekend
Spent Mother's Day weekend with my Mom, Sister, 2.5yo Nephew and 3 good friends--2 of which will be parents in the fall.
I was surprised when looking that SJC-PSP is not a served route. I was planning on booking that so we just had to drive 1:10-20 up to San Jose and then arrive right in Palm Springs. Didn't feel it was worth it to drive to SFO to fly to PSP so we opted for MRY-LAX and then drive over from there. Plus, my Mom & Sister never know how to pack light so the baggage allowance was another factor.
We arrived around 8:30 for the 9:45 flight and at check-in they were alerting pax, just as I got a text from UA, that the flight was potentially delayed 2hours.
The inbound flight was coming in on time, but because of construction traffic bottle neck at LAX the captain wouldn't know our new departure time until he got on the ground in MRY.
We were told at 10:50 we would know our new time which could be right then. We ended up posting a 2hour delay arriving at 1.
I should have known better and reserved a full size car. They said "we should get an smaller SUV". I don't follow the exact classes and what is what but I thought a mid-size SUV would be fine. It probably was...but with President's Circle they upgraded me to a Range Rover Evoque. I assumed this would be fine and thought it was going to be the same size as my X6 or Mom's Cayenne. Not so much, a dinky little car.
We had a car seat reserved and it was in it, so I didn't feel like going and finding an agent and getting a bigger car from the selection area as we were already in a far stall and didn't feel like schlepping. My packing/Tetris/Jenga stills came in handy as I was able to get 2 full size, 1 medium size, a stroller, diaper bag all in the car.
The delay put us in some crappy traffic times and it took about 3.5h to get from LAX to PSP. We did stop at the dinosaur truck stop next to Morongo for about 10-15min.
I've stayed at The Ace and the Triada. Both are good, Ace was probably too young for our family time and the Triada didn't have that nice of loungey pool areas which was important.
I've stayed at The Avalon in Beverly Hills and loved it, so one friend who came with had stayed at the Palm Springs one and recommended it.
The 2nd floor in the studio rooms (not cottages) is probably better since you get more light from the balcony and not the ground level patios.
Breakfast at Chi Chi's by the pool was good. Serves lunch and dinner as well and can be taken to any of the 3 pools.
The shower water pressure is a fire hose from an old head. The temperature was either hot or scalding.
The AC is an old monster that is ON Hi/Lo or OFF.
Since everyone else was 2-3h late with traffic dinner turned into something quick which is El Mirasol. There's 2 locations, the one by Movie Colony has a nicer ambience.
The Ice Cream Shop(pe) was pretty boring and average.
I would punch a hipster if they pulled this out on a plane.
At the end of the road is the Lykken Hike Trail head. It was a nice undulating hillside climb which was good to do an hour of cardio in the morning before it heats up too much.
When planning on things to do besides lounge at the pool a friend brought up the Integratron and how they've always wanted to go but can never get people to do it. At $40 I was wondering why any of the guppie friends wouldn't do it...then the morning we finished breakfast I found out it is in Landers...above Yucca Valley. 1:15m away.
We made our way into the desert.
If you want to find out more in detail (which is wonderful) check out their website or wiki. Basically a McDonnell Douglas engineer and UFOlogist built this dome in the mid-century. It is entirely made of wood and dowel-no nails, rivets, bolts or metal. If you stand in the dead center and talk normally you feel like your yelling because all the sound bounces around and comes back into your body--it sounds normal to everyone else. Also whomever you are directly across from you can whisper and 40 feet away it sounds like you're whispering right in their ear. This is they they ask you not to sleep (snore) because it'll sound like you are doing it right in their ear--you're encouraged to nudge your neighbor if they do. I had to do it 3x and had it done 1x to me.
So we entered and one of the sisters who owns/runs it sits in the middle of 15 quartz bowls and tells the story. It started to get a little kooky about black army helicopters and all of that. About 35min is spent playing the bowls while you lay and meditate. The last 10 is an ambient soundtrack that Moby made for Integratron.
All in all it was a neat experience. Something to say you've done it. If you know anyone who goes to Esalen they probably know about this.
We were told one of the largest free standing boulders in the world was just up the road and it was where the Philip van Tassel (who built the Integ) would have his annual UFO gatherings. He even drug out the lake bed to make Giant Rock Interplanetary Airport for people to land (Earth and Other Wordly craft).
Google Maps makes it think you take a "road" there. It's all dirt and most of it is little run off ditches and creek beds.
A fun little detour. Everyone was hungry so Yelp found that Frontier Cafe in Yucca Valley was a spot to stop. Color me suprised! It was a lot less The Hills Have Eyes and more Brooklyn Goes to the Desert than I thought. Everyone was on their laptops, navajo print, old UFO ephemera, beards...and really good food!
A friend from Monterey goes to Pioneertown often which is not far. This all has made me really want to go out there for a week and just explore, enjoy some magic fungus and chill.
Back in town and more relaxing we went to dinner at Birba. I went 5 years ago my first time in PS but don't remember much. Bleh what a let down. It was full of people and a spot to be on a Friday but everything was just blah. Our reservation was for 7, one seat being a high-chair. They put us at a table of 6 and said just stick the high chair on the corner. No.
After that the service was fine but the pizzas are so flat and blah. The branzino and eggplant sounded delicious but how horrible of a sweet and goopy sauce to put the eggplant in ruined the dish.
Two New Yorkers and 2 guys who wake up at 6:30 everyday meant that we were reared and ready to go. We went to Desert X...the "mirror" house up not far from where the tram is.
It was nice to be early and explore it being the only ones there.
Breakfast down at the Ace at King's Highway.
Luckily World's Gym, aka the land that time forgot of older gay men, does day passes. $18 a pop is steep...you can get 5-10 packs for cheaper. There's a lot of equipment and it's actually a good place to work out.
Lazy days.
Made the mistake of going to the outlets on a weekend. I'm surprised they don't have a direct air drop in from Shanghai.
Dinner at Mr. Lyon's. I've been wanting to try and it was wonderful. Our waitress was wonderful! Old school, no nonsense with the perfect mix of crotchety and endearing. Only gripe was it took three hours. I had to drive my Sister back to the hotel so my Nephew could go to sleep and in the time it took me to get back the desert came out 10 min later. We ordered it before I left.
I tried Koffi, Ristretto and Ernest Coffee. I liked Ernest the best. Nice baristas, even remembered me the next day. They also have a tiki bar/lounge in the back.
I didn't grab any photos but we had mother's day brunch at Normas at The Parker. I would have liked to stay there but thought it may have been harder with my nephew. At the Avalon there are 3 pools and 1 is designated family.
Later in the day a few of us were off to Toucan's for the Sunday night drag show. On the way there we stopped at Arrive hotel to have some food at Reservoir. 2 tacos for $13 was pricey. Apparently their pool is open to the public. I think they are trying to capture some of the Ace's market.
I don't need to say anything else about Toucan's.
We made our way back to LAX earlier in the day. I figured we may have a downline delay for a 4pm United Express flight but we wanted to stop by back the outlets when it wouldn't be a mad house.
As we got closer to the airport the delays started to post. Our plane was doing SMF-LAX-SBA-LAX-MRY and the 2.5h delay leaving SMF is what ended up being a 1h delay for us. Not bad this time and easier to do it at LAX than the 2h we had at MRY.
Noticed these starting to pop up. I'm curious when we'll see a new "Dao" video over some pax arguing that they didn't know what their ticket was when they bought it.
All in all the trip was great time spent with family and friends. The delays weren't too bad, although we did muse that if we started to drive down there about the time we were heading to the airport we would have probably only have been there an hour later. Considering it in the future that it may be fine to just drive down rather than spend time in airports and the brunt of LA traffic.
I was surprised when looking that SJC-PSP is not a served route. I was planning on booking that so we just had to drive 1:10-20 up to San Jose and then arrive right in Palm Springs. Didn't feel it was worth it to drive to SFO to fly to PSP so we opted for MRY-LAX and then drive over from there. Plus, my Mom & Sister never know how to pack light so the baggage allowance was another factor.
We arrived around 8:30 for the 9:45 flight and at check-in they were alerting pax, just as I got a text from UA, that the flight was potentially delayed 2hours.
The inbound flight was coming in on time, but because of construction traffic bottle neck at LAX the captain wouldn't know our new departure time until he got on the ground in MRY.
We were told at 10:50 we would know our new time which could be right then. We ended up posting a 2hour delay arriving at 1.
I should have known better and reserved a full size car. They said "we should get an smaller SUV". I don't follow the exact classes and what is what but I thought a mid-size SUV would be fine. It probably was...but with President's Circle they upgraded me to a Range Rover Evoque. I assumed this would be fine and thought it was going to be the same size as my X6 or Mom's Cayenne. Not so much, a dinky little car.
We had a car seat reserved and it was in it, so I didn't feel like going and finding an agent and getting a bigger car from the selection area as we were already in a far stall and didn't feel like schlepping. My packing/Tetris/Jenga stills came in handy as I was able to get 2 full size, 1 medium size, a stroller, diaper bag all in the car.
The delay put us in some crappy traffic times and it took about 3.5h to get from LAX to PSP. We did stop at the dinosaur truck stop next to Morongo for about 10-15min.
I've stayed at The Ace and the Triada. Both are good, Ace was probably too young for our family time and the Triada didn't have that nice of loungey pool areas which was important.
I've stayed at The Avalon in Beverly Hills and loved it, so one friend who came with had stayed at the Palm Springs one and recommended it.
The 2nd floor in the studio rooms (not cottages) is probably better since you get more light from the balcony and not the ground level patios.
Breakfast at Chi Chi's by the pool was good. Serves lunch and dinner as well and can be taken to any of the 3 pools.
The shower water pressure is a fire hose from an old head. The temperature was either hot or scalding. The AC is an old monster that is ON Hi/Lo or OFF.Since everyone else was 2-3h late with traffic dinner turned into something quick which is El Mirasol. There's 2 locations, the one by Movie Colony has a nicer ambience.
The Ice Cream Shop(pe) was pretty boring and average.
I would punch a hipster if they pulled this out on a plane.
At the end of the road is the Lykken Hike Trail head. It was a nice undulating hillside climb which was good to do an hour of cardio in the morning before it heats up too much.
When planning on things to do besides lounge at the pool a friend brought up the Integratron and how they've always wanted to go but can never get people to do it. At $40 I was wondering why any of the guppie friends wouldn't do it...then the morning we finished breakfast I found out it is in Landers...above Yucca Valley. 1:15m away.
We made our way into the desert.
If you want to find out more in detail (which is wonderful) check out their website or wiki. Basically a McDonnell Douglas engineer and UFOlogist built this dome in the mid-century. It is entirely made of wood and dowel-no nails, rivets, bolts or metal. If you stand in the dead center and talk normally you feel like your yelling because all the sound bounces around and comes back into your body--it sounds normal to everyone else. Also whomever you are directly across from you can whisper and 40 feet away it sounds like you're whispering right in their ear. This is they they ask you not to sleep (snore) because it'll sound like you are doing it right in their ear--you're encouraged to nudge your neighbor if they do. I had to do it 3x and had it done 1x to me.
So we entered and one of the sisters who owns/runs it sits in the middle of 15 quartz bowls and tells the story. It started to get a little kooky about black army helicopters and all of that. About 35min is spent playing the bowls while you lay and meditate. The last 10 is an ambient soundtrack that Moby made for Integratron.
All in all it was a neat experience. Something to say you've done it. If you know anyone who goes to Esalen they probably know about this.
We were told one of the largest free standing boulders in the world was just up the road and it was where the Philip van Tassel (who built the Integ) would have his annual UFO gatherings. He even drug out the lake bed to make Giant Rock Interplanetary Airport for people to land (Earth and Other Wordly craft).
Google Maps makes it think you take a "road" there. It's all dirt and most of it is little run off ditches and creek beds.
A fun little detour. Everyone was hungry so Yelp found that Frontier Cafe in Yucca Valley was a spot to stop. Color me suprised! It was a lot less The Hills Have Eyes and more Brooklyn Goes to the Desert than I thought. Everyone was on their laptops, navajo print, old UFO ephemera, beards...and really good food!
A friend from Monterey goes to Pioneertown often which is not far. This all has made me really want to go out there for a week and just explore, enjoy some magic fungus and chill.
Back in town and more relaxing we went to dinner at Birba. I went 5 years ago my first time in PS but don't remember much. Bleh what a let down. It was full of people and a spot to be on a Friday but everything was just blah. Our reservation was for 7, one seat being a high-chair. They put us at a table of 6 and said just stick the high chair on the corner. No.
After that the service was fine but the pizzas are so flat and blah. The branzino and eggplant sounded delicious but how horrible of a sweet and goopy sauce to put the eggplant in ruined the dish.
Two New Yorkers and 2 guys who wake up at 6:30 everyday meant that we were reared and ready to go. We went to Desert X...the "mirror" house up not far from where the tram is.
It was nice to be early and explore it being the only ones there.
Breakfast down at the Ace at King's Highway.
Luckily World's Gym, aka the land that time forgot of older gay men, does day passes. $18 a pop is steep...you can get 5-10 packs for cheaper. There's a lot of equipment and it's actually a good place to work out.
Lazy days.
Made the mistake of going to the outlets on a weekend. I'm surprised they don't have a direct air drop in from Shanghai.
Dinner at Mr. Lyon's. I've been wanting to try and it was wonderful. Our waitress was wonderful! Old school, no nonsense with the perfect mix of crotchety and endearing. Only gripe was it took three hours. I had to drive my Sister back to the hotel so my Nephew could go to sleep and in the time it took me to get back the desert came out 10 min later. We ordered it before I left.
I tried Koffi, Ristretto and Ernest Coffee. I liked Ernest the best. Nice baristas, even remembered me the next day. They also have a tiki bar/lounge in the back.
I didn't grab any photos but we had mother's day brunch at Normas at The Parker. I would have liked to stay there but thought it may have been harder with my nephew. At the Avalon there are 3 pools and 1 is designated family.
Later in the day a few of us were off to Toucan's for the Sunday night drag show. On the way there we stopped at Arrive hotel to have some food at Reservoir. 2 tacos for $13 was pricey. Apparently their pool is open to the public. I think they are trying to capture some of the Ace's market.
I don't need to say anything else about Toucan's.
We made our way back to LAX earlier in the day. I figured we may have a downline delay for a 4pm United Express flight but we wanted to stop by back the outlets when it wouldn't be a mad house.
As we got closer to the airport the delays started to post. Our plane was doing SMF-LAX-SBA-LAX-MRY and the 2.5h delay leaving SMF is what ended up being a 1h delay for us. Not bad this time and easier to do it at LAX than the 2h we had at MRY.
Noticed these starting to pop up. I'm curious when we'll see a new "Dao" video over some pax arguing that they didn't know what their ticket was when they bought it.
All in all the trip was great time spent with family and friends. The delays weren't too bad, although we did muse that if we started to drive down there about the time we were heading to the airport we would have probably only have been there an hour later. Considering it in the future that it may be fine to just drive down rather than spend time in airports and the brunt of LA traffic.
May 21, 2017, 1:30 pm
#2
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: London
Programs: BA Lifetime Gold & GGL & CCR, HH Diam, Bonvoy Titanium, IHG Spire, Tastecard
Posts: 7,549
Nice TR - I love PSP and I really like the Avalon (first stayed in 2009 when it was the Viceroy and a few times since). Think your comments on shower and a/c are fair - but it's a special place for me.
Have also stayed at the Parker and we did dinner at Mr Lyons last time I was in November - see my TR.
Thanks for sharing.
Have also stayed at the Parker and we did dinner at Mr Lyons last time I was in November - see my TR.
Thanks for sharing.
May 22, 2017, 10:20 am
#3
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: MRY - CNX - TXL
Programs: UA 1K / *G / Marriott PE / Expedia Gold+ / Hertz PC
Posts: 7,058
Nice TR - I love PSP and I really like the Avalon (first stayed in 2009 when it was the Viceroy and a few times since). Think your comments on shower and a/c are fair - but it's a special place for me.
Have also stayed at the Parker and we did dinner at Mr Lyons last time I was in November - see my TR.
Thanks for sharing.
Have also stayed at the Parker and we did dinner at Mr Lyons last time I was in November - see my TR.
Thanks for sharing.
I'd say Mr. Lyons is the best place I've eaten there. The interior design is perfect.
May 22, 2017, 6:46 pm
#5
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: MRY - CNX - TXL
Programs: UA 1K / *G / Marriott PE / Expedia Gold+ / Hertz PC
Posts: 7,058
May 22, 2017, 8:00 pm
#6
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2008
Location: San Francisco
Programs: GM on VX, UA, AA, HA, AS, SY; Budget Fastbreak
Posts: 27,508
Great TR. Why didn't your sister's husband (I'm assuming) join? It's Mother's Day! Anyway super sweet of you to treat the 2 moms in your family for Mother's Day but you're right about needing the bigger rental car!
May 23, 2017, 2:25 am
#7
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: London
Programs: BA Lifetime Gold & GGL & CCR, HH Diam, Bonvoy Titanium, IHG Spire, Tastecard
Posts: 7,549
Only issue I found with the Parker is that one is a bit stuck there - i.e. It's a bit out of town.
I love being able to walk into "town" from the Avalon and used their free bikes last time we were there.
I love being able to walk into "town" from the Avalon and used their free bikes last time we were there.
May 23, 2017, 10:40 am
#8
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: MRY - CNX - TXL
Programs: UA 1K / *G / Marriott PE / Expedia Gold+ / Hertz PC
Posts: 7,058
^^In hindsight they didn't. Mom was all excited to take her first Uber to the Spa Casino, Nephew was fine being in the pool all the time. It's nice to have the option to walk in 5-10 or drive in 2-3 to any of the downtown places, I'll agree.
May 24, 2017, 7:25 pm
#10
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: MRY - CNX - TXL
Programs: UA 1K / *G / Marriott PE / Expedia Gold+ / Hertz PC
Posts: 7,058
Evoque. A RR in name only...certainly a car trying to capture the aspirational market (I guess like the X1, Q3, etc) that can't afford an actual RR. I think the two door convertible one is kinda neat, makes me think of a modern version of the old bugs or dune wagons but that's about it.
