Originally Posted by
VegasGambler
Spring and early summer is certainly not off season for many places. And winter is high season at many beach spots.
But, yes, post-new-years winter is low season for urban areas in the northeast. But the certs are good beyond winter, into the spring, if you earn them in November or December. And you will also have them across christmas/new years which is certainly very busy in many places. Very few areas have all of December through May be "low season"
For me mine will be in my account on January 1st likely, as I have a December 30th checkout and it’s been taking 2 days to post stays for me lately so any December uses aren’t available. From what I’ve seen though in the US December for the most part is Off Peak aside from NYC due to the Ball Drop on NYE.
I have an 8 night stay in SoCal and all my nights for the stay overlapping Christmas are Off Peak, Cash Rates are on the lower end too.
Originally Posted by
TravelinSperry
It's downtown SF/Union Sq/SOMA that are the rougher areas these days. SF is still one of the prettiest cities from a natural topography standpoint the USA has to offer. It also has incredible food, especially leaning Seafood & Asian since CA is closer to Asia. Staying at the Hotel Kabuki in Japantown gets you away from the rougher areas. And you can then use this as a base to see Redwoods, drink wine, drive the coast. You can rule out any large city by looking at its worst area, even NYC
We stayed at HC Fisherman’s Wharf not too long ago and our rental car was smashed into despite nothing being visibly there to steal inside, we saw an abnormal amount of homeless people, and it seemed pretty dirty generally speaking.
We stayed mostly around the Wharf but went around walking for restaurants and to see the city as we hadn’t been since pre-COVID.
As for NYC we’ve walked from Manhattan (Midtown and Times Square) to Wall Street (Delmonico’s) many times and it just didn’t seem as bad as SF for us. That’s actually a big draw for us is it’s walkability as we eat so much food on the trip but spend the day walking it off.
Anyways fingers crossed Alila Encinitas drops back to a Cat 7 as that’s our ideal use.