Archive for "Travel"
Staybridge Suites Madison-East
Posted on April 10, 2016 by Ching under Reviews, Travel.
It doesn’t look like much from the outside but this hotel has probably been the best hotel I’ve stayed at this year in terms of cleanliness, customer service, and value. For perspective, the hotel I’ve stayed at this year include Hampton Inn (Fort Lauderdale, before our cruise), Hyatt Place (my second home in Topeka), Holiday Inn Express (it’s down the street from our training facility in Topeka), and Drury Plaza at the Arch (St. Louis). I may be missing some but these are the hotels I can remember off the top of my head that I’ve stayed at this year.
Here’s a look at the inside where breakfast and social hour happens. This Staybridge provided breakfast daily and then also social hour, with real food and unlimited drinks, Monday through Wednesday.
Here’s a picture of what I had for breakfast one day. They would have either pancakes or French toast. They also have a waffle maker so you can make your own waffles in the morning. There’s also, toast, bagels, breakfast pastries, muffins, fruit and cereal — lots of different options basically.
Here’s a picture of the social calendar for the month that was posted on my fridge. They had a chicken fajita taco bar the night we were there and then soups and sandwiches the day we were leaving. It also appears that they partner with local restaurants to cater food in for the socials on some nights. The chicken fajita tacos looked pretty good. So on those bad weather days or other days that you just don’t feel like going anywhere, you can eat free hotel food and just stay in.
We were supposed to arrive around one o’clock on Monday afternoon but, because our flights were canceled, we didn’t arrive until midnight. The rep at the front desk, Nate, was super nice. Anyway, I think since we arrived so late all of the regular rooms were taken. Ginger and I both got upgraded to two-room suites (more on that in a minute).
Nate recognized me from talking to him to setup an airport shuttle pickup earlier that morning. “Weren’t you supposed to arrive this afternoon? I sent a shuttle to pick you up. What happened?”
I explained that our flights got canceled so we were rebooked on other flights later in the day. “I called back and canceled the shuttle. You were probably off by then. I talked to a woman and she told me there wouldn’t be shuttle service that late but that there would be lots of cabs at the airport. We just took a cab over. No worries.”
“She didn’t offer to pay for your cab?” he asked.
“No she didn’t mention it. That would have been nice though, because there weren’t any cabs waiting when we got outside. On the way here our cab driver was on the radio with home base asking to send cabs at the airport because there was a lobby full of people and no cabs to be found.” The was actually one cab when we got outside but it was already taken. I think the cab driver was going a different direction because she asked us where we were going and then told us that she couldn’t take us and that there would be other cabs coming. A guy who came out after us must have been going the same general direction she was because he was able to get in her cab. It didn’t take long for the other cab to show up. I suppose there are lots of cabs during regular hours or high traffic times but they don’t wait around at the airport until midnight. The airport in Madison is a small regional airport so that makes sense.
“She really should have offered. Next time just ask.”
Nate was very thorough. He made sure that Ginger and I both had our rewards number so we could get our hotel points. He told us about the upgraded rooms and gave us some options: whether we wanted our rooms to be on top of one another or be on the same floor on opposite sides of the building. We opted for same floor.
I got room 330. I think Ginger either got 310 or 307 on the other side because she also got a two-bedroom and two-bath suite. I was amazed at all the space I had when I first entered my room. I usually hate getting a room with two beds in it because I feel like it’s a waste. Well, guess what. This time I had three beds! And an extra bathroom that I didn’t need. Talk about waste!
I wish I would have known about this option ahead of time. We could have gotten away with reserving three rooms instead of five separate ones. LOL.
Side note, it was clearly opposite day because everything that was happening was opposite of my normal preference. For instance, I ended up getting an exit row seat on our flight to Madison. Most people like exit row seats because they have more leg room. Not me. I don’t like the pressure of having to perform in case of an emergency, which I know isn’t likely but enough to stress me out. I mean, I’m not very strong. What if the door won’t open? Those are the kinds of thoughts that go through my mind.
Anyway, we were told it was a full flight so then I was like, “At least I have an aisle seat. There’s going to be two other people who will take care of the emergency door. I shouldn’t have to worry about it.”
Guess what. The flight wasn’t full after all. The two seats next to me empty!
I could have crawled into a fetal position and taken a nap since I had so much space but I got engrossed in watching The Great Gatsby (relevant because we’re going to a 20s murder mystery party at the end of the month and I wanted some outfit ideas but also because the movie is quite entertaining). I didn’t really get to take full advantage the situation. Oh, well.
And then I get to the hotel and I have three beds, two more than I really need. It was a freaky Monday indeed. Everything that was happening seemed to opposite what I like.
My suite consisted of a common living-dining-kitchen combo and two bedrooms with each their own bathrooms. The living room area was actually quite spacious.
The kitchen was equipped with a full-sized fridge, stove, microwave, sink, coffeemaker, toaster, and dishwasher.
In the cupboards you had pots, dishes, glasses, utensils, and everything else you could possibly need for a comfortable extended stay.
Here’s a picture of one of the bedrooms with its own adjoining bathroom.
I obviously didn’t stay in this one. Here’s the bedroom I slept in. This bedroom had its own adjoining bathroom as well which was exactly like the other one.
I also took a picture of the breakfast buffet and social hour info.
Here’s a picture of the taco bar.
And the drink bar.
There’s also a really nice apartment complex next to the hotel with a great walking path. It looks like the path goes all the way around the apartment complex. I didn’t follow it all the way around because I didn’t want to creep out the residents.
I really enjoyed staying Staybridge Suites Madison-East. The location was nice and quiet. They had shuttle service to take you wherever you need to go within a two-mile radius. It was very clean. The hotel staff was nice. The free breakfasts daily and free food and drinks during social hour made for an excellent value. I liked it so much I actually looked online to see if they had a location in Topeka. I would rather stay somewhere like this than at Hyatt Place, specially if I’m going to be there all week.
There’s a Staybridge in Wichita but not one in Topeka. I guess Hyatt Place is going to be stuck with me for a while.
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Freaky Monday
Posted on April 9, 2016 by Ching under Babies, Travel.
Before I go into my Staybridge Suites review, allow me to tell you the story of how we got there. We’re in the planning stages of our Customer Information System (CIS) replacement project at work and one of the tasks we need to do in this stage is benchmark with other utilities so we can learn from their experiences. Alliant Energy in Madison, WI is one of the utilities we identified for a site visit.
Our site visit team consisted of Kim, Jerry, Mike, Ginger, and me. Kim and Jerry are from Topeka and flew out of Kansas City. They had no issues. Mike hates flying and drove. He had no issues getting to Madison as well. Ginger and I (both flying out of Wichita for obvious reasons) had all sorts of issues.
Since Brian’s office is really close to the airport, our plan on Monday morning was for him to drop me off on his way to work. We are super early as usual so I manage to talk him into stopping at Panera for breakfast. While we’re having breakfast I get this crazy idea to install the American Airlines app on my phone. We usually fly Delta so I only had the Delta app prior. Anyway, once I get the app going I get weird alert message saying I’m flying to ORD which I mistakenly read as Orlando. ORD is actually Chicago O’Hare.
Not realizing that there’s anything wrong with my flights, I think to myself “I really need to tell American that their app sucks. I can’t believe it’s broken the very first time I try to use it.” Then it dawns on me that I should check on my flights just to be sure.
“This app says I’m going to Orlando. Can you please call customer service and find out what’s going on?” I asked Brian as I eat my breakfast sandwich while still messing with the app. “It’s asking me to accept the changes but I need to go to Madison, not Orlando! I can’t accept this!”
Brian found out from customer service that my flight has been canceled. They can get me to Madison via Chicago but I wouldn’t get there until the next day. “That’s not going to work. Our meeting starts at eight o’clock!” Brian and I agreed that this will be easier dealt with face to face so I quickly finish my breakfast sandwich and we head to the airport. In the meantime, I receive a text from Ginger confirming what we just found out.
They didn’t give us any specifics about why our flight was canceled other than “airport issues,” which made me wonder if Kim and Jerry had similar problems. Ginger and I debated whether we should still go considering we may not get there until halfway through the meeting. I tried to call Kim but her phone kept going to voicemail. They were already in the air and enroute. Mike, Jerry, and Kim will be there. We had to get there somehow. Ginger worked with the American Airlines rep at the counter and got us both rebooked on flights via United Airlines. Instead of arriving in Madison at 1 PM as planned, we’re arriving at midnight. We’re missing dinner with our hosts but at least we will get there for the meeting the following day, which was really reason for the trip.
Brian’s handy dandy travel packet that he puts together with a list of alternate flights wasn’t useful in this case. All of the alternate flights listed went through Dallas, which was the issue. None of them worked. Our new flights through United had us going through Denver instead. That was a good lesson for putting together the next travel packet. The list of alternate flights Brian had would have worked if the reason for the delay or cancelation was just mechanical issues but, in the rare event of airport issues, it’s helpful to have alternate flights listed that go a different route and even on another airline altogether (because each airline has their respective hubs which is the route that most of their flights take).
So now that we had flights for that evening, there was no reason to stick around at the airport. Brian took me back home (clear across town) before going in to work. I felt really bad because not only was he late for work that day but then he would also have to leave early to take me back to the airport later. Had things gone according to plan, he would have gotten to work on time and not needed to leave early.
Whatever. You just have to roll with the punches sometimes. Back at home, I dock my laptop and start working in the office. I recently got rid of my desktop PC at work so instead of having a laptop and a desktop PC and worrying about the files not syncing (I was having all sorts of issues with One Drive) then I’ll only have the one central repository for my files. Desktop support consolidated all of my desktop PC stuff into my laptop. That morning was the first time I was actually seeing everything together and I was doing some clean up.
Guess what. I managed to permanently delete my entire My Documents folder. It would have been in the recycle bin and could have easily been put back but I’m me. I don’t always screw up but, when I do, I screw up royally. In the process of deleting the folder, there was a pop up alert that appeared that said something like “Some of the file names are too long for the Recycle Bin. Would you like to permanently delete?” Not taking the time to process what I had just read (this would have been my opportunity to say “Oops!” and hit cancel), I clicked OK and plunged myself into the abyss.
To top it off, I somehow managed to jack up my Windows Explorer so I couldn’t even browse the other folders (that I managed to not delete). I chatted with our desktop support guy Seth via Lync. Since he still had my desktop PC, I was wondering if he could just grab the My Documents folder from it and plant into my laptop. No such luck. I think there were too many files for VPN. I really needed my laptop fixed though, since I was going to be away from the office for a few days. I thought I could just go to work and work at my desk the rest of the afternoon until I have to go to the airport. It actually works out better because instead of driving all the way home to get me and take me to the airport then Brian only has to go halfway.
Seth and I agreed to meet at my desk at 1 PM.
In the meantime, I had let the dogs out to go to the bathroom and allow them to enjoy the beautiful weather outside. I didn’t think it would take long to get them back in their crates so I ordered my Uber on my phone and then called them back inside. I was a little bit rushed and frazzled from everything else that had happened that day so I forgot to shut our bedroom door. When Saki came inside, she zipped right past me into the living room. Molly was no problem. I got her bumper collar off her and got her back in crate with no issues. Saki, on the other hand, made me chase her all around the house. I was chasing her around so much I was running out of breath.
I called Brian in a panic, “My Uber is almost here and Saki won’t get in her crate!”
“Leave her,” he said. “I will take care of her when I get home.”
Defeated, I walked back in the bedroom. As I stood there, Saki followed me in. I guess she was wondering why we stopped playing. Anyway, I quickly shut the bedroom door. It’s much easier to catch her within the confines of our bedroom so I took advantage of the opportunity. I managed to get her, get her bumper collar off, and put her in her crate just in the the nick of time. I grabbed my stuff, ran outside, and hit the button to shut the garage door. The car pulled up as the garage door closed.
Whew! What a day! And to think it’s not even over yet.
Back at work, Seth was able to fix my laptop but it took quite a bit of work because I managed to screw it up spectacularly. I really didn’t want to be seen at work because I was in travel attire (leggings and sneakers) and not work-appropriate attire but I did get a lot of work done.
Our United flights to Madison were pretty uneventful. I was a little worried about being stuck in Denver but the rest of the trip went smoothly. We arrived at the hotel around midnight and the front desk rep Nate was super nice.
Speaking of the hotel, I’m going to have to save my Staybridge Suites review for another blog post because this one is super long already. Come back tomorrow for the hotel review and pictures!
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Fort Worth — Down and Back
Posted on March 29, 2016 by Ching under Babies, Travel.
I missed posting pictures of our trip to visit Sheryll and the kids while they were in Fort Worth a couple of weeks ago. It was a really fruitful trip achieving a couple of objectives: (a) seeing Sheryll and the kids who we haven’t seen in a few years, and (b) testing road trip or potential vacation options with the dogs.
Since we were doing a down and back, we left really early on Saturday morning. Above is a picture of the dogs watching intently as Brian filled Rex up with gas.
Molly is like, “Where did daddy go?”
Molly isn’t much of a lap dog at home but, when you’re driving in the car, she definitely wants to be in your lap. She’s a front seat kind of dog.
Saki, on the other hand, was quite content at the back of the car.
Here’s Molly keeping an eye on daddy’s driving.
Saki and mommy selfie time!
Saki is such a pretty dog.
Saki’s turn on daddy’s lap.
Isn’t she just adorable?
Molly on my lap.
I know you’re probably sick of seeing dog pictures but it was a long drive and I had nothing better to do.
Quick pit stop at the first Texas rest area. It was meant to be a short bathroom break for the dogs and the humans, but we had to take a photo at the rock thing because I guess it’s the thing to do at this rest stop. Anyway, we had to stop a few times for potty breaks making the five hour drive take almost seven hours.
It didn’t matter how comfy we made the back of the car, they both wanted to be with us.
It didn’t take long before we were in Fort Worth. We went to our hotel but our room wasn’t ready so we ended up going to see Sheryll and the kids first.
We hung out with them briefly before returning to our hotel to check in and dropping off all of our stuff. I was pleasantly surprised. We had never stayed at a La Quinta Inn before and didn’t really know what to expect.
Our room, which was clean and spacious, consisted of a bedroom with a separate living room, and bathroom next to the entry way.
We had the perfect space for the crates in the bedroom area.
We loved being able to take the dogs with us.
There was also a nice walking path behind the property, which was a perfect place to walk the dogs to get them to do their business.
There was also this cute little bridge.
Later that day we met back up with Sheryll and the kids, her mom, and her mom’s boyfriend. We had dinner at Dickie’s.
Their Dickie’s is a lot bigger than the Dickie’s we have here.
After dinner we went back to her mom’s boyfriend’s house to hang out and catch up some more, and also take a few selfies.
We had a great time visiting with Sheryll and her family.
We didn’t stay out too late though because we had to get back to our babies.
I need to give a shout out to La Quinta for the accommodations. They didn’t charge us extra for bringing our two dogs with us. The hotel rate was reasonable as well. I was super pleased with our experience. I’m likely to stay at a La Quinta again next time that we’re travelling with the dogs.
Saki liked it so much she refused to leave. LOL.
Sheryll wanted to make breakfast for us so we went back to their house again the next morning before driving back to Wichita. Sheryll made these yummy breakfast burritos. And then we were on our way back home.
It was a really short trip but very productive. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting with everyone. Also, we’re super glad to have discovered La Quinta. I can’t wait to take the dogs on a real vacation!
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My Room with “Boo” at the Haunted Eldridge Hotel in Lawrence, KS
Posted on March 6, 2016 by Ching under Travel.
I hit the jackpot on a recent stay at the Eldridge Hotel in Lawrence, Kansas. I normally don’t request a specific room so, when I checked and they asked me if it’s okay that I got room 506, I was surprised in a good way. I’ve always been curious about this room and have wanted to stay in it, just not enough to specifically request it. I lucked out this time and it got assigned to me by chance.
The hotel, which started as Free State Hotel in 1855, has had a long history of getting torn down and being rebuilt. It became Hotel Eldridge after it was rebuilt in 1865 following an attack from William Clarke Quantrill and his band of raiders. This wasn’t the first time that the hotel was rebuilt and also not the last. The hotel has fallen into disrepair and been rebuilt a few more times since then.
The entire hotel is supposed to be haunted but there’s something eerily special about room 506. Reportedly most of the paranormal activity happens on the fifth floor with 506 being a portal to the spirit world. Guests have claimed to have seen breath marks on recently cleaned mirrors, doors opening and shutting by themselves, and lights turning on and off on their own. It’s all very creepy.
Here’s little video about the hotel that I found on YouTube:
I knew the hotel was haunted but I’m really glad that I didn’t have all of this information before because I would have had an even more difficult time sleeping. As it was, I hardly slept that night without imagining all of this ghostly paranormal activity. I’m highly impressionable so it’s pretty easy to put crazy ideas in my head.
In doing some reading after my stay, I also learned that the hotel was featured in My Ghost Story, a show on A&E’s Biography Channel.
Here are a few more photos from my stay…
I had taken a couple of pictures of the view across the street.
When I talked to Brian that evening, as we do every night when I’m away from home, he was like, “I saw the picture you posted on Facebook. It looked like there’s someone standing behind you.” He thinks he ‘s funny.
Here’s the layout of the fifth floor.
Here’s my very nice, un-creepy bed.
Here’s the lovely bathroom. The creepiest thing about it is that the shower area is kind of dark because the light is outside the shower curtain. There’s not a light directly above you in the shower.
The weirdest thing that happened to me during my stay is I couldn’t get any hot water to come out. I was actually not very happy about that. I wasn’t upset enough to complain, but it felt like I was showering in the Philippines where your water only has one temperature — cold.
Here’s a picture of the cute, little sitting area that you see immediately upon entering the room. The room is actually quite spacious and has two TVs that probably rarely get used, if at all. The second TV faces the bed.
I was smart this time and didn’t turn on the ceiling fan, although it would have been nice when I got hot in the middle of the night. I didn’t turn it on because, the last time I stayed at the Eldridge (granted, I was in a different room), the ceiling fan wobbled and made a clicking sound and kept me up all night.
I had a hard time sleeping again but I couldn’t blame the ceiling fan this time. I don’t really know what to blame for my insomnia other than I’d been having a rough time at work since one of my mentors and one of my most favorite people in the entire world announced that he’s leaving the company.
But I digress… There was no paranormal activity the night of my stay unfortunately — or fortunately, I suppose. As cool as ghost stories might have been, I’m not sure I could have handled it.
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The Trip Home
Posted on February 12, 2016 by Ching under Babies, Travel, Zumba.
The ship looked so empty on debarkation day.
No more Zumba banners and window clings.
Even thought Brian and I didn’t have a flight until 3:45 PM that day, we got up early anyway. We had a nice leisurely breakfast and then went down to Café Promenade so I can have one more Creamice Mocha.
This drink is so delicious. I wish that I would have discovered it sooner than halfway through the cruise.
Anyway, the valets picked up our bags the night before and we were pretty much all set so we went ahead and got ready to disembark the ship at eight o’clock. We thought it would take a few hours to get off the boat and go through customs. Little did we know that our stateroom attendant hooked us up with these special, VIP tags that worked like magic. There were tags numbered 1 to 45 – the higher the number the later it would be before your bags would be delivered to the baggage claim/staging area. I think we were supposed to be number 15 according to Guest Services. Somehow, we ended up with these “Suites/Pinnacle” tags in our stateroom which we were grateful for because that mean our bags would be ready at the baggage claim area by 8 AM. “Suites/Pinnacle” had priority over all the numbered tags.
You basically had two options, you let the valets take your bags the night before and then they put it in the baggage area for you or you lug your bags with you. The downside of letting them valet your bag is that you’re at the mercy of their schedule, which meant the higher numbers would be ready last. Some people don’t want to wait to they decide to cart their bags with them. Brian and I only had carry-ons but I remembered that the elevators only go down to a certain floor on debarkation day and you have to take the stairs all the way down. I told Brian that I didn’t want to lug my bag around so if he insisted on taking our bags ourselves then he would be carting both carry-ons. Plus, I told him that we should use our ultra-special bag tags.
Brian was really glad that he listened to me as went down the stairs from Deck 3 to Deck 1. Since we went down early, the line moved pretty quickly and we were off the ship in no time. When we got to the place where they line up everyone’s luggage, there were only a dozen bags or so there but we easily spotted our bags. We used our red luggage for this very reason.
Several people got off the ship before us, and I think there were seven other ships disembarking that same day, so the line through customs had already started snaking. After grabbing our bags, we asked one of the port staff where we should go and she told us to stand by the red pole. It just happened to be the end of the long line. There were a handful of people getting in line so we let them get ahead of us and then fell in line behind them. We started to follow the line as it started moving but then the lady walked toward us and asked us to follow her. She then lifted one of the barricades and told us to go through and wait right there right in front of one of the customs officers’ stations. We were called up to next so we effectively bypassed the customs line altogether. I’m convinced we got special treatment because of our special “Suites/Pinnacle” bag tags.
It only took about 30 minutes from the time we got in line for debarkation to get off the ship, completely through customs, and out to the shuttle pick up area. It was amazing. I’d never gotten off a cruise ship that quickly before. And then, as luck would have it, our ride to the airport showed up within a couple of minutes and then we were at the airport by quarter till nine. The crazy part is that our flight wasn’t even until later that afternoon.
Anyway, they’re a lot stricter at the Fort Lauderdale airport than in Wichita. They had this Delta attendant there who did nothing but point people to the security line and/or make them check the size of their carry-on against the metal carry-on measurement stand. Brian’s duffel was just a tad too long. We tried to explain to the lady that we carried both of our bags on during our arrival flights and they fit with no problems but she was not having it. She wanted Brian to take items out of his duffel until the bag would fit. There was no amount of stuff we could take out that would make it work because it was the shape of the bag that was the problem and we didn’t want to hassle with trying. Since we were early, we decided to just go to the desk and pay to check our bags. We figured that while we were doing that we could see if we could get on earlier flights home.
The lady at the Delta desk was a lot more helpful and pleasant than the first woman we encountered. She punched some keys on her computer and broke the news to us.
“If I type fast enough,” she told us, “I can get you on the 9:45 AM flight.” It would cost $50 each to change our flights, plus $25 for each of the bags, so we’d have to play $150 total; and we only had a split second to think about it.
Brian and I looked at each other and were like, “Let’s do it!”
She quickly took our payment, printed our new boarding passes, tagged our bags, and placed them on the conveyor belt behind her. I was a little worried that our bags wouldn’t make it on our new flights since we were cutting it so close but she reassured us that our bags would make it.
At the end of our transaction she was like, “It’s 9:08 now so you better hurry because your flight is boarding.” With that, we quickly said our thanks and skedaddled to security.
Security was long and cumbersome per usual but, lucky for us, our gate was close by. When we got to the gate, they were boarding Zone 2, which just happened to be our zone so we fell in line with everyone and got on the plane. We didn’t have to wait around at the gate, which is just the way I like it.
This plane wasn’t as nice as the plane that we flew in going to Florida. There were no free inflight games but the flight seemed to go fairly quick and we were in Atlanta in no time. I think we were 10 minutes early actually. We had a decent layover length before getting on our flight to Wichita. That flight went smoothly as well. We were either early or right on time. We landed shortly after 2 PM. Our bags safely made it and were one of the first few to hit the baggage claim carousel. Our ride home was already waiting for us so we got in the van and were home by 2:30 PM or so.
Brian and I were completely amazed because our original flights wouldn’t have put us back in Wichita until after 9 PM. We got on the flights that, just the night before, Brian told Missy and Todd they wouldn’t be able to make. Crazy!
Things seemed to be going perfectly our way until we got home and found Molly had been badly hurt. She and Saki got in a fight the day before that resulted in Molly getting staples on her head. I guess the reason why things worked out for us and we were able to get home early is that the universe wanted us to quickly get back so we could take care of our poor baby.
It wasn’t fun coming home to a $175 vet bill but we were grateful to be back early to be with our beloved dogs.
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