Category Archives: Trip Reports

Hotel Review – Grand Wailea: A Waldorf Astoria Resort

The second major hotel stay on our 2016 Hawaiian get-away was at the opulent Grand Wailea, a Waldorf Astoria resort. Our two night stay wasn’t nearly enough time to fully appreciate the scope of this place. One of the first major resorts built in Wailea, it covers 40 acres and has almost 850 guest rooms. Like every property in the Waldorf Astoria portfolio, the Grand Wailea oozes elegance. . . and has a price tag to match. Including all taxes and fees, the cash price for our room was 480.90/night. Our cost after employing value tactics? $31.25/night! Before I get to the full cost breakdown, here’s the review:

Grand Wailea Resort Overview

Coming directly from our 4 night stay at Hyatt’s Andaz Maui, we were shocked at the size of the Grand Wailea. The resort boasts 847 guest rooms, 5 dining options, a swim-up grotto bar, a large spa and fitness center, an on-site wedding chapel, several shops and art galleries, a full service beach club, cabanas for rent, and a huge pool complex featuring water slides, a lazy river, a sand bottom zero-entry pool, Tarzan swing, SCUBA dive pool, a water elevator, an adults-only pool, and several hot tubs.

Add to all that countless koi ponds, waterfalls, lush tropical gardens and landscaping, huge open air atriums, scattered statues and other artwork, a large beach, and on-site Luau area. . . this place is IMPRESSIVE. If you’re ever in Wailea, it’s worth a drive around the valet loop just to get a small visual taste of the Grand Wailea’s grounds and architecture. If you don’t happen to be in Wailea right now, you’ll have to settle for a few of my photos:

It’s hard to believe a 2-night stay at a property like this is attainable for $62.50 and a single credit card sign-up bonus!

Around 1:00 on a Saturday afternoon, the front desk was a zoo. At check-in Nicoleen’s Hilton Gold status was recognized and we were given 1000 bonus points, a $20 gift certificate for Bistro Molokini, and 2 drink vouchers for the Botero Lounge.

The bellman then escorted us and our luggage to our room on the 6th floor in the Molokini Wing, far, far away from the lobby. He gave us a brief tour of the room and left to fetch a microwave at Nicoleen’s request.

The Room

Since we booked our 2 night stay with Hilton free weekend night certificates, we got the cheapest room category on the property, the “terrace view king.” Of course this was code for “parking garage view.”

We knew this going in and expected the worst. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that the beauty of Hawaii trumps the frugally devised room placement of hotel developers. Even the worst views on Maui are beautiful:

Ignore the foreground and what do you see? The gentle slope of Haleakala on the left and the Pacific ocean on the right.

In contrast to our room at the Andaz, this one was more about traditional luxury. The king bed was very comfortable, with a custom embroidered Waldorf Astoria duvet cover and an ample pillow supply. There was a writing desk with regular and usb charging outlets.

I got to replenish my supply of my favorite hotel pens! The Grand Wailea had the same pens in the room as the Amsterdam Hilton. My kids took care of that one for me by taking it apart and smashing it 🙁

Hidden, flip-down power centers on either side of the bed contained regular and usb charging outlets, which we found to be a nice added convenience.

The bathroom was marble and granite, featuring a separate shower and tub, toilet closet, and a large vanity. Nicoleen appreciated the large vanity after the cramped situation in the Andaz bathroom.

Then lanai (balcony) was small but the furniture was comfortable.

Unlike the Andaz, the Grand Wailea has mini-fridges in every room. Above the fridge was a Keurig with a selection of coffee and tea.

This counter top was later cluttered with a microwave and all of our foodstuffs.

Amenities

Grand Wailea swimming pool complex

The swimming pool area at the Grand Wailea is EXTENSIVE. After 2 days of using the pools, we were still getting lost trying to get from one place to another. All of the water features are woven into the garden landscaping. The Grotto Bar, the beach & pool shop, Bistro Molokini (restaurant), and the Volcano Bar are all integrated into the pool area as well. It’s truly an impressive attraction and is about as close as you can get to a water park experience without actually going to a water park.

Each day, registered guests need to check in at a pool desk to get the day’s wrist band, which is a different color every day. We saw some lucky kids wearing 6-7 different colored wristbands all at once. We only used the pools for 2 days but I wanted to be cool too, so I kept mine on all the way back to Minnesota 🙂 Towels and complimentary sunscreen were also available at the pool desks.

Understandably the pool area was pretty crowded most of the time. However, despite what we read online, it wasn’t hard to get a chair or umbrella as long as we got out there reasonably early (8:30 and 90% of the chairs around the Hibiscus Pool were still available).

With the number of pool features at the Grand Wailea, the easiest way to review them all is to list each one and offer some thoughts on each:

Hibiscus pool: This large adults-only pool is made up entirely of 1″ mosaic tiles, with a 630,000 tile hibiscus flower design on the bottom. Although some of the adults were acting like children when we were there, it was our go-to area to get chairs and was the most relaxing and quiet spot in the whole pool complex.
Grotto Bar: (covered in the “Dining” section below)
Lazy River: This river doesn’t make a complete circuit. It starts at the bottom of several cascading pools connected with tiny slides. The first slide on the lazy river portion is wide enough for a tube. The current moves you along the river, with chances to exit at all of the other major pool features. We bought a cheap tube ($8) from the beach/pool shop and floated down the river one time. If our stay would have been longer we would have probably utilized it more. And in case you’re wondering, it’s perfectly fine to bring drinks with you down the river.
Water Elevator: Supposedly this is pretty cool but after asking the attendant about it, we later returned to find it had just closed for the day.
Water Slides: A quick search online will inform you that the largest and fastest slide recently closed permanently. The other slides are apparently fun as well, but when we went to use them on our last afternoon at the Grand Wailea, they had just closed for the day.
Baby beach pool: This is a zero-entry pool with a sand beach. We saw it as we floated by on the lazy river. It looked like the tiny kids were enjoying it.
Tarzan rope swing: We didn’t try this but it was getting some pretty good use from lots of screaming, excited kids, so I assume they liked it.
SCUBA dive pool: We didn’t use this pool but we thought it was pretty cool that there are mosaic tile fish and coral reef adorning it’s walls and floor.

Overall the swimming pool complex at the Grand Wailea was very fun, and we thought it had more potential we weren’t able to tap into during our short stay. However, we have a few complaints. The odd hours of the different pool features surprised us and prevented us from even trying out several of them. A closer look at the resort’s website reveals the actual hours:

Pools: 7am – 10pm
Slides: 10am – 5pm
Water Elevator: 11am – 4pm

Even the Grotto Bar closes at 5:00 PM, being connected to the pool system. The “normal” swimming pools close at 10:00 PM, which is standard for most hotels but nonetheless annoying. With over a thousand guests, I’m sure at least a handful of adults would enjoy some late night relaxation in the hot tubs or Hibiscus pool.

Haleakala at night from our balcony at the Grand Wailea

The last complaint about the swimming pool complex might be considered a nitpick, but many other reviewers have noticed it as well. A lot of tiles were missing from all pool areas, the painted coating was worn down to concrete on some of the slides, and some of the concrete along the pool edges was crumbling. This is to be expected for a resort of this age, but it did slightly detract from the experience.

Beach and Other Amenities

In contrast to our previous nights’ stay at the Hyatt Andaz, it was hard to figure out what was included with our $30 resort fee (waived for us since we used free night certificates) at the Grand Wailea. The website says it’s good for free internet (which we got through Nicoleen’s gold status anyway), beach umbrellas for use on Wailea Beach, admission to twice daily SCUBA clinics, bike rentals, and free local phone calls (what year is this?). We didn’t use the bike rental or SCUBA lessons. The beach in front of the hotel is actually a public beach, so the umbrella perk was probably worthwhile for some people. (NOTE: being a public beach means alcoholic beverages are technically not allowed.)

The beach itself was much like the rest of the beaches in the area: spotless, calm in the morning and rougher in the afternoon, almost purely sand, and warm.

The on-property shops reminded us of the “impulse buy alleys” that you find on some cruise ship piers in the Caribbean. However, unlike these duty free circuses, the Shops at Grand Wailea weren’t staffed by pushy salesmen. There are several art shops/galleries, clothing and swimwear stores, and souvenir shops. If we had the budget and the kid-free house (seems like those two things might go together) for fine art, we would have loved to buy one of the awesome glass framed photographic prints we saw, or one of the crashing wave glass sculptures. I’m sure we would have been shocked by the prices on these pieces so we didn’t even check, but they were lovely to look at!

We were flying out the evening after our last night at the Grand Wailea, which meant we had an entire day to fill after checking out. We had no luck trying for a late check-out, but we were offered the continued use of the pool and grounds until we departed. Living out of a beach bag for most of the day is inconvenient but the front desk person made it easier by offering us the use of an hospitality room. We just had to notify the front desk when we were done swimming for the day and they gave us a key and told us to try and keep it under an hour. We were able to take showers, get changed, and repack our carry-ons. The hospitality room available for us was a suite in Napua Tower:

Our room for an hour. This Napua Nani Suite can be yours for a mere $2220 per night!

Neither Nicoleen nor I used the fitness center or the spa, so I can’t comment on these.

Dining

Of the multiple restaurants and bars available at the Grand Wailea, two were under construction during our stay. Humuhumunukunukuapua’a was being relocated and the Volcano Bar was being renovated. Humuhumunukunukuapua’a had plastic sheeting in the windows and the pool surrounding the restaurant had been drained. The whole thing was an eyesore. The Volcano Bar was getting boarded up while we watched the Sunday night NFL game from the nearby Grotto Bar. They set up a temporary replacement bar with a limited selection of menu items in tents near one of the pools. I guess there’s no good time to remodel a bustling resort, and yet it has to be done; but it’s still annoying when it happens to fall on the dates of your stay.

Bistro Molokini

Our first evening at the Grand Wailea we decided to use our $20 voucher at Bistro Molokini. We made reservations for 8:40 and were promptly seated at an outer table overlooking the swimming pool area. We ordered the onion ring appetizer and a kalua pork flat bread pizza. The food was excellent! The onion rings were very possibly the best I’ve ever had.

Everyone loves having their picture taken while taking a bite of food, right?

The service however, was abysmal. Our server never spoke to us from the time we ordered until she came to ask if we wanted dessert. She helped adjacent tables several times and totally ignored us. My beer glass was empty for the majority of the meal. On top of it all, she was rude and unfriendly. I’m a classic passive Midwesterner when it comes to things like this so I very rarely complain about restaurant service. But this was really bad. The manager must have overheard us talking about the server and offered us free dessert or another round of beers for our trouble. We accepted the free beer. (ValueTactics pro-tip: free beer is rare in the U.S. – take advantage of it when you can!)

Aside from the bad service the place was also extremely loud, with groups of individuals standing by the bar emitting almost non-stop, boisterous, cackling laughter. It’s probably not fair to judge and entire restaurant based on what was very likely just one employee’s bad day. On the other hand, Bistro Molokini had one chance to make an impression on us and it was generally negative, so that’s the review I have to give it. The only aspects that saved our dining experience from being a total disaster were the great food and lovely scenery.

Grotto Bar

After a valet driver called the Grotto Bar for us and confirmed that the Packers-Vikings game would be on the TVs, we decided this is where we would park ourselves for the Sunday evening (early afternoon in Hawaii) NFL game. Nicoleen managed to find one open seat at the end of the bar right before the game started. I joined her and we promptly staked a claim on the bar for Packer Nation:

(Just don’t ask how the game ended . . .)

The grotto was packed. The lone bartender, Tim, was shuttling out $13 cocktails at an incredible rate. We weren’t there for cocktails, however; a Packers-Vikings game requires beer. Unfortunately for us, the draft beers all ran dry shortly after we arrived. Even several of the bottled beer choices were eventually exhausted. Apparently the Grotto Bar is a “while supplies last” kind of operation. We were able to supplement our beverage needs with our own drinks brought from our beach bag. I think this is acceptable as long as we periodically ordered food or drink from the bar. Maybe the fact that the entire bar had one beer choice available (Corona cans) helped to soften their outside food and beverage policy. Or maybe it’s always like that- I don’t know.

We ordered shredded pork nachos ($17) which was more than enough food to keep us full for the whole game. They were filling, but otherwise unremarkable.

Speaking of the “whole game” here’s where our major complaint about the Grotto Bar comes in. All three TVs had the same football game on. The place was raking in many hundreds of dollars per hour with just the one bartender. And yet, around the end of the 3rd quarter, we noticed that the water was being drained from the seating area. Shortly after noticing this, Tim was taking requests for last call. The Grotto Bar closes at 5:00 PM! Even with one quarter left of a major sports game on the TV, there was no stopping the closing time. We were shocked. We had to make the 10 minute trek to our room to watch the end of the game.

Like the other swimming pool features, the Grotto Bar has a bizarrely early closing time. Well, it was fun (and expensive) while it lasted. (Props to bartender Tim for staying upbeat and super friendly despite the beer shortage and the angry mob of football fans having their game viewing cut short!)

Cost and Value

This is the fun part 🙂 At the time of booking (9 months in advance) the best available rate for our room was $326.80/night. With the $30 resort fee, the $30 valet fee, and all taxes, the total would have been $435.93/night. We used free weekend night certificates for our two nights at the Grand Wailea, earned as the sign-up bonus on Nicoleen’s Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve card. The free night certificates cover the resort fee so our only cost was the valet fee plus tax. In total we got an $871.86 stay for $62.50!

Even if you want to include the $95 up-front annual fee on the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve card as part of our cost, it’s still extreme value! When calculating the value of the annual fee, don’t forget the value of the perks that the gold status got us during our stay: free internet, the $20 restaurant voucher, the 2 drink coupons, and the 1000 bonus points (worth about $3).

Overall Thoughts and Tips for Your Stay

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at the Grand Wailea. It definitely has a different feel than our previous hotel on the trip, the Hyatt Andaz. (In the near future I would like to write an entire blog post comparing the two.) It took us some time to adjust to the sheer size and scope of the place. There is a bit of a learning curve to getting your full enjoyment out of this resort. That’s not meant in a negative way; only to highlight the amount of opportunities the Grand Wailea has to offer.

The intuitive layout and elegant appointments of the guest room were definitely a highlight for us. Despite the disappointing hours of operation we repeatedly encountered at the pool complex, this watery wonderland was also a major favorite of ours. If we were infatuated with the design and landscaping of the swimming pool area, I can only imagine what the younger guests though of it. I think my 10 year old self would have been in heaven at this place!

If you have an upcoming stay at the Grand Wailea, here are some random tips Nicoleen and I came up with, based on our stay:

Learn the hours of operation for the pool area features early, and incorporate this knowledge into your daily schedule.
Plan ahead when you leave your room; many of them require quite a long walk to get to the restaurants, pools, and beach.
If you’re in the Molokini Wing, bring your car to the north valet. It will make a shorter walk for you and a shorter car retrieval for the valet drivers.
Don’t be shy about bringing your own beverages and snacks with you to the pool complex. The nice attendant at the Hibiscus pool even got ice for us to mix our own drinks several times. You can even sip your libations while on the lazy river.
Most basic rooms don’t include a microwave; request one early if you want one brought up for you.
If you can’t get a late check-out, take advantage of the hospitality room to extend your stay.

🙂 Thanks for reading my review! 🙂

Hotel Review – Andaz Maui at Wailea

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Our stay at the Andaz Maui at Wailea was definitely one of the highlights of our recent Hawai’ian get-away. The property is beyond beautiful, the beach is top notch, and the service and little extras made the whole stay seem extra-special. The staff made us feel like VIPs, which I guess is to be expected for the $439/night price tag. But this is ValueTactics you’re reading, so we paid $26.25/night! More on that in a bit . . .

Andaz Maui Resort Overview

The Andaz Maui is a new resort, only 3 years old at the time of this writing. Andaz hotels are part of Hyatt’s portfolio and are branded as chic, luxury boutique hotels. The property has 297 rooms and suites, several condos and for-sale villas, 5 swimming pools, multiple dining options, a full service spa, and a full service beach club. Our 4 night stay wasn’t even close to enough time to see and do all this resort has to offer.

Even if we would have had the time (and money) for a larger variety of on-site activities, the resort would have provided enough of a distraction all by itself. In fact, I spent a good deal of my time just walking around in awe, taking pictures of the grounds:

The Andaz Maui is rife with native stone and wood. Like a forest on a foggy day or a scenic mountain vista, the Maui Andaz makes everyone feel like a professional photographer. Everywhere you turn it looks like a postcard. Even the elevator waiting areas and the lobby looked awesome:

View toward the front entrance from the main lobby, where you can find the front desk, concierge, and zen garden.

The Room

Since we booked our stay with free night certificates from our Chase Hyatt cards, we were put in the cheapest room category, a “garden view king”. (For details about how we booked the room, read the trip’s main page and cost breakdown.) We stayed in room 127, which is on the ground floor, facing the pool area, in the Makai wing . The lobby is on the 4th floor so the first trip to the room felt like we were going down to the sub-basement. The whole resort is built on a hill, so what felt like a basement room turned out to be a convenient walk-out right by the pool area! I’m sure the lack of an ocean view is what puts these rooms in the lowest category, but Nicoleen and I both agreed we would take the convenience of the walk-out over the better view any day. Any besides, the view from our lanai (patio) was actually quite nice:

The room is equipped with a large flat screen TV with a fully adjustable mounting arm. The TV inputs are located in the snack cabinet next to it. I wish I would have brought an HDMI cable so we could have watched streaming TV and movies from my laptop.

The microwave and the fridge had to be requested from the front desk (via the bellman) and were subject to availability. If these hadn’t been available, we were going to consider buying one of each from Walmart and then leaving them in the room upon our departure. (I think this is where the hotel’s collection of random microwaves and mini-fridges comes from in the first place.) With a breakfast buffet price of $50 per person, it doesn’t take much math to figure out that even a few meals prepared in the room would be worth the cost of the appliances. Restaurant leftovers could also be kept this way. Luckily they were available so we didn’t have to do the Walmart appliance tactic.

Although the room didn’t have a real fridge, there was a cooler cabinet built into the desk with complimentary Hawaiian pop (yes, it’s called “pop” -deal with it), juice, and gas station-type coffee creamers, which were replenished daily.

The complimentary Maui cookies, chips, and Starbucks instant coffee were also replenished daily. In the lobby brewed Kona coffee was available every morning. If you’re a late sleeper beware though; that coffee is only available until 9:00. I missed the cutoff one morning and had to settle for the instant Starbucks.

Some other reviews I have read complained about the weird layout of the bathroom. The long, narrow shower is between the vanity area and the bedroom, with a full height glass wall looking right into the bedroom. Sliding shutter doors can be closed from the bedroom side for privacy. The vanity top is fairly small, considering the wooden slat construction which isn’t very good for setting small items on. The toilet is in a separate closet room.

I am a sucker for design and aesthetics. I can easily forgive the weirdness and the slight inconveniences of the bathroom for the sake of appearance.

The surprise little amenity kit we discovered on the vanity.

Amenities

Swimming pools

It’s no secret that Hyatt loves to highlight the cascading infinity pools at the Andaz Maui, and for good reason. These are easily the most interesting and unique pools at any hotel I’ve stayed at. And they are more than just architectural art. With a shallow depth and lots of nearby pool chairs they are perfect for wading around, swimming leisurely laps, or leaning on the infinity edge to watch the lovely Maui sunsets. We spent many hours just hanging out by the pools on our first couple days. Of course part of the convenience for us came from our ground floor room. Our drink refills, sunscreen, and e-book readers were a quick 10 second walk away.

The hot tub and surrounding pool are open 24 hours, which is a feature I would have appreciated on many hotel stays elsewhere. There is a separate pool with half submerged lounge chairs that is for adults only. During our stay the “adults only” was pretty much a joke since we saw 3 kids, all infants or toddlers, the entire time. The bottom pool is zero entry, which is a nice feature, frequently enjoyed by those 3 toddlers and their moms.

Zero-entry pool

The towel stations were well stocked and also had complimentary sunscreen and infused water available. Pool attendants put seat covers on our pool chairs upon request. We never had a problem finding open chairs by the pool. However the hotel was not fully booked during our stay and we usually went out to the pool before most other guests, so take that for what it’s worth.

Beach and Water Activities

Wailea Beach is supposedly rated one of the best in the world. From my somewhat limited experience, the high rating is definitely justified. The water was warm, clear, and the beach was 100% soft sand with absolutely no washed up plant matter. (And that’s saying something, considering we were there a week after a passing hurricane caused some rain and wind.) Great snorkeling reefs are scattered around the resort area, all accessible from shore. The beach in front of the Andaz is sandwiched between two such reefs. The surf was calm to start the day but as the day wore on it got up a bit, enough to do some body surfing by the afternoon, but never too wild to casually swim just out from the breaking waves.

The $40/night resort fee at the Andaz Maui (covered for us since we booked with free night certificates) includes most of the offered rentals and beach activities.

One morning we went on the outrigger canoe trip. It’s a 30 minute tour with a guide. (When you turn in your paddles to the rental hut, there is a chance to charge the guide’s tip to your sign-out slip.) We went a short way down the shore, past some neighboring properties. The guide pointed out some good snorkeling spots, talked about the other visible islands, and gave us a run down on what sea life we were likely to see at the current time of year. We were lucky enough to see a sea turtle- something on my bucket list for the trip. He was hanging out on the surface just ahead of us when the guide pointed him out. He then swam down and surfaced between the outrigger and my spot on the canoe, 2 feet away from me! He looked right at me and waved “hi” one time before diving down again.

We also took advantage of the snorkel gear and boogie board rental. The apparently world class snorkeling, however, was ruined by murky waters caused by recent torrential rains. Some people we talked to reported better luck snorkeling with a paid, off-shore excursion. We considered one of those tours but never got around to it.

This doctored photo shows how crummy the water conditions were for snorkeling. We did see a lot of colorful fish, but we’ll have to wait til next time for the whole experience!

Other Amenities

Another benefit included in the resort fee is complementary GoPro camera rentals, available at the concierge desk. GoPros are available from 6:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night, and are first come, first served. The camera came with a waterproof case, which was the main reason we wanted it. The photos above of our snorkeling attempt were taken on the GoPro. We also took it to nearby Makena Beach, more commonly known as “Big Beach.” The surf was much bigger here than at the hotel, and we got some pretty cool pictures with the GoPro.

The concierge gave us a map and some tips for our trip to watch the sunrise on Haleakala. If you want to call it an amenity, we also used the [mandatory] valet parking. Getting our car was usually pretty fast, under 5 minutes. The only time it was a bit longer (10-15 minutes) was when we left around 4:30 PM for dinner one afternoon. The valet drivers were courteous and always offered to put our convertible top up or down for us, depending on whether we were picking up or dropping off. One thing to note is that calling ahead to say that we were coming for our car seemed to do absolutely nothing to reduce the wait time. The valet fee is $25 per night and there is no self-parking option at the hotel. This was the only expense not covered by the free night certificates!

There is a 24 hour convenience store connected to the lobby, but most prices are even higher than you would imagine. Nicoleen went there to look for sunglasses after she lost hers and the selection was mostly Maui Jim brand, most with a $250+ price tag. On someone else’s review I saw a photo of a $24 six pack of Bud Light cans in this store.

Neither of us used the fitness center or the spa, so I can’t comment on them.

Dining

After a quick glance at the menu prices on the Andaz Maui website before our trip, we realized we wouldn’t be doing a lot of on-site dining. The breakfast is $50/person, cocktails are $17, and appetizers are in the $15-30 range. Needless to say, a dinner for two would easily be over $125 . . . and that would be on the cheap end.

We never ate a sit-down meal at any of the on-site dining choices, but we did order a poolside snack one day. Menus from Bumbye Beach Bar (located by the zero entry pool) were brought around daily to sun worshipers by the pool. Nicoleen had her heart set on the waffle fries she had seen (and smelled) others eating. And I ordered a Pimm’s Rangoon; that 10 second walk to the room to get a drink refresh was looking pretty arduous at the time 😉 The cocktail was good but unremarkable. Same goes for the fries. With tip the damage was $30. We figured it was OK to splurge a tiny bit considering we were staying at one of Hawaii’s nicest resorts for nearly free!

Cost and Value

At the time of booking (over 9 months in advance) the published rate for the room we stayed in was $439 a night. With the $40 resort fee, $25 valet fee, and all taxes that total ends up at $539.56 per night. This trip was part of our Hawaiian get-away, a trip designed from the start to get extreme value out of a few strategically acquired new credit cards. Nicoleen and I each got Chase Hyatt cards last fall. Each card comes with a sign-up bonus of 2 free night certificates, good for the standard room type at any Hyatt property in the world.

Between the 4 free night certificates we earned from these two cards, we got $2,158.24 in value! All we had to pay was the nightly valet fee, which totaled $106.40. I’d call that extreme value!

Free nights with Hyatt Gold Passport points are 25,000 per night*. Hyatt Gold Passport points can be earned with paid stays at Hyatt properties, with regular spending on the Chase Hyatt card, or by transferring points from Chase Ultimate Rewards at a 1:1 ratio.

* Recently some Hyatt properties have been playing games with their reward night availability. It may be difficult to find available reward stay (points or certificates) nights at the Andaz Maui. The Park Hyatt on Maui is also reportedly extremely nice and has widespread calendar availability for reward stays. See this Flyertalk post for more info.

Overall Thoughts and Tips for Your Stay

From the pictures posted here and elsewhere, I think you can see why everyone agrees the Andaz Maui at Wailea is an amazing property. Some reviews I have read complained about unfriendly service by hotel staff. We didn’t find this to be the case at all; in our experience everyone was friendly and courteous. It seemed like they genuinely cared about guest experiences. One night our air conditioning refused to stay on longer than 10 seconds. It was 1:30 in the morning and a technician was there to fix it within 5 minutes of our complaint. That episode was indicative of our general experience with the staff.

Other reviews I have read mention that the hotel is not kid friendly. I didn’t see anything that would have been kid unfriendly. However I do agree there is no particular draws for kids there. A lot of the beauty of the property and the quality of the service and amenities would be lost on little kids.

The Andaz Maui definitely markets to a certain demographic, and they cater to that demographic. We estimated the average age of guests was 28 (with a low standard deviation). Many were on their honeymoon. Of the 50 or so people we interacted with, only 4 were from the country’s interior. All the rest were from the East or West Coast. Of course most of the population is from the coasts, but I think it may indicate Hyatt’s success in attracting young, affluent professionals to this hotel.

If you have an upcoming stay at the Andaz Maui, here are some random tips Nicoleen and I came up with, based on our stay:

Don’t miss the coffee! The lobby coffee is available from 6:00 to 9:00 and then it’s gone.
Ask for a room with walk-out access. The better view on higher floors isn’t worth the convenience of easy access to the pool area.
Get your GoPro rental early; the first time we tried to get one they were all out the whole day. The same goes for any scheduled beach activity like the outrigger tour. The outrigger tour takes reservations and the list is sometimes days out.
Don’t sweat the mandatory valet. I wasn’t looking forward to the extra step every time we wanted to leave the property. It seriously wasn’t a hassle at all.
If you want a microwave and/or mini-fridge, request it as soon as possible; they are subject to availability. We called the morning of our check-in and the microwave was waiting in our room.
Plan on snorkeling as early in the day as possible. When the surf rises later in the day, swimming around the shallow reefs can get dangerous. We met one couple with bloody legs who were smashed against the rocks while snorkeling in the early afternoon right in front of the hotel.
Skip the $17 cocktails if you want. You’re not missing much; at least not $17 worth!
Resorts on Maui seem to really roll up the streets at night. If you’re looking for lively socialization at night, the hot tub on the 3rd tier pool deck is your best bet.

🙂 Thanks for reading my review! 🙂

Maui Vacation Field Report #2

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Aloha from day 6 of our Maui vacation! I’m writing this post on my phone on the Kahului Highway. We’re headed to the Hana Highway, although we don’t plan on driving all the way to Hana. Because of the hotel switch we started the journey a bit late to do the whole trip to Hana and back. We’ll see some of the sights along the way and then turn around.

Hotel Switch

Today we said goodbye to the Andaz and moved our stuff to the Grand Wailea. The Andaz was amazing so it was sad to leave, but our room at the Grand Wailea is also super nice:

Weather

Since the last field report the weather has improved greatly! Even the rainy day we had was not bad at all; we just hung out on the lanai and in the pools/hot tub. The rain on the south/west coast was forecast to continue through Friday but we haven’t been rained on since Thursday. It’s been sunny and hot for the most part. Today it’s cloudy but still hot and humid.

Well, we just pulled into a parking spot in Pa’ia town. We’re going for a late lunch at Pa’ia Fish Market.

As always, look for frequently updated photos at the ValueTactics Facebook page. Aloha!

Maui Vacation Field Report #1

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Aloha from paradise! It’s day 4 of our Maui vacation and I know many of you have been checking out our photo uploads on Facebook. But for the non-fb crowd I figured I would do a quick update on the blog here.

Where we are now

We spent the first night at a hotel near the airport. We are now halfway through our 4 night stay at the Maui Andaz in Wailea. The room and grounds couldn’t be any more beautiful! The service has also been very friendly and helpful. Of course it’s even sweeter knowing that the $30 daily valet fee is all we’re paying for our stay here! (More on that later, in the full trip report.)

Weather

We’re on the dry side of the island. The weather usually comes from the northeast and drops its rain on the mountainside. There’s no moisture left when the air gets over the hill, meaning sunny skies most of the time for the south and west sides. Rain showers are frequent but rarely last longer than an hour.

. . . Except for this week. Maui and most other Hawaiian islands have had an unusual amount of rain the last few days. Yesterday it rained most of the day here, which is very unusual based on what everyone has been saying.

Despite the weather, we’re having a great time! When it rains, the smart people all pile into the hot tub. In fact, I’ve already had some good points and miles discussions with some fellow enthusiasts in that hot tub. Great minds think alike!

Today is looking a bit sunnier. Nicoleen is already out by the pool, sipping orange juice. I’m not going to keep her waiting any longer.

So long for now! Aloha!

British Airways Galleries Lounge – London Heathrow (LHR)

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This post is part of a series reviewing our 2015 Anniversary trip to Europe. For a full list of the posts in this series, and for an overview of the trip, check out the index page.

After our amazing transatlantic flight we had a 3 hour layover in overcast London before the short flight to our final destination, Basel. Well, the layover was supposed to be 3 hours. We ended up getting a slightly longer taste of the Galleries Lounge than we would have liked. More on that later . . .

Galleries is the British Airways business class lounge. I believe we would have had access to the Galleries First lounge as well, but we were a bit groggy this far into our 24+ hour itinerary and we saw the Galleries lounge first, so that’s where we settled in. A quick check of our boarding passes gained us entry. Neither Nicoleen nor I were interested in using the showers so we sought out a place to sit and set up shop.

London Heathrow airport houses two Galleries lounges in Terminal 5, and we were at the northern one. Both were very busy when we arrived around 6:30 local time. The lounge is located right next to the runway and it was fun to watch planes taking off and landing. We found a little more free space “outside” on the mezzanine area, overlooking the concourse. Our stomachs thought it was sometime after midnight, but I had declined breakfast on the long haul flight so I went in search of some food and drink.

There were some Danish type things over here:

But since I was finally in Europe I was looking for something savory for breakfast. These little warm sandwiches fit the bill:

Some had ham and some had egg and melted cheese; both were delicious.

Because everybody loves drinking at 7:00 AM, they also had tons of booze available:

And in case your body was still on some vastly different time zone, you could dig into the wine and chips:

I always thought it was fish and chips . . .

Besides food and drink, Galleries lounge also provided a wide selection of magazines and newspapers. Nicoleen and I had some good laughs reading the British tabloids and catching up on the scandalous lives of celebrities we had never heard of.

In Europe, even the magazine racks are futuristic and chic.

One negative thing I should mention is the bathrooms. They were hot, small, plain, and their condition was borderline deplorable. Unless I was missing some other, hidden bathroom entrance, the only ones available were all single rooms. Even the men needed to stand in line to get in! Sorry ladies, we’re just not used to it 🙂

As our flight’s boarding time drew nearer, we threw an extra mini Diet Coke can and bag of Sweet Chili and Sour Cream kettle chips (they were so good!) into our backpacks* and walked down to the gate.

* Travel Tip: Take full advantage of complimentary snacks and beverages by stashing a spare in your backpack or purse. Rarely will you get any dirty looks for doing so, and you’ll be glad you have the supplies if you end up stranded on a delayed flight, on a train with no dining car, etc. Always be prepared.

The gate was actually a bus stop where we were to load a bus that would drive us to the tarmac for outside boarding. On the board we noticed an unspecified delay was marked on our departure flight. The gate attendant was unable to give us a time estimate. Despite Nicoleen’s apprehension about me missing the flight, I decided to walk back up to the Galleries lounge and see if the desk agent therein could get me any better information.

After showing my boarding pass to gain entry, I walked up to the information desk and spoke with the agent about our delay. As she was making some calls I noticed on the departures board that our flight number had changed, which worried me a little. The agent was very helpful and discovered the nature of the delay: a mechanical problem. She didn’t have a time estimate but she told me there was no imminent risk of boarding. That’s the piece of information I was looking for; I could call Nicoleen and have her come back up to wait in the lounge.

I was unable to reach her on the phone so I walked down to the gate to rescue her from the growing line of people waiting for the bus. We went back up to the Galleries lounge and I once again showed credentials at the door. The desk agent told me in her charming London accent to stay close to the desk so she could advise me when I would be needed at the gate. Nicoleen needed a nap by this time so she went out to the mezzanine and found a quiet(er) spot to snooze.

After I had enjoyed another bag of Sweet Chili and Sour Cream chips and a couple very weakly mixed cocktails, the announcement for our boarding came over the PA. I retrieved Nicoleen from her slumber, and we left the Galleries lounge behind to board our short flight to MLH/BSL/EAP (Euroairport).

Galleries Lounge Access

For the official word on access rules, see the Oneworld Alliance lounge access page. In a nutshell, any passenger connecting through or departing from LHR in a business or first class booking can use Galleries lounges. The lounge access at this airport gets a bit more complicated because of the number of lounges (see this Lounge Buddy overview) and the special rules for the British Airways Concorde Room. In fact, the latter has such a confusing set of conditions for access, there is a multipage thread on Flyertalk just for discussing the nuances.

Overall

Although Galleries is British Airways’ business class lounge, the food and beverage choices, amenities, and decor were on par with the first class Flagship Lounge we had visited in Chicago. Reading other reviews, it seems like the packed house we experienced is pretty common at this lounge. Despite the bathrooms and the crowd, we definitely relaxed more than we would have in the public areas of the terminal, so the lounge served its purpose. The dedicated agent for lounge visitors also turned out to be quite helpful.

South Dakota Road Trip

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Last month Nicoleen, I, and the 4 oldest kids embarked on our first real family vacation. We anticipated some challenges in traveling with 4 kids aged 8 and under, so we planned a pretty simple and straight forward trip. The plan was for 5 days and 4 nights in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We wanted to camp primarily, but I couldn’t in good conscience plan a whole vacation without getting something for free, so we looked for a hotel in Rapid City where we could recharge after our first day which would mostly be spent in a cramped car.

THE PLANNING PHASE

After the fun traveling Nicoleen and I have done over the past couple of years, we thought the kids deserved to get in on some of the action too. They are ages 8, 6, 4, 2, and <1 so they are just getting to the age where they will appreciate and remember their travel experiences. We figured for our first attempt at a family vacation we should do something simple, so flying and dealing with a rental car were out of the question.

We also didn’t want to push our luck on duration, so we settled on a long weekend trip. Pretty early on in the planning discussions we decided to leave the baby with grandparents. She would not enjoy the trip, would be a hassle and a half for us, and would take up a lot of space in the car with all her baby gear. That left us with 2 adults and 4 kids in a Honda Pilot; cramped, but manageable:

Living in the Minneapolis area, South Dakota seemed a logical choice. There’s plenty of stuff to do in any kind of weather, and the 10-11 hour drive is short enough to make in a single day, yet it puts you far enough away to really get away and change the scenery.

THE PLAINS AND BADLANDS

The kids were a bit restless on our long drive from eastern Minnesota to western South Dakota. I will definitely have to spend more time reading Mommy Points and Points with a Crew for some tips on traveling with kids. By the time we reached the Badlands we were all ready to stretch our legs and burn off some energy. We took the Badlands loop highway (Hwy 240) and got out to climb around a bit. The heat in early June was downright oppressive.

RAPID CITY

The first night of our trip we stayed at the Holiday Inn at Rushmore Plaza in Rapid City. Click here for a full review of the hotel and for some of my logic on choosing it. We arrived long after the kids’ bed time and had a challenge getting the little buggers to sleep in our oversized room. But eventually they succumbed:

Those are some tuckered out kids!

The hotel was more than we expected in terms of amenities, cleanliness, and decor. Read the COST BREAKDOWN down below to see what a deal we got (HINT: it was free!)

BLACK HILLS

Overall the Black Hills is a wonderfully diverse and accessible area for kids and adults alike, with plenty of variety in recreation opportunities. I had been to the Black Hills several times as a kid, and Nicoleen and I went there together in 2004. For the main segment of our trip we set a few ground principles:

We won’t try to see everything in one trip. First of all it’s impossible. Second of all, it relieves the pressure to make it to any given attraction; we can always hit it the next time we’re here.
We won’t plan our days in advance. Especially because the kids are along, we need to stay flexible. This will also help us deal with any bad weather we might get. Having one or two rainy day activities in the hopper at any given time will help greatly if the skies don’t cooperate.
Let’s not fill up every day with activities. The campground has a pool and lots of rocky areas to explore. The kids will have just as much fun roaming around as they will on a structured outing, and mom and dad will probably need some down time to just sit and have a beer.

These principles ended up being pretty helpful. Of course we did a few of the must-see attractions like Mt. Rushmore, the wildlife loop at Custer State Park, and Needles Highway.

The whole family (less the baby), squinting for the camera at Mt. Rushmore. It was in the upper 90s by noon.

Rushmore cave

. . . but the kids’ best memories of the trip will probably be of swimming at the campground pool, climbing around the rock outcrop behind the campsite, swimming, meeting little friends from neighboring sites, and swimming.

RAFTER J-BAR RANCH CAMPGROUND

For our three nights in the tent, we chose Rafter J-Bar Ranch Campround outside of Hill City, SD. I have stayed at Rafter J-Bar on most of my previous Black Hills trips and year after year it continues to deliver.

We stayed in the main camp, at site #2, which is right across the road from the office/store and pool. The whole place is very clean and well taken care of. Our site with no electric was $43.95 +tax per night. That’s spendy for a tent site, but still cheaper than a hotel.

Nicoleen and I were disappointed to find out that the campground was no longer a “ranch campground,” as they emptied the stables several years ago and no longer offer trail rides. However, we were happy to see that not much else has changed. The staff is still friendly, the pool is still wet, and kids still enjoy exploring the natural areas.

Rocks don't change. Me in 1992 and my kids in 2016!

Rocks don’t change. Me in 1994 and my kids in 2016!

COST SUMMARY

Lodging (hotel): $0.00
Lodging (camping): $139.10
Fuel cost: estimated $175
Food, Shopping, Entertainment: estimated (very ballpark) $300

Total cost for 4-night road trip to South Dakota: ~$604.10
Savings from using value tactics: at least $215.55

COST BREAKDOWN

Although this trip didn’t utilize a lot of free travel tactics, we used value tactics throughout. We put all our spending on credit cards to earn more points and miles and we bought a cooler full of food before we left home, to keep our dining costs down. We also realized that with all these young kids along, simple activities like the swimming pool and campfires would be just as fun for them (and free) than trying to cram every day full of paid entertainment.

Travel Cost:
Nicoleen’s loaded down Honda Pilot got around 17-18 mpg on average. The constant air conditioning and many hills brought the fuel economy down. We spent about $175 on gas. There weren’t any Super Americas along our way, so we were unable to utilize our normal free gas tactics.

Lodging:
The campground was $139.10 for three nights. This seems expensive for camping but it’s a tourist area so all the rates are higher. Even so, it’s not a bad price for 3 nights’ lodging for 6 people! The hotel was a different story: we got a room that retails for $215.55 and paid $0.00 for it! It cost us 35,000 IHG points, for a redemption value of 0.62 cents per point. Not a very good rate, but it was still nice to get the hotel at no cost!

Food, Shopping, and Entertainment:
This part is very subjective and reporting my costs here is pretty meaningless. You can spend what you want on these parts of the trip. We were pretty frugal and only spent around $300. It seemed like we got little snacks along the way whenever we wanted, so in that sense we didn’t hold back. But I think bringing that huge cooler full of food and drink really helped this cost stay down.

OVERALL this was a very fun trip! The kids were a challenge sometimes but I think they really got a lot of good memories out of the deal. Road trips are hard to work value tactics into, but the free night at the hotel was definitely a welcome segment of the trip.

American Airlines 777-300ER First Class JFK – LHR

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This post is part of a series reviewing our 2015 Anniversary trip to Europe. For a full list of the posts in this series, and for an overview of the trip, check out the index page.

Our entire itinerary was planned around this flight, the showpiece of the whole “surprise Nicoleen” plan. I had actually wanted to book us business class seats (50k miles one-way) on the same flight but none were available at the saver award level for the entire summer. First class saver seats were only 12.5k miles more however, and I wanted access to the 777-300ER’s premium class stand-up snack bar, so I searched for first class saver seats. There were only a few saver level first class seats available, and only one date had a pair of seats. Luckily that date worked within our other constraints, so I booked them (62k miles one-way, each).

But before I get to the flight…

Having been delayed on our ORD-JFK flight, we only had an hour to spare at JFK before boarding began for our transatlantic flight to London-Heathrow (LHF). While Nicoleen would have been happy to stop by the Admiral’s Club for a beverage, I was determined to see both lounges we had access to, American’s Flagship Lounge and Admiral’s Club.

At JFK both American Airlines lounges share a lobby area in Terminal 8. An elevator takes you from the concourse up to the lobby where the staff at the desk check your privilege and point you toward whichever lounge you have access to. (Click here to go to American Airlines’ page on lounge access requirements.) We were waived through to the Flagship lounge and politely reminded that we didn’t have much time before boarding would begin.

The JFK Flagship Lounge struck me as long and narrow. It has a nice big window along one entire side, looking out over the tarmacs and runway. My visit was brief so I didn’t get to explore every nook and cranny, nor take advantage of all the amenities. The JFK Flagship Lounge was much more crowded than our experience at the Chicago O’Hare Flagship Lounge, but this very well could have been due to the time of day more than anything. The food seemed more picked over and old as well, but not deplorable by any means. I made a small snack of chicken, cheese, and olives, grabbed a beer, and scarfed it down while Nicoleen watched. She was worried about making the flight, so she went ahead of me to board.

After my quick snack I took a walk through the Admiral’s club and found it to be even more crowded than the Flagship Lounge. During my quick walk-through I saw no noticeable differences from the Admiral’s Club we walked through at ORD.

On to the flight…

After my brief snack at the Flagship Lounge I had to scurry down to the gate for boarding. By the time I got there nearly everyone had boarded. I don’t personally put much value in early boarding; I have a back issue that makes sitting painful so for me the more time spent upright, the better. I was warmly welcomed by the attendant and shown to my seat, 1A, where I found Nicoleen settling in across from me in 1D.

Seconds after sitting down I was handed a bottle of water and offered champagne, which I accepted.

The purser offered us a choice of several newspapers and quickly moved onto getting our meal orders. As I have previously stated, I’m not much of a wine connoisseur but I do enjoy good wine (in much the same way as a dog “appreciates” a good steak – he doesn’t quite understand why it’s good, but he still likes it). With some guidance I chose one of the whites and was not disappointed.

Another little bonus for flying in a premium cabin is the amenity kits often offered. Although not in the cool iPad case bag I had expected from previous reports, the kit had all of the goodies I was expecting:

The meal service
After knowing about this trip for months and having the meal choices available online for over 30 days, you’d think I should have been able to order quickly. As it happened, I think I was still debating the food options after Nicoleen had ordered. I settled on the Thai chicken starter, creamy carrot soup, the salad of mixed greens with artichokes and feta, the seared halibut with gremolata, and the royale chocolate mousse cake for dessert.

I should have probably skipped the snack at the Flagship Lounge because I was fairly well full by the time the fish came, but oh well; I’m a sucker for free food! Overall the food was pretty good. The Thai chicken and salad were excellent, and the soup was interesting (unexpectedly spicy!), but the fish was a bit dry and rubbery and the seasoning was nothing to write home about. The presentation was good but I found a piece of dried on food stuck to a piece of silverware…not something you’d expect to find in a first class service.

A cool feature of this first class cabin is that the footrest doubles as a jump seat, complete with seat belt, so that you can dine across from your traveling companion. The tray table is deep enough for two place settings. We weren’t planning on doing this however, due to Nicoleen’s baby belly. She was plenty happy to enjoy all the room her own seat afforded her! The purser never mentioned this as a possibility though, which was the start of a series of not being shown or offered many of the amenities this flight had available.

After dinner
According to other reviews I had read on this first class cabin, we were supposed to be offered pajamas and slippers (yes- to keep), an amenity kit in a cool bag that doubles as an iPad carrying case, and turn down service. Nicoleen started watching a movie and I purchased the in-flight wi-fi so I could send a few e-mails saying “I’m sending this from an airplane!”

Side note: One of the biggest “problems” about flying in these cool lie-flat first and business cabins is properly splitting your time between sleeping, which is actually possible with these seats; and enjoying all the other entertainment, eating, and drinking options. I would have loved to have milled around at the stand-up snack bar or ordered some beers and watched a movie (in comfort, for once!). On the other hand, I had a rare opportunity to get some real, quality sleep on a flight due to the lie-flat seat. It was tough to divide the time. This conundrum brings to mind some valuetactics wisdom: The value of paying extra (miles or dollars) for premium cabins, especially with lie-flat seats, vastly increases as the length of the flight increases.

After a while I started wondering about the stand-up stack bar I was enamored with, and was part of the reason I wanted to fly on this aircraft. It is located between the first and business class cabins, and when I went to check if it was operational I found the flight attendants assembling the snacks. I was told that it was almost ready but that I didn’t have to use the lowly business class area; I could go to the first class galley for the first-class only version (which I had not read anything about). So I went up in front of first class and found the purser and another attendant putting the finishing touches on the snacks there.
This would have been great had I not been completely stuffed after eating about 5 meals’ worth of food in the past 12 hours! I wanted to see the “real” stand-up snack bar though, so I deigned to walk among the plebeian masses and stepped between first and business class to that area, which had mostly the same snacks as the first class gallery but looks waaaay cooler:
After checking out the snack bars I decided I’d better get a few hours sleep on this overnight flight. I was surprised we hadn’t been offered pajamas or slippers yet and I was worried that maybe American Airlines had dis-included them as part of the first class service. I asked the purser about them and he reacted as if his memory had just been jogged. He quickly produced a set of jammies for me and asked what size Nicoleen would prefer. She was already dozing off so I told him I wasn’t sure, and he gave me two sets in different sizes and told me to just give her both to keep!

At this time the purser seemed to remember that turn down service was supposed to be included too, and offered to do so as I changed into the pajamas in the bathroom. None of the other 6 passengers in first class received pajamas or slippers to my knowledge.

Yes, it’s totally staged. I had just crawled into bed and was not sleeping.

Upon waking we were offered a small breakfast, which we both declined. It was a rude awakening after only 3 hours of sleep or so, and the remainder of my flight was spent gathering up all my strewn-about belongings to prepare for landing at EuroAirport (MLH).

In the end we had an amazing time on this flight. But I was a bit confused that I had to specifically request some of the amenities, and I was not as impressed as I should have been by the meal service. Let’s look at all the things we weren’t told about or offered without asking:

Seat operation
Pajamas and slippers
Turn down service
Companion dining configuration
Stand-up snack bar

I don’t know if it was just this particular purser, crew, or just an off day for American’s service, but I finally understood why many other bloggers and reviewers talk about how American carriers are just not up to par on service in their premium cabins.

Overall first class experience
Among all the stages in our first class itinerary (the American Flagship Lounge at ORD, the Flagship Lounge at JFK, both domestic first class flights, the 1st class JFK-LHR flight, the Galleries Lounge at LHR, and the BA flight to MLH), we felt like the lowest experience to expectations ratio was on this transatlantic long-haul flight. The service was by no means horrible, but neither was it exceptional…which it should be on an international first class flight. I’ll never complain about flying first class for virtually no cost, but had I paid the full retail $9,821 for this booking, I would have justifiably felt a bit ripped off. As they say the hard product delivered, but the soft product fell short.

American Airlines First Class ORD – JFK

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Our flight from Chicago (ORD) to New York (JFK) was delayed on the tarmac, which made me nervous about making our connection to the “important” flight, the transatlantic on American’s semi-new 777-300ER. The estimated delay went from 45 minutes to 5 hours back to 35 minutes, for an eventual departure between 1 and 2 hours late.

The first class cabin in the Boeing 737-800 was about what you’d expect on a long-ish regional domestic flight. The seats up front were in a 2-2 configuration as opposed to the 3-3 in economy. The seats were comfortable and the seats we selected, 6E and 6F, in the last row of the cabin afforded us a semi-private feeling.

Besides more legroom and more comfortable seats, the first class seating on our American Airlines 737-800 offered the unanticipated benefit of some extra in-flight shelf space. In addition to the normal fold out tray table, our drinks and small electronic devices were welcomed by several mini trays. These were surprisingly useful and convenient; your personal space bubble isn’t invaded by a big slab tray when all you want to do is set your drink down. They were also, as Nicoleen pointed out, very cute. (As cute as a piece of aircraft seat hardware can be I suppose.)

Yes, that’s a super old Blackberry phone. I use it as an mp3 player)

Shortly after take-off we were offered hot nuts. I had read about this American Airlines specialty and was always confused why people even bother mentioning this little snack. Well, now I know why! The heated mixed nuts are surprisingly more yummy than room temperature mixed nuts. Besides the increased yumminess, being served something warmed up that’s normally just thrown into a ramekin makes you feel pampered 🙂 (It’s the little extras, ya know? Like crushed ice in urinals…sorry you miss out on that little joy of life, ladies.)

The meal choices were hot pasta or a cold chicken salad. I had pre-ordered the chicken online, and Nicoleen opted for the pasta. If I were a more experienced traveler, I would have remembered the general rule of thumb for cheap food: Never order the meat when there’s another option available. The salad was pretty good, but the cold lemon chicken was, well . . . nasty. I suppose it didn’t help that I was still stuffed from the lunch I had in the Flagship Lounge at ORD. Nicoleen enjoyed the pasta.

The “cold chicken salad” was actually cold chicken AND a salad.

Overall
While I would never pay the extra miles or cash for a first class seat on this short a flight, as part of a longer itinerary it was sure nice to have the upgraded seats and service. The little perks like early boarding and disembarking, complimentary in-flight drinks, a more private in-flight bathroom, and of course the hot nuts made our otherwise grueling itinerary (24 hours of travel including 3 layovers) much more tolerable; even enjoyable.