Nicest hotel: The Breakers. Happydad had a conference there, so we had one of the smaller rooms as described above. But even in the rainy season in June, the place was still lovely.
Favorites are too many to count as there is at least one from every family vacation. Worth special mention the (currently closed) five rooms with bathroom down the hall over the restaurant in the small town in PA where my mother grew up. For a space there at family reunion time each year I needed to call my aunts, not the owner. Our family had a permanent hold on those rooms for that weekend each year. We have our fingers crossed that the updates necessary now that the place is under new ownership and no longer grandfathered for fire safety will be done in time for our reunion this year.
Before I became a slave to Marriott points and free nights, I would say the Hay-Adams based on a stay about 30 years ago. I also have a fond memory of a night in Wexford, Ireland at a place called the Old Wexford Coaching Inn which was above a pub. After a jam packed day that included touring the Waterford factory and who knows what else, I remember that we could hear the pub rocking & rolling on the floor below, but the feather bed was so comfortable that I was engulfed in comfort and slept like a baby. The next day the maid fussed at us for taking a shower as our deposit had only included access to the bathroom for the toilet and sink.
I love the old, wooden, slightly shabby landmark hotels that seem to be in short supply these days. Many are taken over by major hotel chains and renovated to make them more luxurious, but far less charming. One of my favorites was the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, NH. We used to stay there when the kids were little and you could still sneak into the attics and explore the rooms with all the old, disused furniture piled up. You could also creep out onto the roof.(Yes, we taught our children to be little law breakers.) Now it’s owned by Omni and not half as much fun, although there’s now a nice spa on site. We also loved The Balsams in Dixville Notch, NH until they closed it and turned it into luxury vacation rentals. Comlongan Castle in Scotland was another memorably fun hotel.
For relaxed luxury, we loved Le Pigonnet in Aix-en-Provence. In general, though, I prefer mystery and history to pampering and luxury, as long as the room is quiet and the bed is comfortable.
I like to have my cake and eat it too when I’m on vacation. Character and pampering for me.
In Paris, I like the small boutique hotels. At places with beautiful views, I want the best view I can afford if I’ve traveled that far to see it. Nice beds and linens are really nice, and a luxurious bathroom is always a bonus.
I traveled to Austin this weekend and didn’t realize it was graduation weekend. The usual suspects were all booked. I finally found a hotel that was geographically convenient at one of the big chains. They had ramped up the room rate. Ungodly expensive, but motel quality. It smelled odd, and I think they spray stuff on the carpet after each guest leaves (kept my shoes on because you could feel it on your bare feet). Not my worst ever, but for the money it was the worst ever.
@Massmomm Speaking of old hotels, you reminded me a pretty creepy stay. I can’t even remember exactly which hotel it was, either the Palmer House in Chicago or maybe the Westin/Fairmont in SF. Anyway, I was put on a lower floor that appeared to be abandoned. It was dark with very little lighting, and I had to take a narrow winding staircase down to my floor. There was abandoned furniture like chairs and tables sitting around, and nobody else on the entire floor. It really felt like somebody had set the whole thing up as an abandoned, haunted hotel to punk me.
Once I got into the room, the bathroom was half-finished with exposed boards and plumbing showing. I called up the front desk and they said, “oh, look around the room for another bathroom.” And sure enough there was an actual finished bathroom behind another door! The creepy joys of old historic hotels…
If you want to talk about memorable hotels in Africa, one of my favorites was Treetops. They wake you up in the middle of the night to see animals at the watering hole. http://treetops.co.ke/about-us-2/
My favorite hotel when we were little was the Hotel Victoria which was at the Victoria Station in London. It had elevators with pulleys where the ropes were pulled by hand.
@Massmomm We used to go to the Balsams every winter when the kids were little, and I was so sorry to see it transformed into a condo development.
The Ocean House in Watch Hill, RI was a derelict hotel for many years, in fact towards the end, the upper floors were closed off and only a few rooms were used. It remained unused for several years until a development group bought the property. They deemed it too far gone to renovate, so they dismantled everything, salvaging fireplaces, staircases, and other woodwork and rebuilt more or less the same hotel from the ground up. They did an incredible job, and it’s impossible to tell that almost everything is new. The grounds are magnificent with gorgeous panoramic views of the ocean. And many rooms have bird’s eye views of Taylor Swift’s house!
For you “old hotel” fans…have any if you stayed at the Mountain View Grand in Whitefield, NH. Gorgeous views from a sweeping front porch. It was bought and totally redone about five years ago…or so. It’s a grand old hotel.
My goal at this stage of my life, in both age and income, is to stay in the nicest place I can wherever I am visiting and staying.
So I have stayed in many nice places. Depending on where I am visiting, it may be the nicest. At other locations, like larger population areas, whereI I am staying may not be the best, but still nice.
So I cannot identify a specific place.
I am curious, what makes it the nicest to all of you?
Really anything that makes a hotel stand out in memory, either in terms of the property itself and/or service - hopefully both! For example at the Montage in SoCal and the Four Seasons in Kona your don’t check in at a counter. The valet guys call in when you arrive and a clerk meets you at the door and you sit on comfy sofas while they check you in via a tablet (and an alcoholic beverage at the Four Seasons!). At the Montage that same clerk also escorted us to our room.
At the Grand Del Mar, housekeeping would neatly wrap up our power cords for our phones and laptops, and tie them with a ribbon in a bow. At the Ritz Carleton in Jamaica, W asked an employee to pass along a message if they happened to see me, and that employee ran all over the property until he found me on the beach to give me the message.
As I’m typing this, I’m realizing it’s outstanding service plus a beautiful property that makes a standout experience for me. I compare those experiences with some expensive Las Vegas hotels, and while those properties are nice the service isn’t much different from a typical Hilton so I wouldn’t put any of them on my “nicest” list.
I don’t usually remember the names of the hotels i’m staying in – I remember the event, the people, etc… not so much the hotel – but some I do recall are (i’ll add other lodging types too…):
Presidente Intercontinental in Cancun. Nice place, and being all-inclusive as a 20-something was a big deal...
The Intercontinental in Prague. This was for a business school trip. Good breakfast and good beers on tap.
Stone Throw Cottage in Bar Harbor. Wife and I stayed here for the Bar Harbor leg of our NE honeymoon romp. Small bedroom, but the enamel bathroom sink was beautifully painted and both it and the bathtub had touches of gold in them. (we asked...)
Curtis Hotel, Denver. This one is not a chain and that showed in its decor. I remember it because it was different that way and because I stayed there while I was visiting someone.
Generally I hunt for deals. Priceline has a decent way to find hotels in your budget range, at pretty good discounts, in the area where you need to stay.
My favorite was the French Quarter Inn in Charleston. Certainly there are more luxe hotels (pricier too), but this was absolutely perfect for its size, location, and category.
The most luxurious accommodations I’ve ever had were at the Inn at Biltmore Estate. We were celebrating our 35th anniversary and staying in early November from Monday through Wednesday, so not an especially busy time. Maybe that’s why they gave us a free upgrade to an enormous suite with a dining room, two bathrooms, and all kinds of other luxurious perks. It was way more space than we needed, but fun to see how some folks travel.
We are currently staying in a very nice hotel in DC that is really close to the convention center and everything else we are interested in. It’s the amazing price of $169/nite during the convention as well. It is larger than S’s condo in Arlington and has a kitchen, living room, bathroom, sofa, armchair, big bedroom and 3 closets! It’s not my favorite hotel of all time but has been a very pleasant surprise. It’s called Eldon Luxury Suites and I booked it because they allowed me to make reservations 12 months beforehand and it looked close to the convention center, which it is!
I love hotels with character which are close to wherever my preferred destination is so I don’t have to spend a ton of time commuting. I prefer interesting smaller boutique places over mega-chains.
@prezbucky I just stayed at The Curtis in Denver last week - a Doubletree Hotel technically but one of a kind as far as my experiences with hotels is!
The theme is pop culture - each floor is themed with a different pop culture phenomenon - one floor theme was video games (as the elevator opened you could see the hall ways had pac man wall paper - one of the conference attendees on this floor said she had a full sized arcade game of Donkey Kong in her room ) . My floor was “Laugh Out Loud” - as you arrived on the floor the elevator announced in a crazy LOL voice that you were there, there was humor in all the art work on the floor and in each room. Board games are available for use and scattered around the lobby -yet it is not a casual, but a sort of modern, art deco hotel. Our main conference ball room was in the Peek A Boo" room - and the bathrooms were labeled “boys” and “girls” throughout the public areas. It was too fun!! Their theme is “Stay Happy”. My kind of place.
) . My floor was “Laugh Out Loud” - as you arrived on the floor the elevator announced in a crazy LOL voice that you were there, there was humor in all the art work on the floor and in each room. Board games are available for use and scattered around the lobby -yet it is not a casual, but a sort of modern, art deco hotel. Our main conference ball room was in the Peek A Boo" room - and the bathrooms were labeled “boys” and “girls” throughout the public areas. It was too fun!! Their theme is “Stay Happy”. My kind of place.