The deals are in the bag…
The last 3 weeks we started booking the hotels for our USA West Coast rip. It was a lot of work but it was great to do. We search for hotels in places we wanted to stay looked at the prices and either did a priceline, a hotwire or a direct booking for the hotel. It was nice to do this since we learned a lot about the areas we’d liked to go. We even changed a city because Sanders former Dutch boss send live information about their experiences.
Let’s start with the first day, we arrive around noon in Los Angeles and then we will get our rental car and drive a couple of hours north in the direction of San Francisco. The place where we stay is Santa Maria which is about 3,5 hours driving from the airport. We booked, or better to say won, this hotel on priceline.com. Booking via priceline is fun since it’s always a surprise where you end up. After selecting the area, the price we wanted to pay and the class we clicked on ‘BID’ and waited. The first couple tries where misses but soon we won the Holiday Inn Santa Maria.
Then the trip continues towards San Francisco. We wanted to stay at Fisherman’s Wharf but due to a major event in the city the hotel prices where far above what we would like to spend. It started with 250$ for a reasonable hotel. So we checked out what would be a good alternative and we found out that there was a nice hotel in Berkeley within walking distance from the BART. The BART is a kind of metro which could bring us to important areas in San Francisco within less than 30 minutes. We booked the Holliday Inn Express & Suites in Berkeley.
After 3 nights in the Holiday Inn we continue our trip to Fresno which is located near the south entrance of Yosemite National Park. We booked the hotel on the Holiday Inn website since the prices on priceline.com where not so low for this area.
After driving through Yosemite National Park we sleep one night in Bishop. For Bishop we used Hotwire.com. On hotwire.com you select a hotel on the amenities it offers. After doing a little research we were sure the hotel was the Best Western Plus Bishop Holiday Spa Lodge and decided to take the offer. And we were right. We saved about 25% on the regular rates for this hotel.
After the night in Bishop we drive through Death Valley towards Las Vegas. In Las Vegas there are many hotels and Danielle got to pick one. It was difficult since many where possible but she decided to go for The Venetian. We booked it directly and we went for a room with view on the strip. This hotel is the largest hotel we have ever stayed in but that is Las Vegas. It has over 4.000 hotel rooms.
After 3 nights we continue to Williams. We had never heard of Williams till my former Dutch boss mentioned he was there during his trip. So we looked into this and this place was actually closer to the grand Canyon then the place we had in mind first which was Flagstaff. And it’s a typical Route 66 town which is nice to have a look at we think. After researching it seemed like we could get a good hotel for a good price on priceline.com for a hotel here and so we tried. The regular price for the hotel is a 118$ and after 2 tries we had the following message in our browser:
After Williams we drive to Scottsdale near Phoenix. Here we also won a stay on priceline and won a resort hotel for only 75$. It’s called The Scottsdale Plaza Resort and looks really beautiful on the pictures.
From Scottsdale we drive to Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs. There we’ve got the best hotel deal of the whole trip. We pay 90$ for a night which costs 567€ on booking.com. There are 2 pools and it’s located on the border of the dessert! Here we expect an additional cost from about 27$ as a resort fee but everything is included in this fee (internet, parking).
And from Rancho Mills we drive towards Los Angeles where we stay in the Holliday Buena Park. This hotel is being renovated right now and the rooms should be ready by our arrival. We stayed in hotel which was renovated before and we never heard any noise so we hope this hotels deals with the renovations in the same way. The hotel rate includes a breakfast, free parking and free wireless internet. We decided to stay in this hotel for the rest of our vacation which is 9 nights.
So all the hotels are booked! The next step would be picking out things we want to do and reserve times, buy tickets and so on.
Booked a Full Size SUV…
Since our vacation is coming closer we are starting to prepare more things. After arriving on LAX the first thing we need is a rental car. As usual we’ve compared prices and came out by usa-reisen.de which is the address where we’ve booked our cars for the last 3 trips to the USA. They have the best rates for the luxury packages for rental cars. We book the luxury package because it includes multiple drivers over 25 years and it’s also no costs for bringing the car back empty. Which means we do not have to search for a gas station when returning the car.
Last time in New York City we’ve booked a Mid Size SUV but on location we got it upgraded to a Full size SUV. Since we already had plans for this West Coast trip we said to each other that this should be the way how we travel through California, Nevada and Arizona. From experience I know that in LAX they don’t offer upgrades easily and that made us book the Full size SUV from the beginning.
We are already curious about what car will be brought to us at Alamo, but one thing is sure it’s going to be a big one!!!!