Archive for the 'Colorado' Category
For a sane holiday, consider Hotels.com’s Thanksgiving sale
October 31, 2009 6:51pm
If bunking up with Cousin Lenny sounds like the worst way to spend your Thanksgiving holiday away, why not treat yourself to your own peaceful quarters this year? Booking a room close to (but not with) the family doesn’t have to break the bank, thanks in part to promotions like Hotels.com’s Thanksgiving sale. Through it, you can find a range of properties for up to 30% off in 100 cities.
One of those is Denver, where 30%-off rooms at the Burnsley All-Suite Hotel are attainable. In Orlando, Fla. — where, it must be said, accommodations bargains are never rare — you can get a room for $41 per night, pretax, at the Seralago Hotel, a few miles from Disney World. Up in New York, stay for 20% off at the Time Hotel, close to Broadway shows; rates here around Thanksgiving start at $183 per night (the usual average is $229).
But there are lots of options closer to home too, for instance:
Palm Springs
I stopped into Riviera Resort & Spa’s reservation system for a stay Wednesday through Friday of that week, and got a total of about $600, after taxes and fees, for the two nights. The total price I found via Hotels.com was $478. Read the rest of this entry »
Big Bear and Mountain High ski resorts opening Friday in Southern California
October 29, 2009 4:26pm
Two of Southern California’s most popular and convenient ski resorts are opening Friday after a surprise cold snap allowed snow-making for several days. Early-season rates apply, in one of the earliest debuts in decades.
Mountain High in Wrightwood, which opened a top-to-bottom run (Chair 4) today to season-ticket holders, will be offering early-season rates of $35 for four-hour passes and $40 for eight-hour passes. The resort has been making snow almost full time since Tuesday and boasts an 8- to 12-inch base. Six to 10 terrain features were open today, and up to 20 were expected to be open on Friday. Dress warm. Though sunny, the mountain this afternoon was breezy, with temperatures hovering in the high 30s.
California and Colorado ski resorts in a snow daze
October 8, 2009 4:11pm
Southern California skiers are gearing up for an early season, with snow-making going on a full month before usual at Mountain High, thanks to an unusual October cold spell. Big Bear and Mammoth are biding their time, waiting for the real stuff as cold weather lingers and new storms approach. Meanwhile, at least one Northern California resort, Boreal, is planning to open this weekend.
Mountain High in Wrightwood, where wildfires threatened just a week ago, was making snow all week, the earliest that has ever happened at the popular SoCal ski destination.
“We are making snow and will open as soon as possible,” says John McColly, the resort’s director of marketing. “Could be a day. Could be a week.”
Bear Mountain is being more cautious, saying it prefers to wait until winter conditions arrive for sure. “I can’t imagine a scenario without a substantial natural snowfall that we would begin snow-making in October,” reports marketing director Chris Riddle. “While this has been an unprecedented cold spell for early October, we don’t want to waste our time, energy and water resources knowing we’re not going to be able to sustain operations through the winter.”
The Big Bear season usually opens in mid-November.
In Northern California, meanwhile, at least one resort is preparing to open this weekend.
Colorado: Columbus Day weekend deal at YMCA of the Rockies
September 23, 2009 5:55am
For a vacation amid fewer crowds, and with less painful costs than you might experience at the height of summer or winter, the fall is a great time to visit the Rocky Mountains.
And the YMCA of the Rockies can help you plan a fun, reasonably priced trip in Colorado. Earning steady accolades from travelers (such as these on TripAdvisor) for its value and a family-friendly ambience, its two year-round conference and vacation centers are offering a noteworthy deal for the Columbus Day weekend.
Deal: During Oct. 9-12, stay two consecutive nights and get your third night free at the YMCA of the Rockies’ Estes Park Center in Estes Park or Snow Mountain Ranch in Winter Park. With this deal, you can book a cabin or a lodge room at either location. Read the rest of this entry »
Explore Mesa Verde National Park, and take home Ken Burns
September 21, 2009 3:43pm
If the buzz over Ken Burns’ soon-to-air new documentary, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” has you clamoring for some time in public lands, head to southwestern Colorado for a truly unique adventure. Near the Four Corners, Mesa Verde National Park is a World Heritage Site holding, among its 4,000 known archaeological sites, incredible cliff dwellings built by the ancestral Puebloans.
But if you’re worried a trip to a remote park such as this might hinder your dedication to the viewing of the six-part Burns series, the in-park Far View Lodge (operated by concessionaire Aramark) has a solution: You can have your exploration and watch it too.
Deal: The “America’s Best Idea” lodging package at Far View Lodge costs $349, pre-tax, and features the following: two nights in a standard room; two tickets for a half-day ranger-guided tour of the park’s sites and cliff dwellings; and a full DVD set of “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” documentary. Read the rest of this entry »
Escape the smoke: Weekend getaways you can take today and Saturday
August 28, 2009 11:38am
Firefighters are battling four fires in the Southland today. Danger has not passed yet for the Palos Verdes Peninsula and La Cañada Flintridge fires. More than 1,000 people have been evacuated from Palos Verdes. The Morris fire was 45% contained by Thursday night. The Cottonwood fire in Hemet began Thursday evening and has burned 1,000 acres in the San Bernardino National Forest.
Many are trying to save their homes and stand by to see whether they will be evacuated. But for those in the Greater Los Angeles area who just want to get away from the smoke for the weekend, here are some options:
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ.: Flght and hotel packages from Burbank (BUR) to Phoenix (PHX), departing today through Sunday, are available on Lastminute.com starting at $229 per person based on double occupancy. (If you know Scottsdale, you can view your hotel options on a map.) The lowest price luxury option was the Doubletree Paradise Valley Resort, less than two miles from Old Town Scottsdale. The cost for two people including flights, hotels, taxes and fees was $457. If you wanted to stay at a Westin, prices started at $301 per person. The five-star Boulders Resort from the Waldorf Astoria Collection started at $343 per person and the five-star Fairmont Scottsdale was $348 per person.
ASPEN, COLO.: Flights between Los Angeles (LAX) and Aspen (ASE) are $248 round trip on United for this weekend. The deal is good for departures after 7 p.m. today or any time Saturday and returning Monday or Tuesday. We saw this deal on Airfare Watchdog, an easy place to find destination fares for “This Weekend.” Note that flight and hotel deals will pop up from Booking Buddy. I found the deal by flying Saturday and returning Tuesday and searching through the Priceline option. The round-trip fare came to $269 after taxes. Next I searched Hotels.com for rooms and found the Gant Destination Hotel & Resort for $161.25 per night, down from $215. The Innsbruck Luxury condos were also on sale for an average of $157.50 per night.
LAS VEGAS: If you want to brave the drive to Las Vegas, usually pretty thick on a Friday night, Expedia led me to several last-minute hotel prices for tonight and Saturday night including TI ($119), South Point ($91), Stratosphere ($73), Golden Nugget ($89), Hard Rock ($219) and Planet Hollywood ($124). Rates mentioned are per night, on average, pretax.
CARLSBAD, CALIF.: Bring the kids to Legoland. Inns of America Suites is a popular family-friendly hotel near the amusement park. I’ve had friends stay here and recommend it to other friends. The rooms are good sized and reviews on TripAdvisor say it’s good value with reasonable rates. I checked prices this weekend just for Saturday night and room rates started at $159. Here are more family-friendly hotels in Carlsbad.
– Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel & Deal blogger
Photo: Smoke fills the air from a 2-day-old brush fire north of La Cañada Flintridge. The blaze started Wednesday near the Angeles Crest Highway around mile marker 29. Credit: Francine Orr/ Los Angeles Time
Obamas in Yellowstone and Grand Canyon: Expect traffic delays and some temporary closures
August 14, 2009 7:34am
If you haven’t heard, President Obama and the first family will be heading West to take in, among other stops, Yellowstone National Park on Saturday and Grand Canyon National Park on Sunday. You can’t blame the man for wanting to take advantage of a good deal every now and again: Aug. 15-16 is the last of three summer weekends when free entry has been offered to these and other U.S. national parks.
Of course, this isn’t really a vacation for the president. Besides town hall meetings in Montana and Colorado, he and his family will be visiting the parks “partly to highlight our national park system, to highlight the weekend, where we hope millions of Americans will enjoy the national park system,” according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in a recent press briefing.
But will the Obamas’ seemingly well-intentioned travels create a headache for everybody else visiting the two popular tourist destinations this weekend?
Denver for $52.80 per night: What’s not to like?
August 13, 2009 7:20am
You can stay in Denver for as little as $52.80 per night, taking advantage of summer discounts that stretch into fall. Under a citywide program, just extended through October, more than two dozen hotels offer deals such as $52.80 rates for the second night’s stay or as little as $99 for the first.
Why 52.80? Because Denver is known as the Mile-High City, and there are 5,280 feet in a mile, says the Denver Convention & Visitors Bureau, which runs the program.
You can save a lot with this program, judging from a test run I did using Courtyard by Marriott Denver Downtown. Here’s what I found:
Kimpton Hotels offers April tax relief
March 31, 2009 1:08pm
In these number-crunching, brow-furrowing days preceding April 15th, are you reluctant to throw even one more cent into government coffers? If you can take a well-deserved getaway this tax season, maybe it’ll feel good to let someone else pick up the tax tab for once. Kimpton is offering.
Deal: Book the “Sweet Tax Relief Package” at a participating Kimpton hotel and you’ll get a break on room tax — the hotel will pay it for you. In addition, you’ll receive a bag of appropriately themed candy (i.e., Payday, 100 Grand, Sugar Daddy), a tax-free dining experience at an adjacent Kimpton’s restaurant, and, if available, a late 2 p.m. check-out time. There is no minimum stay. Read the rest of this entry »
Changes ahead for U.S. national parks?
January 25, 2009 2:05pm
There were the attempts to gain approval for oil and gas leases to be auctioned near the boundaries of Utah’s Arches National Park. And the uranium-mine project a couple miles from a visitors center in Grand Canyon. The return of snowmobiles in Yellowstone. And permitting visitors to carry concealed weapons within park boundaries.
The Bush administration kept the National Park Service’s operating budget intact, Interior Dept. spokesman Chris Paolino has been reported as stating, yet its policies made the administration unpopular with environmentalists and left the parks service “demoralized,” according to a Los Angeles Times article: “Bush legacy leaves uphill climb for U.S. parks, critics say.”
Now, following an era in which conservation and preservation often took a back seat to commercial and energy-related interests, are changes to come? Read the rest of this entry »
