Travel Blog Year in Review

Lizzie Bean has done a bit of traveling this year and has visited many memorable places and eaten many fine meals.
List of trips we took in no particular order to the best of my recollection.

• Our first major trip of the year was a Ski trip to Whistler, BC at the beginning of the year. Fabulous trip which was our favorite trip of the year.
  
• We took many Philadelphia trips and we attempted to stay at different hotels on each visit. Loews was nominated as our favorite hotel to stay at in Philly for the 2006 year.
• The worst trip was easily a day trip we had to Washington D.C.
• Numerous trips to Winston-Salem, North Carolina
• Several trips to Red Horse Lake located in Ontario
• Our major family vacation to the Avon, N.C.
• We made one trip to Atlantic City, which we are not too eager to repeat. The hotel we stayed at was truly the worst hotel we stayed at this past year. We both would prefer to gamble in Vegas, then again, who wouldn't.
• Our Las Vegas trip this past October were we stayed at the MGM Grand, who downgraded our room and would have charged us the same without giving us any comps if we had not complained. Also had a bad experience with the Philly airport on this trip when they lost my bag and would still be lost if I had not done some Internet research of my own to find it.

Our Favorites for the Year

• As mentioned above, our favorite Hotel in Philadelphia for 2006 was Loews
• Our favorite trip was the Whistler ski trip
• My favorite sandwich was the Zep from Eve's Lunch
• Lizzie's favorite burger was from the Continental Martini Bar
• The best Cheese Cake was really hard to pin down, because we have rarely had a bad one, but I do believe the best of the year is going to Old Man Raffertys in New Brunswick,NJ.
• Favorite restaurant was the restaurant in Whistler was the Rimrock Cafe.
• Favorite wine of the year was the wine we had at the Rimrock, which was a Famous Gate Pinot Noir.
  
• Favorite Airline for the year is Cathay Pacific.

Sheraton Society Hill

Out in front of the Sheraton Society Hill
Originally uploaded by Emperor Anton.

Hotel Reservations were made at Sheraton Society Hill, where we went for the first Friday at the beginning of the month. A really great time was had by both Lizzie and I. We got to check out lots of great new artists in the Philadelphia area. Further posts about that adventure will be forthcoming. The back log on our adventures is huge. The Sheraton at Society Hill was great, we love its location and the friendliness of the staff. We would make hotel reserations there again for sure.

Hotel Reservations from Hotelreservations.com

Making hotel reservations online for traveling is becoming more and more common as ecommerce becomes an everyday part of our lives. In 2005, online travel was projected to be around 65 Billion dollar industry, so I am sure it is well over 70 billion by now. Lizzy makes reservations online at a number of other hotel reservation sites, and usually ends up going with what ever site has the better deal. However, with the guarantee of a 100 dollar rebate, it seems like HotelReservation.com is making an attempt to persuade us online travel shoppers to come and use their travel site.
With Hotelreservations.com you can save up to 70% off of your reservations and then there is also the $100 rebate if you make a reservation on the Internet. Potentially getting money back if you find an online reservation cheaper at anther site is pretty cool. However some conditions do apply, so make sure you read the small print. But hey, 100 bucks is a hundred bucks, so you might as well give it a try. I am sure that if the site does not do as it says, it won't be around for long.
In addition to making reservations for hotels, flights, cars, vacation rentals or combination vacation packages, many other options are available. Just searching through the site gives me some ideas for future trips. I particularly like the bed and breakfast section...some of those bed and breakfasts sound too cool. Another groovy feature of the site is the destination guides which they may not have for every city, but it appears that many are, and it seems like more are being added all the time.
So I took the search bar for a ride and typed in Philadelphia for New Years eve. The hotel reservations that were available included accommodations from $59- $350, with a few of the places that Lizzy and I have stayed at being discounted more than when we had stayed there. Well I don't do the reservations for our travels, Lizzy does that, but if it is cheaper she will use it. However, HotelReservations.com does not have an affiliate program, so we would more than likely check our affiliate partners first, and then we would do a comparison. I will remind her when making our next reservations to use the Hotelreservation.com site as one of the comparison sites.

Critiquing the site from a webmaster stand point, with an SEO Skew, the site does need some work to be competitive. The site is currently nowhere in the SERP's for the search term "hotel reservations" for which they want to be found. But it can be found for its name and for I am assuming its owners name. For example, Title tags need quite a bit of work, (Hotel reservations is in the title tag on the home page) the site name is used in them way too much. That's fine if you want to rank for HotelReservations.com or Barry Sowder, but it would seem that they would have their keywords in the front of the title on all of their pages, not just the home page. Far to valuable SEO real estate to be wasted on the site name or the owners name. Also, for wanting to rank for the search term "Hotel reservations", the site should have internal links with this as the link text, even perhaps in the top navigation. And were is the site map to be found? Optimize that site better for a better ROI. tsk tsk. Your SEO company must be slacking.

One last thing, if you have a blog, you may also be able to participate in a paid program they have for reviewing their site, which seems to be a really unique opportunity for bloggers. This site is not eligible for it because this post is a paid for advertisement.

CD's Place Boyertown, PA

CD's Place Menu
Originally uploaded by Emperor Anton.

This a menu of Lizzies favorite Boyertown Diner, CD's Place, that she visits atleast twice a week...once being almost every Saturday morning at 8am. Ask for Lizzie's omlete. Having slaw dogs and good music, makes CD's Place Lizzies Favorite Boyertown Diner.

Slot Machines Prize Money Paris Casino, Las Vegas

Moola!
Originally uploaded by arkworld.

Oh how sweet it would have come home from Vegas with all this loot. This is a photo according to Arkworld " is the one million dollar prize money for this slot tournament the Paris Hotel & Casino will be holding." Thats weird, how can you have a slots tournament. I can see a poker tournament, that actually involves a little skill. What skill is there in putting money into a machine? I picture little old laddies making lots of money at the slotts. I mayself had a few minor slot windfalls, but nothing that would pay for a good meal in Vegas.

Well I will have to keep my eye out for info on the slot tournament.

Art Galleries of Philadelphia

First Friday of every month is when the all the galleries in Philadelphia have openings for the Art loving public of the Philadelphia area. First Friday is concentrated in Northern Liberties, which is a section of Philadelphia located near Penns Landing and Society Hill. Were we will be staying at the Sheraton Society Hill this coming Friday evening. Lizzie has a friend, Elaine B Douds, who will be exhibiting her oil paintings at the Artist's House Gallery, with a reception from 5-830pm on Dec. 1st. An additional reception will be held on Sunday Dec. 3rd from 130-4pm. Elaine specializes in realistic still life paintings. We had last seen Elaine at the show she did with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts at the Gregg Conference Center gallery. We hope to get to spend a little more time with Lizzie's old friend, while viewing art galleries full of works of some of the Philadelphia areas new budding artists.

Thanksgiving Holiday

Our Thanksgiving plans were changed the week before. Due to some family problems, we decided it was best to stay home and have a traditional Thanksgiving. This was probably a very smart thing indeed. Lizzie and I worked most of the day making the meal(well Lizzie did most of the work) I was responsible for prepping the Turkey and for carving. I looked on Yahoo and got directions from Epicurious on how to prepare and carve the Turkey. The twenty pound bird was stuffed with the famous White Castle stuffing recipe, which everyone loved.
We did make a few little trips to a local restaurant, Durangos for dinner several times over the long holiday weekend. We especially had a great time on Monday after Thanksgiving because it is pasta night along with being open mike night. Great toons and the best Italian food in Boyertown along with an amazing selection of deserts which always includes at least one heavinly chocolate desert. Lizzie's favorite is the Dark Side of The Moon. As much as I love their deserts, I think my favorite dish is their Sausage Marinara. Since it was Monday, my favorite dish was a special.

Preowned Honda Odyssey

Lizzie and I after traveling to the Carsense Uwchland, PA location numerous times for the better half of a week, finally made a purchase of a 2004 Honda Odyssey. We originally had picked out a 2005 Jeep Libery, but brought it back with the 5 day grace period that Carsense gives you. George, our outstanding represenative, was a tremendous help. We test drove just under a dozen different cars, to include a VW bug, a mini cooper, a fun boxy little Scion, a honda CRV, a Mazada wagon, several other minivans, the Jeep Liberty, a Ford Freestyle, and of course our final choice, the Honda Odyssey.
If you live in the Philly area, I would highly recommend traveling to either of the Carsense locations. If you make it to the Uwchland location, ask for George, and tell them Lizzie Bean sent you.

Thanksgiving Reservations

Thanksgiving reservations are being made by Lizzie even as I type.

We initially had planned on staying over one night with all the kids. But she now is considering staying two nights, and then going shopping on Black Friday in Philly. Well as this adventure unfolds, we will update the blog.

Thanks Giving Plan Update:

Thanksgiving reservations have been made by Lizzie using Hotels.com. We are dining at Maggianos, which has a special Thanksgiving menu, and we will be staying at the Omni Hotel at Philadelphia's Independence Park. We will be arriving in Philly early in the day Thursday to catch the parade(that is the goal), then the boys and I will be leaving Friday morning. Lizzie, her daughter and mom will be hanging out in Philledelphia for Black Friday shopping. She is far braver than I.

The Aladdin Sky like Ceiling

The Aladdin Sky like Ceiling
Originally uploaded by Emperor Anton.

The inside of the shopping area of the Aladdin Hotel Casino. At first I thought I was outside, but wait a minute is is 1pm in the afternoon, unless it is an eclipse. It looked so real, but if you scanned you could tell it was just the ceiling. A high ceiling nevertheless. The Truman Show was never so real.

Las Vegas Review

Lizzie and I got back about a week and half ago from Las Vegas, but my luggage did not get back until last Sunday. (see previous post) We stayed at the MGM grand, and would stay there again, except there are so many places to stay in Vegas, why stay in the same place twice.

We did a lot of exploring of the strip and the casinos near by. We also took the Tram back to Sahara to get in some Three Dollar Black Jack, but only broke even this time.

I have posted many fo the pictures of the trip on my Flickr account which can be reached by clicing on any of my photos, to include the above picture of the award winning MGM Grand pool.

My favorite meal was when Lizzie and I had breakfast beside the pool. Lizzie, me, a bunch of timid little birds eating my crumbs, and some landscape workers who were installing landscape lighting.

We also managed not to see a time share presentation. We had put a $20 deposit down, but went back and cancelled. We told them we had done some Internet research on the company, so we did not want to get involved with any high pressure sales presentation. They gave us our deposit back without a problem.

Other posts about our trip include:

• Various Las Vegas posts on the Pixelheadonline blog.


• Firstman2006 Blog posting


• Here on The Travel blog of Lizzie Bean

Snack Pack On Southwestern Airlines

Snack Pack On Southwestern Airlines
Originally uploaded by Emperor Anton.

What a delicious meal we had. It was the same snack on both flights, however, we did smartly pack left overs from lunch on the return trip. Overall the flights were fine. Except for Southwestern Loosing My bag, it was an okay flight back from Las Vegas...we did make it home in one piece, and that is the important thing.

Update:And with a bit of Internet research, and a two hour drive, I was able to retrieve my suitcase from the New Jersey home they delivered it to. The did give me a 100 dollar voucher good for Southwest flights for a year, but I was unable to use it before it expired.

We're in Vegas!

The flight was uneventful - which is what I prefer on any flight. We left on time and arrived right on time; picked up our checked bags; got on a shuttle to the MGM Grand and checked in. One problem with the check in - we didn't get the room that we specifically requested. We researched the rooms available at the MGM Grand and really wanted a room in the West Wing. After reading review after review - I knew that I wanted to be in the West Wing and was told online - that it was available. When we checked in - we were told otherwise - or that a non-smoking room was not available on the West Wing. Misty - at the desk told us that the room we were getting was nicer because it was bigger - but that it only had a "regular" king bed. You see, the best feature of the West Wing rooms and what everyone raved about in the reviews were the deluxe king beds with the pillow tops. That is what I wanted and that is what we didn't get. I'm sure at this point we could request to move. So many guests are checking out today - it is Sunday after all and I'm sure we could move if we were so inclined. The thought of packing everything up again - doesn't sound appealing at all.

Anyway - that's all the complaining I'm going to do today. After checking into the very nice, clean room - we took off to find Cat. They're staying at the Monte Carlo - right across the boulevard from the MGM. We walked over to that hotel via New York-New York - which was really crowded and not very inviting. We met Cat and Dave at the Monte Carlo Brewery & Pub. They had a limited menu at that time (it was after 10pm) and we were starving - not having eaten anything since noon - and it was about 1am our time. So we ordered Nachos, Quesadillas, Hot Wings and Pepperoni Pizza - 3 glasses of wine and 3 beers between the four of us. It was all great.

We had high expectations of going out on the floor and gambling - but when we got out to the casino - I was about to die from exhaustion. We decided to all head back to our rooms; get some sleep and I was in serious need of some servicing too. All was great and we're looking forward to an eventful day today.

Going to Vegas!

After many flip-flops on the decision of whether we should or should not go to Vegas - we're going!

The timing just didn't seem right this year and finances are unsure for the coming year as well - so there was a lot of debate and issues regarding this trip to Vegas. But, a trip is a trip and the constant need to travel won over the lesser need to be practical and responsible.

Of course we tried to find the best deal using Hotels.com and Travelocity.com - but, unfortunately - all of the flights were at least one stop and paying a little more for a non-stop flight seemed preferable (did I mention that being practical wasn't the first choice for this trip). In general I've always had great experiences with both those services - but, time was a factor with this trip since we waited until the last minute to book the vacation.

We ended up going through Southwest Vacations.com - their flights are never part of the discount travel sites. They had a fabulous selection of non-stop flights to Vegas and although fairly limited for the dates we're traveling - we found a great hotel. We will be staying at the MGM Grand Hotel in the West Wing.

Needless to say - we're really excited about this trip. Since it all was planned so recently - we don't even have to wait long to go.

The reason for the trip - other than the 2nd annual business meeting that always takes place in Las Vegas - is to see Cat. We had the pleasure of being at her Vegas wedding last year in November - which was our first trip to Vegas ever - and coincidently - the first business meeting.

We'll be leaving Saturday, October 21st at 5:50 pm out of Philly International Airport and arriving at 8:25 pm in Las Vegas. Our return flight is at 4:45 pm on Tuesday the 24th and doesn't get into Philly until 12:45 am - the next day!

French Poutine

French Poutine
Originally uploaded by Emperor Anton.

Poutine and Chicken Fingers for lunch. We tried the regional food while in Gananoque. We had seen it on the menu the night before at the Lansdowne Restaurant. Apparently, it is kind of like nachos or cheese fries here in the US. Fries with cheese curds and gravy. I was quite surprised, but seriously doubt that I will find any near us in PA.

The Golden Egg

The Golden Egg
Originally uploaded by Emperor Anton.

Lizzie's Daughter pointed this egg out, so we stopped and took pictures. It is located along the road to Shawmere Cottages. Located along Red Horse Lake Ontario, Canada.

Red Horse Lake from Shawmere

Red Horse Lake from Shawmere
Originally uploaded by Emperor Anton.

The view from Shawmere of Red Horse Lake Ontario, Canada. The weather for the weekend we were there was unbelieveable.

Shawmere on Red Horse Lake, Ontario

We did make it back from our unplugged weekend at Shawmere. It was a much needed restful weekend that included trips to Kingston and Gananaque, two nights of campfires, a bike ride, and card games. I also got some great pictures that will be posted on my flickr account when I have the opportunity.
Since coming back form Ontario, I have been spending way to much time working on the Pixelheadonline blog. We moved it from a subdomain folder to a subfolder off of the root url of http://pixelheadonline.com/blog/. This turned out to me much more work than we had anticipated. All in an effort to get the blog cached in google.
Anyway, the trip was very relaxing. A more detailed post will follow when time allows, along with pictures.

Red Horse Lake Ontario Canada

Going back to Red Horse Lake for a short weekend, actually leaving in under 10 minutes. Lizzie, her daughter and I are going. We had asked several other people, but they bagged on us. Oh well. It is suppose to be a great weekend up there, sunny and in the 60's- very fall like. Taking our bikes so hopefully we will be able to get some bike riding, canoing, hiking and maybe a camp fire. Looking forward to being unplugged.

Going to Las Vegas?

We were planning our annual trek to Las Vegas (last year was the first), but now we're unsure if we'll be able to make it. We did enjoy Las Vegas and that was our primary reason to return. But, we've done an excess of traveling in 2006 - and the budget may not allow for this excursion. We did consider "slumming" it (something I really never wanted to do again). I feel far too old to be staying at seedy hotels - I've come to enjoy the luxury of finding only 1 or 2 hairs in the bathroom as compared to the layer of filth that seems to cover the surfaces of the 2 star or below establishments. Or the fresh coat of paint that has encased the filth for the duration of the hotels existence. But, Vegas may be worth it - we haven't decided yet.

On our trip to Vegas last year we stayed at the Sahara - which was a three star hotel. I thought that rating was very generous of those that rated the hotel. Overall it was old and dirty but it did have all the glitz that is expected of a Las Vegas hotel. It did offer quite a few conveniences with the monorail right at the hotel and one of the few casinos we found that had slot machines that would actually pay out in coins - if that's what you wanted.

If we do decide to go to Vegas - it would be on the weekend of October 21st - so we better make a decision soon.