Home

The Catamaran: The Tired Part of San Diego

February 27, 2024

Back in the mid-’90s we spent a bunch of time in San Diego. One of the first annual trips was a visit to NDSS, a geeky conference always held at the Catamaran hotel. That must have lasted a decade or more.  A return in 2024 (some 15 odd years since visiting the Catamaran) shows the toll that time has taken.

You see, the Catamaran has spent more on the common areas (which are very pretty but also just a bit wrong…like, say, a pool area where you are required to wear a wrist band as if you are an untrusted 20 year old) than they have on the rooms.  Nobody seems to have considered fixing up the rooms since maybe 1982. Or maybe they spent all of their budget on marketing drones?

So you go from this:

To this:

Hamster cage with no design sensibility and indestructible furnishings. But wait, there’s less.  How about the Holiday Inn bathroom console (featuring communal soap)?  With a vinyl floor?

But you are here for the shower. Here is a prime example of the worst kind of plastic shower. Oh let us count the ways: lilliputian tub only a foot deep and made of plastic, obesity bar, plastic shower curtain (with a see thru plastic window portal design), and a shower head that does nothing to improve the flaccid water pressure. A big nope.

Here, watch the plastic shower in all of its glorious action…

There are good things about the Catamaran, like friendly staff, a good restaurant, and an espresso bar that knows how to make a real macchiato. And it’s right on the Pacific! But we’re not surfer dudes.

There’s an excellent coffee bar nearby too—pump coffee.

A visit to Ken Sushi Workshop is a great idea. Excellent.

Ultimately, room 218 is so dissatisfying that it was time just to jettison the plan, pack up early (after the morning meeting), and switch hotels. A lowly one showerhead and no more chances for the old Catamaran. It has sprung a fatal leak.

Posted by gem
Filed in hotel, restaurant
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
1 Comment »

Heavy Turbulence at the Alexis in Seattle

June 4, 2017

NPS is not a first-timer at the Alexis, but we sure do miss our guy Keith (once concierge) who is no longer at Kimpton. Because we have no feet on the ground at the hotel, we had to rely on social media and the CRM system that Kimpton uses to track its guests. Guess what? Knowing people beats the heck out of any computer-based guest database. Especially a guest database that elides the only real hotel room criteria we hold dear.

Which is a short way of saying, “WTF Kimpton, a room with a plastic shower??!” Really, the warm greeting by Sam, the sparkling water, the really beautiful newly-renovated room, all that stuff means not a thing if the shower is plastic. We’ll pay more. We’ll do pretty much whatever it takes to avoid the shower over bathtub thing. We’ll even cash in our loyalty and find a different hotel.

NO PLASTIC SHOWERS!

The first room was 634. It had a plastic shower. What exactly does that mean, you ask? Lets review.

This is a plastic shower. It looks not too awful from here.

But when you approach, the plastic liner becomes apparent

And this bendy “obesity bar” which is not up to the task of such heavy plastic.

Gross. This is just gross. We do not do this.

And over a step in bathtub. No no. A thousand times no.

We tried to make this all very obvious.

Does the machine have a memory??

The rest of the bathroom is very nice and spacious

So lets put this shower episode behind us and hope somebody out there in Kimpton CRM-land is paying attention.

Leave the bathroom behind. Never go back.

High style evident

Cluttered quirky and fun

This is just fine.

Sparkling water is always very nice, and we do appreciate that.

But we do not at all like this trend where our rooms are bugged. Please make these spy devices that invade privacy optional Kimpton.

No bugs please. Spy on your spouse not on your guests.

Anyway, for the record, the Alexis has a great little bar called The Library, where from time to time great bourbon flows through.

The next morning, a room adjustment was already underway. That is good. But it was already too late.

Breakfast at Biscuit Bitch is worth seeking out, even if you have to trawl for a table.

And then work. And then some sailing.

We did some racing, and the good news is that we won first place in our class (really great huge boats that start late and come in last).

By the time the ferry shenanigans finished up, it was midnight and time for the room switch. Imagine our surprise when told that the water was off for maintenance. The Alexis can’t win for losing this trip. We were assigned room 425 which was very nice. We spent 5 hours in it all told.

Though we really do appreciate the shower in room 425, it works better when the water is on.

New room for you

The staff left a very nice amenity which there was no time to get into. Sadly, the water was not sparkly, though who knows it might have started out that way hours earlier.

Fancy

The bathroom is very spacious and awesome. Wish there were more time to use it properly.

Big giant tub with its own platform

Now that’s better Alexis. A glass shower!

All told this chunky visit to the Alexis deserves three showerheads on average. Plastic showers bring your final semester grade way down here at NPS university.

Posted by gem
Filed in hotel, mixology, restaurant
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Leave a Comment »