Posted by Nick on September 2, 2010
I recently spent two nights at the Park Hyatt Toronto hotel. The hotel is located in the trendy Yorkville area of Toronto, near the University of Toronto. High-end retail stores line most of the surrounding streets.
Review (this review is my opinion based on my 2-night stay at the hotel)
I booked a room with two queen beds and was given a room on the 12th floor of the North Tower. The room has the two beds in it, a desk and chair, two sitting chairs by the window and a large flat screen TV. The bathroom was large, with a soaker tub.
In-room amenities included a fully stocked mini-bar, complete with snacks, two robes, two pairs of slippers, a lint brush, shoe shine kit, mending kit, hair dryer, David Graves toiletries - shampoo, conditioner, lotion, body wash & flax seed soap, a loofah and free high speed internet access.
Overall, the room was very clean and pleasant. And all of the hotel employees I encountered were nice. The view from the room was of an adjacent building and part of Avenue Road at Bloor. However, it was lacking a coffee maker. There was also an ice bucket but no ice machines are available in the hotel. Instead, you must call room service to get ice or coffee. Each of those I find unacceptable.
Parking options are to self-park at the Four Seasons across the street on Cumberland St. or have valet park you there. Hotel website states that it is $38 CAN either way but a TripAdvisor review puts it at $44 per day. Keep driving down Cumberland and you will first pass a garage with a $16 CAN price and then a slightly cheaper garage. Go for it. It is the one with green signs. I parked there and saved something like $25 - $35 CAN for my stay. That garage takes cash, Visa and Mastercard.
The lobby seemed stuffy and uninviting. It was not the sort of lobby you would want to spend any time in. The on-site restaurant was incredibly expensive and offered only a limited menu. I was also disappointed in the “desk chair” in the room because it was not a desk chair at all. It was more like a sitting chair and for a luxury hotel I was expecting more of an executive desk chair.
Fortunately, there is a Whole Foods Market just up the street from the hotel. And a Tim Horton’s is just a few blocks down Bloor to the west of the hotel.
In general, I did not find a lot of redeeming qualities in the surrounding area. It was difficult to find just a market or bodega that was open past 9pm to get some bottled water. The restaurant choices in the immediate vicinity were not to my liking either. The best options nearby were Tim Horton’s and the Matisse restaurant in the Marriott at 90 Bloor, just a few blocks away.
For a wider variety of more reasonably priced restaurants, I suggest walking east on Bloor and heading down Yonge St, towards downtown. You will immediately find loads of restaurants and markets.
While the hotel was clean and the front desk staff was pleasant, I would choose to stay elsewhere if I found myself in this area of Toronto again. In fact, I would probably check out the Yorkville Marriott.
Posted by Nick on July 23, 2010
After my bad experience with the much hyped Shake Shack in NYC, I was in no hurry to try another New York City burger joint. So, when I ate at the recently opened Quality Burger outside the World Financial Center earlier this week it was only because I was hungry and happened to be in the area.
The Quality Burger sign touted organic, grass-fed 100% black angus burgers. The actual restaurant is outside along the water. It is basically just an outdoor counter in front of some big grills. There are a couple of other food places along side of it, one of which was selling shrimp and other seafood.
Not a lot of items are on the Quality Burger menu. Just burgers, dogs and a salmon burger, if I recall correctly. The burgers are similar in price to those at Shake Shack, just under five bucks.
Here is what one looks like:
When you order, you can watch them throw your burger on the grill. As you can see, it is a decent sized burger. And, in my opinion, it tastes WAY better than the one over at Shake Shack. It is not greasy at all. And since it is cooked on an actual grill, it has that great cookout burger taste. You can also tell that the quality of beef is higher than that at Shake Shack.
All seating for Quality Burger is outside, but you can find tables and chairs right inside the World Financial Center if you need air conditioning. Plenty of seats are right by the AT&T Wireless kiosk, which is also near the cleanest public restrooms in this area of New York City.
Quality Burger
Battery Park
225 Liberty St
Manhattan, NY 10006
www.quality-burger.com
For related reading, have a look at my review of Shake Shack.
Posted by Nick on July 21, 2010
As of right now on Yelp, the Madison Square Park burger joint Shake Shack has 1549 reviews and a solid 4/5 rating.
One of the highlighted reviews mentions that a burger there is “hands down the best burger I’ve ever had.” But is it really?
The Shake Shack menu is available on their website (shakeshacknyc.com). It states that their burgers are all natural 100% black angus beef. It goes further to state that the beef has no growth hormones or antibiotics. The french fries are listed as being 100% free of artificial trans-fat and made from Yukon Gold potatoes. Current prices are $2.25 for the fries and $4.75 for a single Shack Burger.
This is what the food at Shake Shack looks like.
Don’t let the image fool you - the size of the burger and the amount of fries is not that large.
While I did not try their hot dogs or shakes, I did try the burger and fries. And let me tell you - this is one of those places where being trendy is more important that tasting good.
The burgers are ridiculously greasy. How greasy? Take a bite and hot grease squirts into your mouth. The bun immediately gets super soggy. If the burger had a good taste, which it should if it is 100% black angus, then it would make up for the greasy factor. I’ve had 100% black angus burgers many times before and this is most definitely not a 100% black angus burger - or at least it tastes like no other I’ve ever had. And that is not a good thing.
I also love Yukon gold potatoes in any form. These fries at Shake Shack do not taste like Yukon gold potatoes. What they taste like are those cheap store-brand bags of frozen french fries that you get at Wal-Mart or the Dollar Store. Yup, that bad.
To make matters worse, this fast food - because really, that is how it tastes - is chock full of MSG, in my opinion. I say this because I ate at Shake Shack with someone that gets ill each time anything with MSG is consumed. She only ate the burger. And immediately started exhibiting symptoms.
For reasons that are beyond me, Shake Shack is trendy and people claim to love it. I don’t know how. I really only see two ways people could love Shake Shack -
- Broken taste buds
- Being trendy is more important that taste
This place is so trendy that there is often a long line and wait for this food. Luckily, I only had to wait about 15 to 20 minutes for my crappy food.
If you want a real 100% black angus burger, head down to the World Financial Center and have a grass-fed beef burger right on the water from Quality Burger. It’s only a few cents difference in the price, but a lot of difference in the taste.
Shake Shack
Madison Square Park
E 23rd St & Madison Ave
New York, NY 10010
www.shakeshacknyc.com
Quality Burger
Battery Park
225 Liberty St
Manhattan, NY 10006
www.quality-burger.com
Posted by Nick on June 1, 2010
Over Memorial Day weekend, I was visiting family and stayed in a Hampton Inn that I had stayed at in the past. While this is a 100% non-smoking hotel, the first room my gf & I were given absolutely reeked of cigarette smoke. After declining their offer of letting them put an ionizer in the room, during which we would have to vacate for 1 hour, they moved us to another room. It smelled fine and overall it was a painless process.
After dropping our things off in the room, we went to visit with said family and did not return to our room until around 2 am. Upon using the bathroom, it appeared that half of the towels had what appeared to be beard trimmings from a previous occupant all over them. Further inspection brought notice of the same hair on the back of the toilet and the sink. The bathtub had plenty of assorted hairs in it, with a nice little hair pile on the floor beside the tub. If there is one thing I like seeing in a hotel, it’s other people’s pubes in my bathroom. Yum.
When preparing to get into bed at 3am, I discovered that the sheets on the bed had not been changed, for what looked like a really long time. Imagine as nasty of a bed as you can in a hotel room, your worst nightmare if you will, and that is what we had. It made the pube pile in the bathroom seem like nothing.
Since it was so late, I opted to go to the front desk and ask for new bed sheets and tell them the situation. The front desk clerk apologized, noted it on the account, and gave me all new clean sheets.
The next morning we were still skeeved about the whole thing, but had pre-paid for the room and really didn’t want to have to move to a new hotel. While my gf was filling out a birthday card at the desk in the room, she looked down to discover someone else’s pube on her hand. Yes, the room was indeed that nasty. That was when we decided to invoke the Hampton Inn 100% Satisfaction Guarantee and leave. Plus we are Gold Level HHonors members and have spent over a month total in hotel rooms in the past six months. In short, we thought there would be no issue with getting our money back for this atrocity of a hotel room.
We pack up and go downstairs. I take the stuff to the car while the gf asks for the money back. She tells the of the nastiness of the room and states that she would like to invoke the 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. They tell her no.
Did you get that? They said no.
Their reasoning? Because the room was prepaid. The Hampton Inn and Hilton websites mention no exclusions that prevent you from being able to invoke the 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. However, a quick search on the Flyer Talk forums shows that people have this sort of problem all the time.
The gf was expecting a fight and had anticipated their response. She told them “Fine” and that she would take it up with corporate.
So, today she has sent an email to HHonors support with photographs of the pube-covered room. Now we wait to see if our money gets refunded.
Update: After two emails sent to HHonors support, and just over a month passed, we got a call from the general manager of the hotel and all of the money was refunded!
Posted by Nick on May 17, 2010
I booked a flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu on Hawaiian Airlines after reading glowing reviews online in regards to their service and overall flight experience. I had read, or at least I thought I had, on the Hawaiian Airlines website that they had in-flight entertainment centers at each seat. I assumed it would be similar to flying on JetBlue or Virgin America. With the reviews I had read online in mind, as well as what I read about the in-flight entertainment system, I paid around $700 each for two round trip tickets. This was about $100 more than the cheapest flight, which was on Delta.
The reviews I read online were nothing like my experience flying Hawaiian Airlines from LAX to HNL.
I flew on Virgin America to get to LAX. When I got on the Hawaiian Airlines flight I was shocked to discover that my carry-on would not fit easily under my seat with my girlfriends, as it had on the Virgin America flight. This could be why.
Each aisle seat has one of these taking up precious carry-on luggage space. I have no freaking clue what it is, other than a pain in the ass. It was also clear that there is MUCH less space as far as legroom and such in your seat on Hawaiian Airlines compared to Virgin America and JetBlue, which is the airline I fly most frequently.
There are four archaic small TV screen coming out of the ceiling in each aisle as well as a screen on the wall at the start of each section. This is for both coach seating areas. When I flew to Hawaii in the late 80s I recall a similar television viewing setup. Apparently, Hawaiian Airlines did not get the memo that this is 2010, not the late 80s. Someone needs to tell them to play catch-up.
This so-called “entertainment system” was airing one movie – Twilight New Moon – that started around 3 hours into the flight. I wasn’t upset about this as I have no interest in seeing New Moon, but found it odd that it started so late into the flight.
To hear the sound of the movie, you have to plug headphones into your arm rest. The fee for headphones is $5, and if you have your own headphones it is also $5. Ridiculous, right? Apparently the fee is the “access charge” for the movie. I have no idea how they enforce this access charge though.
Before the drink service, before the one movie played, before anything really, they brought a cart through the aisles with their premium snacks and mini-TV/movie player. So, before they gave anyone anything to eat or drink they wanted to sell you something to eat or drink. Some people across from us got one of the mini TV players. The rental fee is $15, but here’s the kicker – they pick them back up a full hour before the flight lands! I saw one guy try to return his after he got it. He appeared to be unsuccessful. It is supposed to be pre-loaded with TV shows and other things. I noticed that ‘My Name is Earl’ and ‘Malcolm In The Middle’ were on it.
The highlight of the flight was the complimentary meal. When I say highlight, what I really mean was, “Aren’t they ashamed to be handing this out?” What was in-flight meal?
A ham and cheese sandwich. That’s right. A ham-and-fucking-cheese sandwich.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the pitiful excuse for an in-flight meal was actually frozen. When I took the top bun off there were literally pieces of ice throughout the ham. And the center of the cheese was entirely frozen (yes, that is ice in the pic below). True story.
Oh, and there was also a little packet of brown spicy mustard and a chocolate chip brownie. Fortunately, the brownie was not frozen. That didn’t help the taste of it though. A plastic fork was included in the pack, and I’m still not sure what I was supposed to do with it. I did see one woman using it to spread mustard on her sandwich.
But before the lovely ham and cheese sandwich meal was served, the beverage cart went through the aisles. My girlfriend got water spilled on her leg. The flight attendant that spilled the water never apologized; not even when she tossed napkins towards my girlfriend.
If you, for some reason, are flying Hawaiian Airlines in the future, please know that you do not get an air control thingie above your head. Instead, there is a master air conditioner that they control, which means you freeze your ass off most of the flight. So, dress warmly!
I did not really experience the great customer service on the flight that I had read was typical of Hawaiian Airline flights. In fact, many of the flight attendants seemed downright pissy. The worst part of my flight experience was knowing that I not only had my return flight on Hawaiian to look forward to, but three round-trip inter-island flights.
