After checking out of the Kimpton Canary, we spent the day with family in Burbank. We then drove to Ventura and checked in to the Crowne Plaza Ventura Beach. The hotel was a pretty standard Crowne Plaza conference hotel. Like the Kimpton Canary, the location of the hotel is excellent. It sits right on the […]
Author: Brian
Kimpton Canary Hotel – Santa Barbara
We chose the Kimpton Canary Hotel for our time in Santa Barbara. We really liked our stay at the Kimpton DeWitt Amsterdam and were looking forward to another stay at a Kimpton hotel. The hotel location could not be beat. The hotel is located right in the middle of downtown, just off State Street. Property in this […]
Exploring Santa Barbara
We did not have a real schedule for today. The plan was just to explore Santa Barbara. It was a beautiful day, so we decided to walk through town and up to the Santa Barbara Mission. Along the way, we admired the 2.5 million dollar homes with perfect gardens. Eventually, we made it to the […]
Wine Tasting in the Santa Ynez Valley
Our plan for the day was wine tasting and exploring the Santa Ynez Valley. We got a later start to the day since most of the places we wanted to visit did not open until late morning. We packed up some sandwiches and began the drive over the mountains into the valley. It was a […]
Escape Lounge MSP and Travelling to Santa Barbara
We left home on an early morning flight. Thankfully, Baby B slept the entire first flight to Minneapolis. We learned from this trip that we will have to choose flights around sleeping times from now on rather than by price or convenience. Total melt downs are no fun for anyone. During our layover in Minneapolis, […]
Santa Barbara and Ventura Trip – Introduction
This trip was a big change for us to say the least. Earlier in the year, Baby B made his entry into the world. Nonetheless, we wanted to continue travelling as much as possible. That meant getting him used to flying and being on the road as soon as possible. He has already taken several […]
British Airways B747 First – London to Phoenix
We were going to visit family after our trip so instead of flying back to Chicago, we took the direct flight from London to Phoenix. It meant we had some extra time to fully experience first class. We were seated in seats 4E and 4F in the middle of the cabin. These were probably the […]
Elemis Spa and Cathay Pacific First Lounge Heathrow
We took the train to the airport and arrived a little over 90 minutes before departure. We had some issues at check-in for unspecified reasons with a lot of running between computers and frantically looking at watches. Eventually the issue was resolved and we headed through security. We stopped in the British Airways lounge in […]
Amsterdam – Rijksmuseum and Anne Frank House
Today was our last day in Amsterdam and thus sadly, the last day of our trip. We grabbed a breakfast consisting of muffins at a pastry shop around corner from hotel. Then we hopped on the tram to the Museumplein to visit the Rijksmuseum. The museum was very well laid out with good transition through […]
Amsterdam – Canal Tour and Van Gogh Museum
Today was Valentine’s Day and we had a full day of touring planned. Unlike our previous hotels, breakfast was not included with our rate in Amsterdam. This was no issue as there are plenty of places to grab breakfast close to the hotel. We decided to eat at Pancakes Amsterdam which gave us a discount […]