It occurred to me that I should do a brief review of the hotels from our recent Peru trip. Here goes:
Before the
ABD started I wanted to stay at a well-located hotel and the JW Marriott seemed to fit the bill, being located on the ocean and directly across the street from the Larcomar Shopping Center. The location was indeed excellent, but the hotel was showing its age and IMHO riding on its reputation. We arrived around 3:30am and were super tired. The desk clerk decided he wanted to play some word games, not much fun for me, but much less so early in the morning with no sleep. I had booked 2 rooms -- 1 with dhs AA points (standard room) and 1 directly with Marriott (executive double beds, high floor, with lounge access, ocean-facing). The agent told me that we had received an upgrade for both rooms - I said excellent and sent ds on his way to the room with a king bed. Dd and I required a bit of help with our bags, so the porter accompanied us to a room with a city-facing view and king bed on the 7th floor (neither ocean-facing nor double beds). The bellhop called the front desk, who took a few minutes to move us to another room, which wasn't any better. On the third move we ended up on the 15th floor (which was pretty low for this hotel) with 2 double beds and an ocean view. The room was very small and certainly not what I would classify executive, but at 4:30am I had lost any inkling to fight the front desk clerk who had then decided to play more word games in broken English. Next morning I had to be out of the hotel by 11:15 for a chocolate bar making session at the Coco Museo, so didn't bother with trying to move rooms in the morning. The lounge was nice enough the first morning, but the second morning was chaos -- super busy, no tables, little food left, way too many people for the size of the lounge, etc. Not a great experience, but I took advantage of the chaos and made some small cheese and ham and cheese croissants for possible lunch later that day (before judging me for this, take note: I had to bus my own table, then set it and fend off people trying to sit down at this table with my food neatly placed on it with no staff anywhere in site to do their job). Room was okay, nothing great; bathroom was showing its age and could use a soft upgrade; beds were comfy and room was kept clean; view was nice, but we were on a pretty low floor -- the view was much nicer from the lounge on the 24th floor).
Westin Lima: this is the hotel ABD uses and it was MUCH nicer than the JW Marriott. If it was better located (it is in the business district and pretty far from the ocean / tourist part of the city and not much to do in the area) we would've stayed here for sure. Ds had a standard room (ABD room) which was very nice, but a bit cramped with the 3rd bed. For some reason dd and I got a HUGE room with the 35,000 FN certificate (booked before the devaluation); dd and I also got a nice tray with chocolates and desserts as a welcome gift (which seemed odd on a FN certificate, but who am I to question this?). Bed was super comfy and the bathroom was amazing. We were also on the 21st floor while the ABD room was on the 11th floor. No views to be had from this hotel, so higher floor was probably meaningless. Overall I'd recommend this hotel but caution that the location is not great (however Ubers in Lima are super cheap).
Sol y Luna (Sacred Valley): if you ever have the chance to stay here, do it! It is a gorgeous property with beautiful grounds and the food is amazing! Parties stay in individual casitas. Ours was 2 stories -- one massive and extremely comfy king bed with full bathroom on the main floor while the second story had 2 double beds. At turn down they place hot water bottles in the beds, which is a nice touch on cool nights in the Andean mountains! I enjoyed walking around the property early in the morning (one side effect of altitude I had was not sleeping great, meaning I was walking around the property with my camera at 6:30am every morning!). Staff was nice, the casita was kept very clean, there were flowers along both sides of all the walkways and did I mention the food was amazing? The second day here the ABD activity was white water rafting, which we elected to skip. Dd and I went horse back riding instead. It was such a nice ride, the on-site ranch was super clean, the horses were gorgeous and well-fed, the tack was immaculate and overall it was probably one of the nicest riding facilities I have seen (and dd rode competitively for over 8 years). If you ever stay here and decide to ride, I'd recommend that you have some experience. Our guide didn't speak any English, showed up, got on his horse, showed us our horses and off we went. I wouldn't want to try this with no riding experience (I rode for 2 years for pleasure). Dds horse spooked twice, once when a little girl (no more than 6 or 7) threw a firecracker right in front of her horse and once when a car came around a corner and she was not quite on the shoulder. Luckily the horses remained pretty calm, but experience riding played a part in that. My horse was amazing and he didn't give me a moment of trouble, except he did panic a bit when the firecracker went off, but I kept him calm and we continued on. I will try to post a picture of our guide in a few days -- exactly what you would expect: crisp white pants, nice belt with buckle, pristine white long-sleeve shirt with collar, cowboy boots and cowboy hat!
Palacio del Inka (Cusco): very nice historic hotel located 2 blocks from the historic heart of Cusco (perfect location as the historical center is super busy and loud). Our room was huge and had 2 double beds and a single rollaway. Plenty of room for everyone to move around comfortably. Super clean, comfy beds, nice turn down service. Bathroom was large and appeared to be recently renovated. Only negative would be the breakfast buffet was out of lactose free milk and when I asked if it would be replenished I was told it would be, but never was. I couldn't find a server to get dd the lactose free milk and buffet and dining areas were very crowded. Food looked good, but I was starting to feel ill at this point so I just had dry toast with dry corn flakes and a few mouthfuls of yogurt (for calcium).
I feel that my previous post may not have come across the wrong way. Our guides for this trip were both beyond amazing (I have had guides in the past that were just okay / nothing special). There was a lot of Disney magic on this trip that I won't post since it could ruin surprises for future guests, but it was more magic than we have had on previous trips! ABD really knows how to do luxury travel.
Japan is still my favorite ABD, but Peru is right up there.
Any questions let me know!
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Hummingbird outside a casita -- I didn't have the correct setting, but I snapped a quick shot; when I had adjusted my settings he was long gone (taken from my camera, not phone)
)
First of all not ONE of my notes regarding my SWA upcoming plans was correct.... I had to go into my digital receipts in order to get everything straight... (Finally managed it after much wonderment at my own ineptitude) And This a.m. I saw in my informed delivery email that my insurance company was sending me something threatening lack of coverage....(WTH??? I paid those back in December to hit MSR!!!) Which prompted a deep scan of my insurance accounts,along with cc pages b/c I had scheduled a large payment (for MSR!!!
) and now recalling I had some trouble getting the payment page to update,and forgot to check back (vacations do that to me) and just now seeing it WASN'T paid.
Which prompted me to quadruple check that last MSR....to see if I had missed the boat and missed those bonus points....
(which would have served me right for being lax with record keeping last month) but.....it turned out ok (due to my overspending without realizing it lol) I see the bonus is coming on next statement.....I added the insurance bill to that cc anyway just for good measure but *WOW*..... what a dummy.(who tries to learn from mistakes made at least)
. I'm still crying over that and will probably never forgive myself 
. I CANNOT make that mistake again lol!
)--people actually pay to go there! ROFL!!!! I told my mom she "owed" me $50k since I got in without a bribe. Sadly, she didn't go for it.
Really for Grubhub and Uber Eats our main choices that we would eat at are a little pizza place, Smashburger, and the Philly place we like comes and goes. We tried another pizza/pasta place that we used to go to some before a few months back, because they were on both for pickup, and it was not as good as it'd been before. There's a new-ish BBQ place that did show up on UE, I wish they did pick up because I'd like to use the credit just getting meats and sides to take home for everyone to make their own plate..
