lifeasdaddy

Sunrise over the Med

I'm going to write a few blog posts here about our recent trip to Barcelona and France. 

In Barcelona we stayed at the AC Barcelona Forum hotel next to the convention centre.  The hotel has a sleek, hip design which was a visual pleasure.  I was unfamiliar with the AC hotel chain which has a significant presence in Spain, Italy and Portugal.  I found the guest room size slightly on the small side compared to rooms in Australia and the USA but I'm told this is normal for Europe.

There was a problem with the air-conditioning: it would only heat, not cool.  This suggests to me that the hotel has the technical limitation of only one set of air-conditioning pipes running through the hotel and must choose for the whole hotel a date to switch from cooling to heating.  There was a saving grace however, the windows would open to permit fresh, cool air into the room:

That's what the sunrise over the Mediterranean Sea looked like.  Barely visible in the dawn light at the sea shore is part of the ongoing urban renewal of the area which is either reclamation or demolition/reconstruction.

The hotel staff were generally very good. The room attendants did a great job keeping the room clean. 

 

Strangely, for a hotel which is mainly aimed at conventioneers and the business traveller there was no electrical power point at the desk top to permit laptop and electronic device charging.  Instead we used the television power point.  This is not an unusual fault, but an unforgivable one in a recently built hotel.

One aesthetic feature of Barcelona is the architecture.  The 'culture-led' approach to urban renewal has dictated that great care is taken with the design of new buildings and this hotel precinct is no exception with cantilevered building segments on display.  The wedge shaped building standing by itself in the photo below was a transparent glass tower held up by the concrete floors and an exoskeleton.

Above: photo of AC Barcelona Forum hotel from across Passeig del Taulat.

 

Below left: AC Barcelona Forum hotel

a

 

 

The hotel bathroom deconstructed.

In my former life I oversaw the cleaning and care of around 400 hotel bathrooms daily.  And countless more lavatories around the complex.

[ Photo by VancityAllie on Flickr here ]

One of the things you find out when you are running a hotel is that there are problems inserted into hotels at the design and building stage for which you spend many years apologising.  Because there are some things which cannot be fixed without knocking the building down and starting again.

My friend David McMillan has done a great job of dissecting the problem that is the hotel bathroom here.

The bathroom pictured above is from the Hôtel Place D’Armes, and may well have avoided the design faults David McMillan has enumerated . Allie gives it and the rest of the hotel a pretty good review here.

Sydney then and now: Lansdowne Hotel

Then, in 1926 by the commercial photograph Milton Kent, from the Warden Archive of the Powerhouse Museum, via the Photo of the Day blog entry by Jessica McLean:

Now:

The hotel was completed in 1926 and y0ou can see the NSW Heritage listing here.

Lonely Planet guide book writer admits he made it up.

I thought Lonely Planet guidebooks were over rated.  This could be one reason.

lifeasdaddy - The best spot in the house - hoteliers take note.

David McMillan writes about a hotel's "Downtown" here. "It is that little piece of space whre small groups gravitate when your occupancy is low." 

Hoteliers real and aspiring read and take note.

lifeadaddy - The conflict that creates high quality restaurants.

David McMillan writes a great blog about hospitality management with a focus on hotels.  I've just been catching up on his back catalogue and came across this post HOW SAD THAT WE DENOUNCE PEELING AND FLIPPING where he talks about how "... I discovered that only when conflict exists between kitchen and restaurant staff does quality exist."

Thinking back on my own time working in hotels and restaurants I have to agree with him.  When everyone in front and back of the restaurant are cozy with each other the output tends to be ordinary, mediocre and bland.  When there is creative tension quality rises.

I guess that's a warning for husband and wife restaurant teams which almost always find the two halves of the partnership working on opposite sides of the business.  One cooking, one hosting.

lifeasdaddy - Blackstone buys Hilton

For US $26 bil.

Here's the Chicago Tribune's take.

lifeasdaddy - Ko'Olina Lagoons. The best beach for children on Oahu, Hawaii.

I won't go into much detail about those beaches we found inappropriate for kids this week, I'll just tell you the best we found.  This is for children under 5 years with limited or no swimming ability.

      I add this caveat:  I believe that children need to be supervised constantly, continuously, and 100% of the time while in the water.  This level of supervision includes the beach I am about to name.

The Ko'Olina Lagoons are a set of 4 man-made (woman made?) seawater lagoons which are protected from waves by rock breakwaters.  The beach is made of fine sand and is gently graded.  Here's a pic of Edward practising his swimming.

The lagoons are surrounded on the land side by a master planned development comprising the Marriott Ihilani Resort & Spa, a timeshare condominium development and the Ko'Olina Marina.  As such it is a gated community and when approached by road a security guard at the shack will ask your reasons for visiting. Each of the lagoons has a small amount of free public car parking - around 20 spaces each - which were full each time we visited.  Apparently the public car parking fills by around 9am each morning.  When the public car parking fills, the guard turns away beach goers.  The trick is to tell the guard that you are going to eat at the Resort restaurants, and also visit the beach.  The guard will issue a lagoon pass.

At Lagoon #1, the first on the right hand side as you drive in, there are reasonably clean amenities blocks, and open air beach side showers wash off the salt water.  There is also foot access to the Marriott resort where you will arrive at the Poolside Grill.  We had lunch at this casual dining outlet twice and both times were very pleased with the food, beverages, and especially the service.  (Thanks Ryann)  Here's the menu, and you can see that the prices are higher than McDonald's, but quite reasonable for this type of hotel and environment.  Importantly, parking in the hotel/resort car park is free with a spend of more than $25 in the resort's food & beverage outlets, so if you park in that car park (probably your only choice) then be sure to take your car park entry ticket with you and have it validated by your server upon payment.

Contrary to what may be read elsewhere on the Internet, there are no lifeguards on duty.

See this Google Map for a satellite view of the lagoons which appear as crescent shapes.  You can zoom out on the map to see driving directions, and it's position relative to the rest of Oahu island.

It's about 25 or 30 minutes drive from Waikiki.

The kids loved having a swim amongst the gentle waves and building sand castles on the sand.

lifeasdaddy - "People don't quit jobs, they Quit Managers"

^ According to David McMillan, in this blog post about the labor shortage in the hospitality industry.

Read the whole thing here, which also includes his 10 point international action plan.

lifeasdaddy - Bed & Breakfast in a Frank Lloyd Wright marvel?

Fancy staying overnight in a Frank Lloyd Wright house?  The Muirhead Farmhouse has surely got to be unique in the B&B category.

I love the style of their website too. 

How do I know about it?  Because Terry Teachout told me so.

[ Added:  Mr. Teachout also mentions 4 other Frank Lloyd Wright houses in which you may spend the night here. ]