Anna, the Pioneer Business Woman: The Pacific Rim is Where It’s At….

Anna, the Pioneer Business Woman: The Pacific Rim is Where It’s At….: Some scenery along the drive in the center of the island I’m headed from Victoria to Ucluelet on the Pacific Rim. I’d love to head we...

Warm Spot in my Boston Arctic Adventure

I traveled to Boston recently for 4 days and I was excited to be hitting a break in the Boston snows. The only problem is that I was hitting it during an arctic blast with subzero temperatures. Despite this trip not providing much opportunity for tourist trekking, I did find an unexpected warm light on my trip…the Club Quarters hotels. These hotels and facilities have to be one of the best kept secrets in business travel. I’m hooked.  They only have about 17 locations around the world so far, but if they have one in a city to which I’m traveling, I’m likely to go Club Quarters instead of Airbnb, which has been my staunch go-to housing option.  I never thought I’d have a hotel challenger to what I can get with Airbnb, but in Boston, the costs were comparable, and when you added in the discounts on parking, Club Quarters was the 2^nd least expensive option even with considering Airbnb options too. I’ve used Club Quarters for business meetings in New York City, but didn’t stay in one until my recent trip to Boston. The reasons I’m now a fan of Club Quarters for all my business travel stays are many from location, price and amenities to business facilitation services – for free. 

Let’s start with the location…they are all in prime business locations. You will find yourself in the heart of all the “downtown” business areas of major cities from NYC, Boston, Chicago, Washington D.C., London, etc. I used the one in NYC on 51^st street across from Rockefeller Center (very convenient to subway stations as well) for business meetings each of the last several trips to NYC in the last couple of years. They have a business club area along with a restaurant for convenient business meetings whether over coffee or lunch or dinner.  I didn’t stay in these rooms on this NYC trip (I stayed in Airbnb apartments in Brooklyn each time), so I can’t vouch for their rooms at this location, but they all come with free – that’s right – FREE – WiFi in the rooms as well as in the lounge area. When you’re in the heart of the business districts, to have free WiFi is a real benefit. The location in Boston was equally perfectly located. It was directly across the street from my in-town client building and everything you could want business, restaurant and shops were within a very small walking route.

The amenities are also very business friendly, personally convenient, cost-conscious and environmentally friendly – all of which I appreciate greatly.  In addition to the free WiFi, they offer a wonderful filtered water/water bottle station on each floor where you can

fill up as many water bottles of cold filtered water as often as you want. I’ve never seen or heard of any hotel offering such a service, but it is absolutely fabulous. I go through a lot of water, and I run through the 1 or 2 complimentary bottles in standard hotel rooms within mere hours – even if they’re replenished each day, I’m always having to go to the tap water the majority of the time. This self-service filtered water feature is environmentally conscious (re-use your own bottles as you refill them) and provides the efficacy and efficiency of providing me as much filtered water as I want whenever I want, while avoiding the delivery of more plastic bottles (if they in fact would give me more bottled water vs. just more glasses of water through room service at a cost with service fees). LOVE this feature.

In the same light as this efficient and convenient unlimited filtered water self-service, the Club Quarters (at least in the Boston site) has a “Member Request Closet” that has replacement coffees, teas, creamers and irons/boards. Instead of putting an iron and board in each and every room, they have about 10 per floor, and if you need one, go down the hall, get it and bring it back. Some will need those each and every trip and some won’t. If you know 

you’ll need it, just go grab one and leave it in your room (so you’re not trotting down the hall in your PJs or worse in the morning realizing you need a little refreshing on those suitcase packed clothes). There are plenty there in the closet, so, unless there is a “Fancy Pants” convention staying on your floor, you shouldn’t be depriving anyone of having one themselves. Grab some extra sugars, creamers and teas while you’re there….

                              

Another very convenient feature of Club Quarters is their grocery shopping service for a very nominal fee. Many of the rooms include small refrigerators, small cook tops, microwaves, with dishes and pots/pans. So, if you want to cook, you can. If you want those nice fruits, yogurts and cereals for breakfast in your room and not from room service, give them a list and by the afternoon, your groceries will be delivered to your room for you while you’re out on meetings, etc. Of course, there is also a restaurant in the same building too, so you can also get room service 24/7 in most cases too. One of my personal favorite features was free document printing. They have this great cloud-based service where you can upload the document you want to print (by signing on to their free WiFi, it will automatically select their printer as the destination printer, but you can always change it if you want). The service will give you a “Document ID” that you will input into the printer’s number keypad and it prints out for you while you’re standing there and not before you input your document code. COMPLETELY FREE. It was so awesome! It isn’t a pretty color fancy printer, but it is more than adequate.

If these weren’t enough benefits, Club Quarters also has another very convenient and cost effective feature for those who require a car to get out and about beyond the city. Parking is always incredibly expensive in these downtown city locations (Boston was between $35-55/day on average).  In Boston, they had a relationship with a parking garage 2 blocks down the street where their stamp gave me a significant discount to only $25/day and guaranteed use. The day I came into town, the garage was already over-flowingly full and they initially told me they were full and I couldn’t park there. When I said I was staying at Club Quarters, they took me anyway.

There are more benefits to this Boston Club Quarters than I either could utilize then or can repeat here now, so I took a picture of one of their info sheets in the room for others to see. In addition to the fabulous features in staying there, I enjoyed their business lounge immensely as well. I had 6 meetings in 2 days in their cozy business lounge on the main floor where there was also free coffee, sodas, water and snacks along with the free computer and printer use. For all you business travelers to the major cities in the US and London, you really need to check out the Club Quarters hotels. No other hotel that I’ve experienced or researched can touch Club Quarters for price, convenience, location, efficiency and business facilitation. I will definitely be staying in one of their hotels from now on – even over my Airbnb gems – when I have meetings in the cities.  Here is the only catch…you have to belong to some group, company or club that has a “membership”.  By virtue of my business club membership in Atlanta, they have reciprocal membership, so I was eligible. If you belong to a business club, ClubCorp or some other group, you may have rights to use these facilities and don’t know it. If you don’t, you should get your company to get its own membership….If you’re not a business traveler, but these benefits sound good to you (the Boston location was also in the heart of many of the tourist sites), you don’t have to be a Club Quarter member for weekend and holiday stays.

On a more personal note, since I was in Boston during its most frigid weekend all winter, I didn’t spend much time walking around. So, unfortunately, not many personal pics of sites to show for my stay there. The few I did take were out at Rockport Harbor, about an hour drive outside of Boston. It is a beautiful part of the coast and a very charming town. It was so cold on the Saturday I was there, only a portion of the shops and restaurants were open and it was sub-zero actual air temperatures with double digit sub-zero temps “real feel”with the gusts of wind. I did get a couple of pics in, but needless to say, I didn’t get a lot of tourist time in during the trip, unfortunately.  So, I enjoyed some indoor benefits of Boston – good food. Oysters & champagne on the harbor will do…. I hope to be back…

 

Check out Club Quarters here

The Pacific Rim is Where It’s At….

Some scenery along the drive in the center of the island

I’m headed from Victoria to Ucluelet on the Pacific Rim. I’d love to head west and up the island that way, but I’m advised not to do that. That south western part of the island is very undeveloped with the vast majority of any roads being unmarked and unnamed logging roads on which even the locals get lost. So, unless I wish to test my "lost in the wilderness" skills, I must go up the east side, half way up the island, then turn west and go past Port Alberni to the Pacific Rim coast on civilized, paved, marked roads. The drive was easy and once I turned to head west, there were frequent scenic areas to the drive, particularly west of the Port Alberni area.  Just about 3 ½ hours later, I roll into the rural town of Ucluelet. It reminded me of the little town in the old television show Northern Exposure. 

(My apartment is the 2nd floor balcony on the right)

I checked into the nicely appointed lodge and was told that I had the best balcony on the water in the place. Yay!  To think I only reserved this place a week ago. I went up to the 2^nd floor to my room. Oh. My. Heavens. I love this place. Now I’m disappointed I’m only here for 2 days. If they weren’t already booked at this point, I’d be staying another day.  The wall facing the water was nothing but floor-to-ceiling windows spanning the entire length of the apartment from the living room to the bedroom with a deck that spans that same full width of the apartment from one end to the other with access from both living room and bedroom. Beautiful kitchen and bathroom. I know I won’t want to leave this place.

 

The views from the balcony were just spectacular.

As with Victoria, I work with the front desk clerk to arrange my tours for the following days. There were several great options to see gray and humpback whales, bears, sea lions, birds and the natural coast. I tried to get into a sunset kayaking tour, but they were full and couldn't take even 1 person last minute. I did have options for the next day, and I chose a tour with a small intimate group on their private house boat yacht that would feature bears, whales, sea lions, eagles and everything that lived in the area, and was 2/3 of a day with  a gourmet lunch. It was an excellent choice. So, since my first night would be on my own with no tours, I get directions to the nearest grocery, seafood market and wine shop and head over for supplies. The seafood market had the most incredible fresh salmon and huge prawns and so many other things your seafood-loving heart could desire. I picked up the best spicy cocktail sauce I’ve ever had.  That night I cooked the most incredible dinner. My own cooking in my own kitchen, and dining on my own deck overlooking the water beats any restaurant. So, I just enjoyed the rest of my evening cooking, enjoying the fabulous fresh seafood in my incredible apartment with unbeatable views on the water.

It was another early morning start for my bear, whale & all other creature tour the next morning. While everyone was checking in for the tour, there was a bear on the opposite side of the inlet to the marina which created "hush hush" scurrying. As they were trying to hurry everyone on the boat, doing orientation later, we were informed of this "secret surprise." They were hoping that we could ease on over there to see him before he retreated to the forest. It was a great try...but unfortunately, by the time we got over there, we watched him as he headed back into the forest not to be seen again for that day. Oh well. Bummer. I really wanted to see a bear - and more than the small of his bum in an instant in the far distance as he disappeared into the forest.

 

From there, we motored down the inlet to the open water and saw so many bald eagles on the way it was amazing. Bald eagles hang out here on docks, beaches and tree limbs like cardinals do in my neighborhood. They were everywhere. It was fantastic …and I’m not even a bird person…but I do have to take pride in and appreciate the majesty and beauty of our country bird and the amazing natural wonderland that was this place where the bald eagles are such plentiful neighbors almost like lawn ornaments everywhere.

                                                              
The weather when I had checked in the previous day had been nothing short of perfect -  gorgeous and sunny. Unfortunately, as I’ve experienced in Vancouver Island already, the weather can change in an instant. A mere 12 hours later, it was cloudy, 40-degree-cold, misty and windy. It wasn’t downright raining, so that was the good news, but otherwise, there was nothing positive on the weather front. It was July, and I was wearing 3 layers of clothing, gloves and a hat. Luckily I was prepared for it, as were the boat tour operators with boxes full of these items as well as blankets. The water was a bit rough when we were outside of the protected inlet areas, but there were several whales out there in the open waters, so off we went, waves and all. The bad news is that few of my pictures turned out well enough to post here between the weather, the unpredictable moments of whale surfacing that didn't allow much time for aiming, let alone focusing, and the other people on the boat who inevitably got in the way of my shots. A few tails, backs rolling through the water and a few spouts were about all I could get ....again....This whale-watching is tough business to get decent views and shots. It's really cool though to think these enormous and gorgeous creatures are swimming just beneath, so close to us.

 

I did, however, get a few decent pictures of the sea lion rock, the eagles and some great scenery. The scenery was truly spectacular, and the poor weather did provide some intriguing clouded sky pics. Aside from those, it was a day of experiences, more than pictorial documentation.

 Of course I spent the entire day on the outside of the boat in the open air breathing the salt air taking in all that nature had for us that day instead of being in the warmth - but seclusion - of the boat interior. After the day on the water clothed in layers, hats, gloves and blankets, I enjoyed that luxurious bathroom with a long, hot shower followed by curling up in a nice blanket with a good glass of merlot and the remaining salmon and prawns.

I can highly recommend the Pacific Rim and the Ucluelet area. I had hoped to get up to Tofino, just 20 minutes up the road, but just didn't have the time or the ability to get another hotel room last minute. It was great that I could get the wonderful Whiskey Landing Lodge room with little more than a weeks' notice, but don't expect a last minute room at this time of year. I was lucky to get what I did. I will definitely be back and will plan to spend more than just 2 days.

To see more of my pictures see here: Pacific Rim Pictures

Can't say enough about the Lodge...check it out here: Whiskey Landing Lodge