Hood River Hotel
If you have followed along at all you know that we love to get away to Hood River for a relaxing night away with great food and good coffee shops. It's such a romantic place to go, but it's also very much an outdoorsy place to go.
View from the Space Needle
I love this city. It's such a great place to vacation. They have so much to offer including lots and lots of great places to eat. And let me be honest, we pretty much ate our way through Seattle.
Loved this place and would go back in a heart beat, but read on for how to make it work best for you. This place is busy, so be prepared.
Read my previous posts to find out what all we did at the park and other ways to "discover" Magic Mountain.
I have easily passed through Hood River 100 times. I kid you not, I have driven back and forth to Eastern Oregon and Portland for nearly 18 years now. We did discover the quaint downtown and for a while our stop included the Taco del Mar. I know, why would a foodie stop there?? It was easy and the place was so quaint, it was a fun stop, and always guaranteed fast. Every time we drove in and back out, I would look around and just want to take my time. But with 6 hours still ahead or 6 hours behind you, stopping to look was not an option.
Hood River is the Windsurfing Capital of the World, but it's also very romantic. If you want to get away there a few things that must not be missed. To start you MUST stay at the Villas of Columbia Hotel Gorge. HERE is how we got great pricing and upgrades. The view was amazing, relaxing and beyond romantic.
Well I have been checking every website I can think of and trying to come up with some shows that we can go see while we are in Reno. I have come across this one that I am pretty excited about. It's called Toxic Audio. It sounds amazing. Its kind of a cross between music and improv comedy, and it sounds pretty high energy.
There were a few things that I had somehow missed when I was reading up on our vacation. First off I guess we were not allowed to wear shorts into some of the dining rooms. We went to the Italian place and it said on a sign out front no shorts or flip flops allowed. Well we were not prepared for anything else, we had brought nothing but shorts for the guys and my daughter and I had capris. So we entered with our shorts and flip flops, although we looked nice. There were people that were not dressed nice at all and no one was turned away. So if you want to take extra clothes for some dinners go ahead, but it was never required.
Ok, we are not fans of Mazatlan. Its a very loud busy city. Lots and lots of traffic. There is a pretty drive you can take along the coast line through the city. We were able to enjoy that when we went from the Golden District to Old Town Mazatlan. Old Town was a really fun day. There are some amazing buildings there and if you walk a ways there is a huge market in which you can buy and trinket, clothing and food you would like. A few too many pig heads for me, but it was fun and interesting none the less.
We were greeted at the El Cid with drinks, which was nice and the kids could not believe it. From that moment on they decided they wanted to stay forever.
Our room was fine. There are pictures on the web that make it look much more luxurious that it really was. But it was fine for us. We chose the most inexpensive room you could purchase and we were very pleased. We had a view out of our room that was spectacular.
I am looking through all these different aspects of the motel so I can see what I am in for and then come home and write a review.
So this motel is modern, Spanish style hotel includes 500 rooms and suites. Chose between low-rise units with pool views or an ocean-view room in our 17-floor tower above Mexico’s largest swimming pool.
