Rob’s travel highlights of 2023

Yesterday Rhys gave a comprehensive run-down of recommendations from his very extensive travels in 2023, virtually all of which we documented on the site.

My end of year review is slightly different. Ever since HfP started 11 years ago, I have rarely written about my personal travel. This is mainly because I have had children ever since the site started, and travelling with kids impacts so many elements of what you book and do that any review becomes irrelevant if you don’t have kids the same age. Frankly, it is also a relief not to spend my holidays taking pictures of every meal ….

This means that some of what I talk about below hasn’t already been discussed on the site. If you have any questions about any of the resorts mentioned, please drop them into the comments.

Grantley Hall is pictured above. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Because Rhys does virtually all of our flight reviews these days I don’t have much to say about airlines. The only long haul carriers I took this year were:

• Qatar Airways to Doha – Qsuite both ways (by design) and still the global flagship for long-haul Business Class I think

• Virgin Atlantic – once on a family trip to Boston and once on a solo trip to New York. The Boston trip on the brand new A330neo allowed to write probably the first review anywhere of the new Retreat Suite, which is impressive. I won’t tell you what my family (who had never flown Virgin Atlantic before) had to say about the old-style Upper Class seat we got on the way home. You also don’t want to know my reaction when – on the New York trip – my 330neo with the new seat was swapped for a 330 with the old seat, and passengers were not told in advance. The 10,000 Virgin Points compensation I was promised for the swap never turned up. The 330 / 787 Upper Class seat has to go. No if’s, no but’s.

• Oman Air – we connected from Dubai to Muscat on Oman Air. On the outbound we had a long haul Boeing 787 so we upgraded. The Business Class cabin is a thing of beauty, image above. You are in for a treat when the airline joins oneworld in 2024 and you can redeem Avios for its flights. Even better, Oman Air uses the Ahlen First Class lounge in Dubai which is excellent.

• British Airways – in the course of three days this year I flew the old BA Club World seat and the old Virgin Atlantic A330 Upper Class seat. I accept this is quite a long way down any list of ‘hard luck’ stories but both BA and Virgin have huge issues now by flying different Business Class seats – one (two for Virgin) excellent, one very poor. BA will beat Virgin in the race to have a standardised modern Business Class seat out of Heathrow. I also did BA First Class on the A380 which I reviewed here.

Hotels of the Year:

I should start with an honourable mention to Ellmauhof, our regular February half-term ski hotel in Austria, which remains a great independent family ski property in a village which is pretty much given over to kids ski lessons. Summer photo below. This can’t be booked on points.

This is what really impressed me in 2023:

• Grantley Hall, Yorkshire (independent, top image above) – it had taken me a couple of years to get here since it opened (a poor show given I have family fairly close) and I was blown away by what I found. This is, by far, the best hotel in the UK outside of the South East. Read our Grantley Hall review here. This was a cash stay booked via Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts for the 4pm check-out. The website is here.

• Fairmont Windsor Park (Accor) – I will be reviewing this soon after a stay last week. I wasn’t sure what to expect – my Fairmont experiences are a bit mixed and the operator is Arora, best known for airport hotels – but it was outstanding. You really have to work hard to find any faults with the rooms, food or staff. In fact, I may go back with the family for New Year. The only issue is the location, since there isn’t a lot to do outside the hotel. This was a cash stay. The website is here.

• Gleaneagles Townhouse, Edinburgh (Accor but not part of the loyalty scheme) – on paper I shouldn’t have liked this place, especially given the small rooms, but I was hugely impressed by the service and the quality of the food. I reviewed Gleneagles Townhouse here. This was a cash stay. The website is here.

• Virgin Hotels Edinburgh (independent) – my first stay at a Virgin Hotels property, and the first time I got to meet Sir Richard Branson. Virgin Hotels is a very classy operation – if you hear the words ‘Virgin Hotels’ and expect something akin to Marriott’s W brand then you couldn’t be more wrong. I’m worried for them, though, since the chain is growing too slowly (one site per year) and it looks like it will now lose Glasgow on top of San Francisco (now a Hilton Canopy). This was a comped media stay to attend the launch party but I would happily go back there and pay. My Virgin Hotels Edinburgh review is here and the website is here.

• Carlton Cannes, A Regent Hotel (IHG, beach club photo above) – I stayed here a decade ago when it was an InterContinental and I was very impressed by the refurbishment. Click for my Regent Carlton Cannes review. This was a comped media stay. The website is here.

• Hotel Lutetia, Paris (Global Hotel Alliance) – I will be reviewing this soon. It was the first time I had stayed in a Parisian ‘palace’ hotel, albeit one on the Left Bank and one which has had a very aggressive modern makeover. This was a comped media stay. The website is here.

• The Ned, Doha (independent) – Qatar Airways booked me into this new hotel / members club when I was in Doha for a visit. Rare for the Middle East, it is a conversion of an old building, in this case a 1960s Government office block. A lot of exposed concrete has been left in place, especially in the rooms. What I liked was the variety of restaurants and the lovely outdoor pool, which had a real period Slim Aarons vibe. On the downside I think I must have been the first person to ever stay in my suite because there were some comical maintenance issues, including two lights which literally could not be turned off without removing the bulbs. At one point I had three maintenance staff in my room trying to find a way of turning them off before admitting defeat (see below). I’ve no idea if they’d been on 24/7 since the hotel was opened.

Honorable mentions:

• Hotel Alfonso XIII, Seville (Marriott) – I’d wanted to stay here for 25 years and finally managed it. It’s an astonishing building but there are issues over service and maintenace. You’d be crazy not to stay there if given a chance though. Click for my Hotel Alfonso XIII review. This was a cash stay. The website is here.

• Grand Hotel Duchi d’Aosta, Trieste, Italy – this is a very classical independent five star hotel in the heart of the city. The key selling point is that the restaurant spills out into the main central piazza which is a cool place to eat the (very limited) breakfast offered. Whilst a very pleasant place I’m not sure it justifies the price premium. I didn’t review it. This was a cash stay. The website is here but you’ll get a better deal via Emyr.

• Hyatt Regency Palais de la Mediterranee, Nice – I’ve always had a soft spot for this seafront hotel in a converted theatre and hadn’t been back since I went there with my wife-to-be about 17 years ago, shortly after we met. My Globalist status got my son and I (the women were away elsewhere) a huge sea view suite upgrade. My Palais de la Mediterranee review is here. The website is here. Image below. This was a cash stay booked via Emyr for Hyatt Prive benefits.

• JW Marriott Venice – we stayed here for the 5th time this year so, even though I like to moan about its shortcomings, I have to admit that it works for us. The key selling points are the lovely rooms and the ability to pay at booking to upgrade a reward night to a bigger room or suite, which makes it good value for money for Venice. Click here for my JW Marriott Venice review. This was a reward stay. The website is here.

• The White Lodge, Filey, North Yorkshire (independent) – I spent more nights in this pleasant 20-room seaside 3-star than any other hotel this year because it is near my mother. What I like about it, bizarrely, is that as the only hotel (as opposed to B&B) in the town it is priced very high by Yorkshire standards, although a relative bargain by London pricing. This means that I can always book in, even during peak August weeks, at very short notice. It’s a strange reason to like somewhere, I admit, but it works for me. The website is here.

• Moxy York (Marriott) – when the Principal left IHG I finally had a good reason to stop staying there. This time I booked the family into the Moxy for a night – none of them had every stayed in one before – and they were impressed. The real genius of Moxy is that whilst it pretends to cater to Gen Z, in reality it works for anyone who likes the industrial look and feel. This was a cash stay and I didn’t review it. The website is here.

• Thompson New York Central Park (Hyatt) – there are things not to like about this Hyatt hotel, especially the way they treat half the building as a ‘separate’ property and so not eligible for upgrades. Despite being stuffed for an upgrade as a Globalist – despite lots of suites being available on the higher floors in the ‘separate’ hotel – it is very good value for Hyatt points, especially compared to the Park Hyatt across the road (which I also rate and revisited this year, review here). This was a points stay. My older review of Thompson New York Central Park is here. The website is here.

Whilst I won’t go into them in detail again, I also liked and would return to, but didn’t fully love:

• Jumeirah Muscat Bay, Oman (review here)

• Alila Jabal Akhdar, Oman (review here) – image above, part of Hyatt

• Marriott Newport (in Rhode Island, not Wales, review here)

These were all cash stays.

I should also flag my review of InterContinental Boston which I also liked and The Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, a real blast from the past with superb service.

Disappointment of the Year:

Because we are very picky about places we agree to review for HfP given the staff time and expenses involved (and obviously I’m even pickier about places where I’m spending my own money), I didn’t have any total disasters this year.

My most critical review was of Kimpton Aysla Mallorca (IHG). This is not a bad hotel, I want to be clear. It looks lovely, the staff are great and the food is decent. It’s just in the wrong place. It has ‘too small’ rooms (given you are likely to be there for a week), the overall hotel plot is too small and it has too few facilities. You can walk across the site in under a minute. Reader feedback is that many rooms are actually worse than the one I had, overlooking the road going past the site.

My Kimpton Mallorca review is here. The website is here. This was a cash stay.

Unsung Hotel Elite Status of the Year:

Over the years a lot of HfP readers have sung the praises of Global Hotel Alliance for its generous upgrades. Status is laughably easy to earn – you get top tier Titanium by staying in three different GHA brands in a year. Unfortunately you no longer get free Platinum status with a subscription to Business Traveller magazine.

I was given Titanium status at a GHA media event and used it twice during the year with good success:

• at the Kempinski Palace Portoroz in Slovenia, we got a lovely suite. This is a fascinating hotel – a 19th century spa hotel, converted and extended into a luxury hotel with a beach club, in a coastal town which isn’t massively attractive otherwise. The reason to stay here is that it is a very short bus or taxi ride, or even walk, to the Dubrovnik-style historical city of Piran – image above – which doesn’t have any large hotels of its own. (We did a three stage Venice – Trieste – Portoroz holiday, flying in and out of Venice. You can get the train from Venice to Trieste but it’s a taxi or bus to get into Slovenia.) The hotel website is here.

• for World Aviation Festival in Lisbon, I stayed at the Corinthia. Whilst nothing like the astonishing Corinthia in London, it was convenient for the trains to the convention centre and I got a high floor junior suite with great views over Lisbon. A 4pm check-out was granted without issue. The hotel is also walkable to the Gulbenkian museum, which is a trip through global art history – from roman remains to impressionist painting – from a single owner collection. If you want a leisure hotel near the action then choose something like IHG’s Convent Square Hotel (review, website) where Rhys stayed, but for a business trip the Corinthia is a decent choice. This was a cash stay. The hotel website is here.

I didn’t review either of these hotels but am happy to answer any questions in the comments. We did an overview of Global Hotel Alliance and its loyalty scheme here.

Employee of the Year:

The award goes to Luquesha who runs the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at New York JFK. The woman is a force of nature. Shai Weiss, the Virgin Atlantic CEO, even dedicated an Instagram post to her earlier this year.

She stopped by my table because she recognised me from a panel discussion (not even a full speech) I had done at a conference for senior Virgin Atlantic employees five years ago. We then had a long chat about what was happening with the airline – she is very switched on – and people we knew in common.

Luquesha knows everyone and everything and is the best example of what Virgin Atlantic likes to claim about the qualities of its staff.

…. and that’s it for 2023. With GCSEs looming for my eldest we may be more grounded than usual for the first half of next year. February half term in Reykjavik is booked but may be cancelled, and of course volcanos don’t help! Let’s see.