Hotel Review: Summerfield Suites, Denver Tech Center, Colorado

A delayed start to our Christmas trip due to London Heathrow's inability to cope with snow, but luckily the Summerfield Suites were flexible and let us change our dates.

One of the attractions of the place was the full-sized kitchen - we were able to cook a Christmas dinner in our room, which was great.

The Tech Center is pretty well-placed for Denver trips - fifteen minutes at most from the heart of Denver, a couple of minutes from Park Meadows and all that's on offer there.

The Suites has a small shop, views across to the mountains (ask for one, it's worth having), friendly staff and a guest laundry.

There's a hottub and pool, which people were still braving despite the freezing temperatures outside; breakfast is pretty good for a comp - wide range of hot and cold items; there's a sundowner evening meal some nights which is fine if you're a meat-eater.

The only downside is that the doors are little over-emphatic in their closing - we managed to get a passive-aggressive note from the elderly couple next door after our door slammed behind me while I was carrying two cups of coffee and a tray of eggs going in. Avoid this hotel if you're unable to cope with the odd piece of noise.

The sofas are big, and comfy - designed to be relaxed on rather than just a holding bay until you give up and go to bed like in some suites.

In short: loved this hotel, and will definitely use it again in future.

Hotel Review: Homewood Suites, Denver Tech Center

Duck-themed delights from the off with this hotel - a gorgeous welcome pack, including a personalised note with the expected weather for the week and some water and biscuits.

There was an ominous note as the hotel was sprinkled with warnings about thefts from the car parks of hotels in the area (something, oddly, we've not seen at other hotels in the area).

The food looked and smelled great - didn't eat much in the hotel as the delights of Denver were calling.

The tech centre is well-placed, up to a point - you're quickly on i25 and just moments away from E470 (so the airport is a breeze, if you're happy to pay for the road), and you have Park Meadows on your doorstep. If your doings are more deeply in Denver proper, it's you call if you want to pay more to stay closer into the city or add a fifteen minute trip to get to Downtown.

[Originally written for TripAdvisor]

Stay out of the green and into the black if you know what you're doing when you go pack

I'd been meaning to write something about the US preflight screening 'lanes' that are being piloted at some airports - you're invited to join a black, orange or green lane depending on your experience and confidence at having your hand baggage x-rayed, the size of your group and so on. The black lane is for those of us who have our shoes off and laptops out as soon as we've been given our boarding pass - and it's as much about not having less-experienced travellers intimidated by business people getting impatient as they move through more slowly.

As it happens, I've just posted a comment to the TSA blog which sums up my experience, so I'll just recycle, if I may:

Just got back from the US, where I traveled through Salt Lake and Denver, and am a big fan of the new system - the thing that really surprised me was that people were surprisingly self-aware in choosing lanes; prior to the trip I'd assumed that the black lane would attract people who were over-confident about their familiarity with the system, but that wasn't really the case. Indeed, I'd suggest that there are people who could take the black route who aren't - that passengers tend to underestimate rather than overestimate their experience.

Overall, a very positive experience. Thank you!

Hotel review: Staybridge Suites, Cherry Creek, Denver

We came to the Staybridge a couple of days after the first of the two big snows that hit Denver at the turn of the year - a lot of services in the city had been having a difficult time of it in a town that had ground to a halt, but the Staybridge kept going without - as far as we could see - missing a beat.

The suite was basic but very comfortable and in excellent condition - clean, everything working, comfy bed; TVs in both rooms, lots of storage space. (Handy, as it was Christmas, and we ended up with a lot of stuff we hadn't started out with.)

The staff were friendly and very helpful - especially Andrew on the front desk who instantly added all guests to his extended family. The business centre is a little sparse, but the rooms all had wired internet for free so, really, you only needed to pop down to print out the odd document - assuming there were no children playing solitaire on the PCs.

There is a hotel library, but to be honest it seems to consist of little more than books that have been pre-enjoyed and abandoned by guests: abandoned, presumably, in shame. The BridgeMart will contain no surprises for anyone familiar with the 24/7 shopping option in this chain - great for snacks and pop; less useful for satisfying nutritional requirements.There is, however, a Target bang opposite, so if you do require potatoes, cheeses or Taco Bell, you've got that on your doorstep. (There's also two strip clubs on the block, too, although it's not really that sort of neighbourhood.)

The breakfasts are basic - mildly more elaborate than you'd get in a British Holiday Inn Express - but the Sundowners can be quite fun; each evening a themed meet-and-greet; the only slight downside being when there's a mix of free beer and younger guests in the room at the same time.

The free laundry (Boxes of Tide a dollar each) is a great touch when you're having a long stay; there is ample parking - and even with a full-ish hotel and much of the lot under snow and pack ice, there was never any problem parking.

The hotel opens out onto Cherry Creek, on one of its nicest stretches in the neighbourhood. Great for a brisk walk - you won't need to use the small gym inside...

Recommended Restaurant: Beau Jos

Counting down to the next trip to Denver, I'm looking at Beau Jo's Pizza place. They do Colorado Pizzas - the twist being that you get honey to dip the crusts into.

They do a lunch buffet, with a range of pies and salads to pick from, but looking through their website, I'm starting to wonder why I've never had their skillets. Listen to this:

We line the skillet with our signature roasted garlic cream sauce, and then toss in sweet roma tomatoes, artichoke hearts, sliced mushrooms, fire-roasted red peppers and fresh broccoli florets. This masterpiece is then crowned with a three-cheese blend of part-skim low-fat mozzarella, feta and smoked provolone.

The atmosphere is faux-mineshaft - kind of a Coloradian take on British pubs built in the 1980s but with beams and ingelnooks, I suppose - and the pricing is almost ridiculously cheap. A place to go when you're hungry.

They're down to just one branch in Denver, but they're scattered across Colorado.

Recommended restaurant: Annie's, Denver

Annies is, I think, the best place I've ever eaten breakfast. Indeed one of those places where breakfast shades into lunch without that creeping sense you sometimes get that the place is a breakfast bar that's staying open too late, or a lunch venue that's struggling to get going too early in the day.

It's tucked into the heart of the university, and there's a 7-11 across the carpark which allows you to grab a New York Times if you need to read while you eat; the menu is online to speak for itself.