The short version via pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/mpquinn/Asia2010
The narrative version:
4/7 – 4/8 Dallas to Singapore
4/9 – 4/10 Singapore
4/10 From the Ritz Carlton to the Seabourn Pride
4/11 – 4/12 At Sea
4/13 – 4/14 Laem Chabang
4/15-4/16 Ko Kood and at sea
4/17 – 4/19 Ho Chi Minh City (Siagon)
4/20 Da Nang
4/21 – 4/23 Halong Bay
4/24 Hong Kong
4/25 Homebound
Service Specific Comments on the Asia trip

Ritz Carlton Millenia Singapore

We were very happy with the Ritz overall and I think we made use of more of the hotel services than we normally do when we stay at a hotel.

My wife is really picky about her pillow, and her taste in pillows might actually be unique. She wants a pillow that is almost flat, but she doesn’t want to sleep without a pillow. She travels with a pillow, but the travel pillow we brought ended up not being good enough. We requested a slim pillow and the butler arrived with a thick foam pillow. After explaining what we wanted to him directly, he came back with a child’s down pillow (I assume), which worked great. Odd request satisfied.

We ate in the restaurant 3 times, and although they have an interesting idea of what an omelet is, the food was very good. Considering the humidity in Singapore, I was impressed with the pastries on the buffet. There was a problem with the service in the dining room between regular lunch and dinner. We were eating lunch around 3pm as were two gentlemen from Australia, and for about 15 minutes service completely stopped while all the service staff were at the back of the restaurant having a meeting. Eventually one of the Australians got up and fetched someone to close his bill because he could catch anyone’s, other then me, attention. Service at breakfast depended on seating location. Sitting in a high traffic area meant a full cup of coffee always, while sitting on the outskirts of the room might be a repeatedly empty cup. Overall the food was good and the service was hit or miss.

We also ordered room service, which can be a challenge with gluten free restrictions. I placed an order with a fair number of changes from what the room service menu specified, and everything came up as ordered without error.

I do not think the staff at the Ritz Singapore quite get service. They are trying really hard to provide good service, but they lack the leadership and experienced staff to set the example of what that is. I was never worried that I wasn’t going to get what I wanted, but it seemed like almost every staff interaction, the staff fumbled around trying to provide the service. Nothing was simple and effortless when dealing with the doormen, reception or the random staff in the halls.

Two simple examples. First, when walking down through the lobby, there are six staff members and three ask about my day, in series, about 10 feet apart from each other, as I walked by. I laughed at the third as I had just repeated myself once. Second, I was going to get on the elevator and one of the staff gets in my way trying to hold the elevator door for me (actually happened a couple of times). I don’t remember the details of the check in, but I do remember that I wondered if we were ever going to get to go to sleep.

One example really frustrated me. Brook was suffering from exhaustion having gotten little sleep since starting the trip. So the goal was to get her from the Ritz to the ship (aka bed to bed) ASAP. I went downstairs and checked out, but I needed to keep my keys so I asked if I should leave the keys in the room or bring them back to the desk. This actually took a while to explain, but I wasn’t offered a standard procedure, which surprised me. She wanted me to drop the keys off at the desk, no problem. I went upstairs, gathered up Brook, and the plan was that she would drop off the keys while I got a cab to the cruise center. As I got off the elevator with Brook, we were intercepted by a doorman, who was happy to take our bags but once I told him we wanted to go to the cruise center at the harbor front, he completely stopped. He double checked about 5 times what I told him and I finally gave up and told Brook to go with him and get a taxi I would drop off the keys. I go to drop off the keys, explain to the girl that I have already checked out and was told to drop off the keys, she is baffled. The girl who processed my check out originally frees up and takes my keys, so the problem was solved.

All minor things that were comically except for the checkout experience.

This is an awful lot of detail about some very minor issues and we would happy stay at the Ritz Singapore again.

InterContinental Hong Kong

I was impressed with everything about this hotel. If I have a complaint it is that I didn’t stay another day. The service was flawless, smoother than Seabourn even. The room was very nice and surprising large considering we were in Hong Kong. The view was very impressive. Not that we had time to take advantage of it, but the location looks great for shopping as well as easy access to the ferry for heading into central. We very much want to return to Hong Kong and stay here.

Seabourn

Seabourn was a joy. We have taken 1 Royal Caribbean and 4 Princess cruises, all 7 days and usually about day 5 I am bored and ready to go back to work. For some reason I was never bored on the Pride, and I really didn’t DO anything.

We definitely made use of the dining services and ate in the dining room for every meal we could. Dining with Brook is usually a chore because of the need to research the restaurant before hand and go over the menu with a waiter who may or may not care once we get to the restaurant, and then hope for the best that flour doesn’t accidentally get dumped in an otherwise gluten free dish. Brook NEVER got sick the entire trip. I am amazed and you have no idea how hard it to go 2 weeks cooking at home without some form of cross contamination happening. Early in the cruise, we asked for table 38 because we liked Imre (waiter), who would just stop by and go over the entire menu telling Brook what she could have off the menu, what needed to be modified and how it could be modified, and what there really was no hope for. The kitchen had gluten free bread for Brook which Damir (assistant) thought to have lightly toasted for serving with dinner. I am a bit of a foodie and there were a few dishes that I was so impressed I couldn’t believe I ate it, let alone on a ship. There was a potato crisp served with the first lunch where I am still shocked that a potato crisp had that much flavor in it. Brook’s favorite dessert of all time was a half dozen fruit sorbets at Alan Wong’s in Honolulu, and that is the dessert that she judges all desserts against. The mango sorbet (she tried most of the sorbets on the ship) was deemed Alan worthy and was the only dessert she ordered more than once.

The staff was overall impressive. It is obvious that a lot of the staff are new, but the redundancy in how the dining room is managed means that the worst the passenger experiences is pepper being cracked from the wrong side of the plate. Watching the interplay of the staff in the dining room was very interesting.

I was frequently asked about how I like being the youngest on the cruise and I did point out that there was an 18mo on the cruise. The biggest difference between us and the other couples on the ship is that we are not at a point in our lives where taking two weeks to cruise in Asia is easy. I am sure the average age on the 7 day cruises are much lower than the 14+ day cruises for this reason. Being the youngest cruiser actually was not very noticeable to me.

As for the facilities on the ship, everything was quite adequate. The suite was an impressive use of space, there was plenty of storage and the shower was good sized. The gym only seemed to be crowded in the morning and then was empty for the rest of the day and had enough equipment to keep me entertained for an hour or two the days were doing something in port.

The one negative was the wireless access to the internet. The wireless did not work in the staterooms the entire trip. The computer guy came down to my stateroom to try to get my laptop to work the first day at sea and could not even after trying his own wireless card. He said he would give me a call and let me know what he figured out, but I got no call. Later, someone told me that the wireless wasn’t working anywhere but in the business center, and when I took my laptop to the business center, it connected fine. I left the computer guy another message with reception about the problem. No response and I was never able to connect to the wireless from the stateroom the rest of the cruise, but if I took my laptop down to the business center, it would work fine. The other problem was that it always seemed like two of the four computers in the business center weren’t working.

We have no idea about the nightlife on the Pride. We were always up for early breakfast, but never caught a show or had after dinner drinks. I don’t feel like we missed anything.

Easily the best place we ate during the trip. Everything was good from the coffee to the breakfast sandwhiches. It is pretty hidden away in Santa Barbara, and I am glad I found it during my quick search.

I would go into what I ate, but there were four of us, and between us we ordered maybe 12 things off the menu, between drinks and breakfast plates and sides, and every single item was good. I believe the owner was working the counter, and she was friendly, brought us our food on outside where we had pulled two small tables together, checked on us several times and cleaned up dishes as we finished. It was amazing service for a place where you order at the counter.

If you enjoy a tasty breakfast, this is the place to go. Not much of a view being that is is on a small back street about 2 blocks off of state, but the food was impressive. Next door is a Crush cupcakes, but traveling with the gluten free girls means I have to keep my sweet tooth in check.

Crush Cafe’s menu

After discussing this goal online in a Masters swimming forum, I need to make a few changes to accomplish my goal. I need to swim a couple more times a week, and my focus needs to be training to actually achieve my goal. It will be really interesting (to me at least), if I can go faster than I did in high school.

That is it. Just stating it publicly, so I can be humiliated if I die before accomplishing it. If it is going to happen this year, it will have at the end of March, which is the end of the short course yards season. I think it is more likely that it will happen next year, but the closer I can come in March, the easier it will be to achieve next year.

This article has some solid ideas when you think about them in an investing light. I don’t agree that the internet is the driving force for many of these changes, but I agree that most of the items listed are going to happen.

One of the major items on the list that I don’t really agree with is that Yahoo is going away. I totally agree that Yahoo is a poorly run company that someone with the right vision needs to restructure the company. And by restructure, I mean 90% of Yahoo probably needs to go. Yahoo is an idea cadidate for someone to take private and turn the company into a cash cow. If someone can swoop in at the bottom of the recession, pick up the company for a song, take it private and know WTF they are doing, Yahoo will make someone who is already really rich, much richer. Yahoo will also become a much much smaller company focused on its revenue generating strengths.

After this latest debacle in the finance industry, I am a firm believer that most companies should be held privately. When the upper management are actually partners who have a vested interest in the future profitability of the company, and are making decisions for the long haul, instead of maximizing value targeted at their option maturity date, we are going to see better run companies. Take a look at Goldman Sachs the private company versus the public company.

Back to the 10 things you won’t see after the recession. I believe none of them are actually happening because of the internet and every one is actually happening because our over consumption lifestyles no longer have the funds to continue. What the internet allows is for the diversity that we have come to enjoy in retail to continue to exist with a much lower overhead. For the products that can be sold well online, this diversity will move online, but for the products that don’t, that diversity will disappear.

The interview is about value investing and the economic meltdown, not about retail, but that one side comment really caught me. We really do have too much retail in the US.

Lets start with cars. Off the top of my head, Jeep, Eagle, Saturn and Hummer have all been introduced as American brands and Infiniti, Lexus and Acura have all been introduced in the last couple decades. The only brand that actually died that I can think of is Eagle.

During that same time, the US population, and I am assuming the buying public, only increased about 20%.

This is rather tangential logic, but think of all the stores that exist now that didn’t exist 20 years ago. Not only is there a larger variety, the concentration of stores is greater. Twenty years ago you didn’t have Lowes across the street from every Home Depot, outlet malls were in the middle of no where, and the outlet stores only carried defective product and end runs.

Some growth in variety and quantity was justified by population growth, but it looks like the majority of it was our love of the credit card. If the economy contracts to a sane level, we will probably loose a lot of the variety that we have become used to. Instead of Mr. Gatti’s, Pizza Inn, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s and the local guy all offering 30 minute pizzas, we might have to deal with just two.

We have already lost most CompUSA, Oshman’s and Albertson’s to poor management and poor market demand as well as several hundred Starbuck’s to over expansion. I expect we will see more of this contraction, where companies cull the weak performers to build stronger, but much smaller companies. Expansion is no longer king.

Sadly, I have not figured out how to take advantage of this epiphany financially. I certainly don’t want to own a strip center in a low traffic area.

First, we have considered moving to Austin one day, and I have never spent more then two days there. I am interested in moving downtown, and wanted to experience what it was like. I have already lived 3 months in downtown SF, and Brook has spent a week with me while I was living there, plus a couple trips back. Since the cost of living is so much lower in Austin then in SF, it is much more likely if we ever decide we want to live downtown.

Second, airlines suck. And I mean this in the nicest way, but I fucking hate airlines and airport bullshit.

Now the economics worked out that the Austin trip cost about a fifth of what the SF trip was going to cost, and we were not planning on staying at the Ritz in SF, but this really wasn’t much of a factor. We started planning the trips this summer, before the economic melt down and everyone started counting their pennies. I was counting my pennies long before the meltdown and I always cringe when I look at the vacation budget, but it always seems to be money well spent.

Since I have complained about the Four Seasons previously, the real sticking point is their price. They are the most expensive 4 star hotel downtown by at least 33% and as much as 100%. I would have to get out the calculator, compare actually dollar differences to the value that FS provided and see if it was worth it. We really liked the view, that it might have been worth a couple hundred dollars, which still surprises me to think that I would pay that much for a view for 3 days.

Overall, it doesn’t seem like we did much on our trip. We didn’t. We just had fun hanging out with eat other. It is so easy to have fun when there exist no timelines and no stress that is associated with real life. It was a great vacation.

• Hut’s Hamburgers: As the name implies, it is a burger joint. And the burgers are good. I ordered a side of onion rings I could have done with out. They weren’t bad, just not what I expected. A half order of onion rings are only 4 onion rings, and you can order a quarter order. Each onion ring is about 4 inches thick, heavily breaded with cornmeal and pepper, and fried to the point that the onion just starts to lose its crisp, but is still 90% crisp. The onion rings end up not being sweet, the onion just being mild with most of the flavor coming from the corn meal and pepper. If you want Sonic onion rings, order the fries, I wish I had. Like I said, not bad, but not what I was looking for. The burger was great and nothing fancy. Meat, toppings on a bun probably baked my Mrs. Baird 3 days ago. Typical hole in the wall burger joint. They do take credit card, which surprised me.
• Magnolia Cafe: Now this is a diner. We walk in a wait, most of the tables are empty. Guys wipes down a table and says, “You can sit here.” Comes by with menus, “can I get you something to drink?”. Brook orders coffee, and I order espresso. “We got coffee.” I order coffee, and it wasn’t bad. My plate has so much grease on it that my omelet slides across the plate while the plate slides across the table every time I go to cut it. My wifes omelet had so much ham in it was shaped more like a baguette then an omelet. Again, I was surprised when they took credit cards.
• TRIO: This is where we ate for lunch so we could make use of our free wine card, and neither of us were very hungry after being stuffed like turkeys at Magnolia. I have already mentioned that I was confused by the service and the food was decent in a previous post. This was our most expensive meal the entire trip, we only order a main course and drinks were free. And really, that is saying more about the high class dining establishments that my wife wanted to go to rather then how expensive TRIO was. TRIO would be very expensive if you were drinking with a 3 course dinner.
• Guero’s: I think we went to Guero’s more to take in South Congress then to eat at Guero’s, but their food was good. And I am well versed in the ways of Tex-Mex. I would pass on the margaritas unless you like the original recipe of lime juice, tequila and very little triple sec over ice. I wish I had ordered a Pacifico, but if you are into margarita recipes that are a little more Mex then Tex, give one a shot. We both had the some kind of tacos, meat for me and fish for the wife. Both were good. It is a taco bar, so order the tacos.
• Chuy’s Hula Hut: Seriously, WTF is this place? Polynesian Tex-Mex? You know what kept me from making fun of my wife for picking this place? I just took her to a Tex-Asian place in Dallas, and we liked it. Smartly, I kept my mouth shut. Chuy’s, the normal Tex-Mex place, has some of the best pico I have ever had. Hula Hut, which is a Chuy’s spin off, has a Polynesian pico that they serve with the chips that is also great. Other than eating two bowls of Hula Hut’s pico, I had chicken+steak fijitas. What made their fajitas stand out was they served plenty of sides. I had enough cheese, sour cream, guac and onions to pair with all the meat they brought out. This is somewhat of a rarity. The meat itself was good, again it had a polynesian twist that worked well.
• Trudy’s: Yes, more Tex-Mex! Brook was finally tired of Tex-Mex after, but not before, 3 meals in a row. Trudy’s was good, and it has a few things that are WTF on the menu. First, they are famous for their mexican martinis. This is simply a full shaker of margaritas on the rocks, where you get a little tiny fucking martini glass and the shaker with the strainer. After the first glass, I ditched the glass and drank from the shaker. High class I know, but I was keeping Austin strange. Now their ratio of tequila to tripe sec to lime is closer to my fav 3:2:1. They were good, but don’t make the mistake that I made. When they ask you if you have a tequila preference, the answer is YES, even if you don’t know what it is. What a freaking head ache the next day for what? I wasn’t even buzzed when I left Trudy’s. Ok, enough about alcohol. The food was good, whlie mostly Tex-Mex, they had some BBQ thrown into the mix. Whatever I ordered was a cheese enchilada with chili con carne, fijatas and a jalapeno sausage with a side of bbq sauce. The sausage, which was like a kielbasa, was great with the bbq sauce.

All in all, good meals. Stubb’s was supposed to be in there so there wasn’t so much Tex-Mex, but Brook wanted to hit all three places, and we could only eat so many times.

1. We stayed downtown, but never did anything downtown
2. We went to experience “Austin” but stayed in a Four Seasons
3. We had a ton of fun at the swim meet, but only went one night. It was going on half the time we were there.
4. Everything except the hotel still cost less then one night at the hotel.
5. We are really are jealous of the Longhorn Aquatics Masters team, but didn’t swim as guests at any of their practices. (there were 8 different practices while we were there)

Now, we had a blast in Austin, but looking back at the trip, I wonder at the aspects above.

I am lazy at heart, and there was nothing that I wanted to do enough to drag my lazy ass out of the hotel to sixth street. If we would have stayed at the Driskill Hotel, which is on sixth street, or the Inter-Continental on 7th, I think we would have gone out at least to people watch. Instead we went to sleep as sixth street was probably getting entertaining.

The Four Seasons is a Luxury hotel removed from the surrounding hustle and bustle of the surrounding downtown. Wait, I wanted to experience downtown. Oops. It wasn’t a bad location, we were just lazy. And the Four Seasons bar looks like a mortgage brokers convention in the evening. This will surprise people who know me, but I didn’t fit in. The wine list was supposed to be excellent, and I didn’t even request to see it. Oh, and the bar/lounge area was packed, every night. There was nothing, hot, young or edgy in that crowd. My wife was actually surprised at how dressed up everyone was. Dear, welcome to the Four Seasons, where stuffy is the norm.

Our swim meet trip was planned to only be the last evening we were there, and too bad we didn’t plan it for the first evening, because it was great. Dave Walters broke Michael Phelps 200 yard free record, there were famous people (to us) down on deck and nerdy swim chat up in the stands.

I am going to post separately about the food, but there was no The French Room on the list of dining establishments. It just seems strange to spend so much money of a hoity toity hotel, and then only eat at dives while enjoying free entertainment. Strange, but not necessarily a horrible plan.

Fear explains why we didn’t swim with the Masters team in Austin. In Lewisville, I know everyone, everyone knows me, Brook is the fastest swimmer and I try to keep up with her, and there are only about a dozen people who ever show up, most of the time there are only 4. Austin has 3 practices a day with 40 people showing up at a given practice, with 200 people on the team overall. The team has 8 lanes broken up by speed, and I would probably be in the middle if not in one of the slow lanes. My ego can’t handle the truth, and I know it, so I ignore it.

And that concludes my silly adventures in Austin.

First, let me say that I, in Zagat, pulled up Four Seasons Austin and Hotel Adolphus in Dallas, which I meant to compare it too, to make sure it was considered a fair comparison. Zagat does not rank either hotel, so what the fuck is zagat worth. Nothing I guess, and I will figure out how to cancel my subscription as soon as I am done with this post.

Ok, back to the Four Seasons Austin. I have not stayed in any other Four Seasons hotel, and I have no other experience in any other hotel that I would consider in the same class as the Four Seasons as a guest. I have had dinner at the Adolphus Hotel, and I have stayed at The Inn at Union Square, a small boutique hotel in San Francisco 10 years ago, under different management than it is currently under.

The Four Seasons Austin pales in comparison.

I am in Austin, and while they like to pretend to be green and walk/bike friendly, everyone drives. There is no self park at the Four Seasons as you might imagine, so the valet service is the most used “amenity”. The Four Seasons is the ONLY fancy hotel in Austin, and thus, the place for business dinners and drinks. This kills the valet service.

My number one complaint about the Four Seasons is with the valet, so I will go into some detail.

When arriving at the Four Seasons, in most instances, we had to wait for valet. This was true every time we pulled into the valet except at 4pm the day we checked in, and that time they were just so busy that there were no free bell hops, so I elected to carry my own luggage. My preference would be to carry my own luggage actually, since I am not an old decrepit man, but never did I see that there were not bellhops already occupied. In summary, we usually spent 3 to 5 minutes to HAND OUR KEYS to someone. As a guest of a premiere hotel, this seems a little ridiculous. Also, let me point out, EVERY time we pulled up, “oh, will you be having breakfast/drinks with us today?”. My, very terse response, “The valet ticket is in the car”, and I had to repeat it twice EVERY time, quickly followed by “Oh… welcome back.”.

Thanks dickheads. There is a purpose to dividing the people who will be here for 2 hours from the people who will be over night. That division has to do with where to best put them in the parking garage for easy retrieval, it is not a shock and awe campaign having to do with your utter surprise that some who drove up in a Hyundai can afford your overpriced rooms.

I wrote the beginning of this post and then got called away from it and did not return to it until the next day. Since I started this post, I have learned something about the Four Seasons Austin.

I was under the assumption that the Four Seasons Austin was a five star hotel. What I have since learned is that most Four Seasons are five star hotels, but Four Seasons Austin is only a four star hotel. This would explain why I had a typical hotel experience. It does not explain why Four Seasons charges five star prices, and provides four star service.

With their proper classification in mind, I feel that the valet was fine. They gave me the same level of service that I have experienced with every other valet I have ever used. The typical Four Seasons level of service just doesn’t exist in Austin and I made a mistake expecting it.

To keep things short, I found most of the service at the hotel typical. I found a doorman and a waiter that exemplified what I would expect at a Four Seasons, but I also found one of each that I would classify as rude.

Did the Four Seasons completely suck? No. Most reviews of the Four Seasons Austin complain about the rooms being small and poorly equipped. I found the furnishings and decor to be quite nice, with the bed being in the top two hotel beds I have slept in. Of course, most reviews found the service to be outstanding, so I have to wonder if we were at the same hotel.

What was outstanding was the view from our room. We had a balcony room, and the view from the balcony was spectacular. The Four Seaons grounds are well kept, but beyond the grounds is Lady Bird Lake Park (previously Towne Lake Park). I have several photos that I took from the balcony of our room that I will post at some point. The Park is really why you would want to stay at the Four Seasons, since the position of the Four Seasons provides the best view of the park and lake, while minimizing the view of the surrounding buildings. Very scenic.

I will post more about our trip later.