Terranea Resort

Hotel Stay Details 
Hotel: Terranea Resort
Dates: May 15-18, 2013
Rate Paid: $285/night (by Company) 
Points Earned: 0

We were lucky enough to spend the past few nights at Terranea Resort about 40 minutes south of LA. After spending the past 11 days at Hyatt Place (which caters to more business travelers who just need a place to sleep), it was really nice to relax at a full-service hotel in a more populated Southern California. As you can tell from the photos, the property is a stunning hotel spread across 102 acres of land overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Location
Rancho Palos Verdes (which according to Google Translator is Spanish for "Rancho Palos Verdes") is about 17 miles south of LAX Airport, but takes about 35-40 minutes to drive down with all the traffic lights and windy roads as you get closer to Rancho Palos Verdes.


While the resort's location is a prime feature, it's also a little remote as well. If you have a rental car, it just takes 5 minutes to get to the Trader Joe's on the other side of the mountain, but my mother and I don't drive yet, so we were stuck in resort until my father came back from his meeetings.

It may appear you can walk from the hotel, but trust me, you don't want to walk along the highway like some illegal immigrant. So if you're in our situation, make sure to stock up on whatever you'll need (diapers, baby food, etc) before you get to the hotel.

Room
While the resort has several villas/casitas closer by the water, my parents and I stayed in a standard hotel room in the main building. We had a partial ocean view so it's hard to complain!

 

I decided that, since we didn't have too much space in our room, I would take the king sized bed instead of using a crib. My father initially wanted to call for a crib, but after snuggling with him and falling asleep on his shoulder, he conceded...quickly. Just 18 months old and I already know I have him wrapped around my little baby finger.

Amenities

The hotel had 2 outdoor swimming pools, one for everyone and one "adult pool." I hate being discriminated against, but I suppose it's better than getting dirty looks from the "sunbathers" who are there more to show off their bikini bodies than have fun in the water.

Terranea also had a spa and 9 hold golf course. Unfortunately, the spa treatments were about 3x more expensive than in New York (and 50x more expensive than Thailand). My mother decided she was better off saving her money for online shopping instead.

As for restaurants, there were 3 restaurants (American, Asian and Italian) and 1 sports bar. My mother decided that room service was a better option for us for most of the time, but the last night we were there, my father took us both to his work dinner at the "fancy" restaurant Mar'sel.

I was the only baby in the restaurant, but I was well behaved for most of the 2.5 hour dinner. However, I just lost it when everyone ordered dessert after I had already been waiting patiently in my stroller for over 2 hours. Take a note, Dad: skip dessert.

If I were older, I'm sure I could do more of the other fun family activities they had like kayaking, biking, horseback riding, paddle boarding, but my father said not til I was at least 20 months. Sucks.

Loyalty Points
Unfortunately, my father didn't earn many hotel loyalty points aside from putting the room on his Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card (2x on any travel spending).

However, since we weren't flying out until Sunday afternoon, he decided to check us out 1 day early on Saturday and switch us to the Sheraton Gateway LAX Airport Hotel so he could rack up another Starwood stay towards Platinum Status (34 nights down, 16 more to go) and earn some more SPG points during their Double Take promotion (where he gets double points for his stay plus 500 bonus points for booking using their iPhone mobile app).

Long California Weekend

Flight #52 – United 6498
Boise (BOI) – Los Angeles (LAX)
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Depart: 11:01AM / Arrive: 12:15PM
Duration: 2hr 14min
Aircraft: Canadian Regional Jet 200
Seat: 4D and 4F (Economy)
Earned: 674 miles
Lifetime Miles: 101,740 miles

Another week, another flight on a small regional jet. I don't actually mind flying in small planes (since I'm quite small myself), but it's annoying to have to sit for hours without any in flight entertainment system. Perhaps I'm a spoiled American, but I do enjoy my cartoons as I'm taxiing from the gate.

But given the lack of options, I decided to just sleep on my mother's lap as we made our way to Southern California. I'm not sure if my parents timed the flight to coincide with my nap time, but it sure seemed to work that way.

My father actually dislikes California. He finds it too... liberal? lazy? I'm not sure what the right word is (probably because I've been slacking on my Baby SAT Vocab flashcards), but he just really prefers the East Coast vibe and intensity.

But nevertheless, we're here through Sunday while he's working here, so we'll make the most of it. I can get some good fast food (In-N-Out and Chick-fil-A), and my father can get some elusive Vanilla Reload cards from CVS.

If only his credit cards stopped getting declined for Potential Fraud Alerts. I guess they find it hard to believe that we're always in a different state/country every other week. Either that or they think its odd that anyone spends $2,500 in a single day at drugstores.

Baby Peyton

This weekend, we stopped by Southern California (about 90 minutes east of LA) to spend time with my new friend Baby Peyton.

My father's friends Hannah and Ivan moved out from NY to California about 2 years ago. Since then, they've gotten married and had a baby. We haven't seen them for almost a year so we decided to spend a few days with them (and to get $20 All You Can Eat Korean BBQ) before heading back to NY to visit them.

Baby Peyton is only 8 months old but already outweighs me by a few pounds. She's a lot more calm than I am, but that's probably because she has nicer/friendlier parents (Canadian and Australian) than I do (Uzbek/Russian and East Coast American). But as you can see, what I like best about visiting her is that she has so many toys. (My stingy father doesn't think I need that many things to play with and prefers I just use my free imagination.)

But to be completely honest, I'm still not comfortable in any situation where I'm not the absolute center of attention, and I can get really difficult. However, I'm only 16 months old, so I'll hopefully grow out of that in the next few months (unlike some full grown adults I've met).

Apparently, I get extremely jealous when my father holds another baby. I also have an instinctive urge to pry away anything that's in the hands of the other baby. And don't even get me started on when my mother even whispers the word "dance," because my legs can't help themselves and will do anything to win back the crowd's attention.

I have noticed that my parents get extremely happy when I hug and kiss the other babies. Maybe I should just stick with that.