Seattle Hotel Room Reviews are now Live!

You can now find your perfect room in Seattle. TripKick.com has profiled 28 hotels encompassing a great representation of what the city has to offer!

Here are the Top 5 TripKick Picks for Seattle

Best Boutique - Alexis Hotel

Best Business / Convention - Grand Hyatt Seattle

Best Hip & Trendy - W Seattle

Best Romantic Getaway - Hotel Max

Best Quiet & Serene - PanPacific Seattle

TripKick Seattle Recommendations:

Restaurants

Matt’s In The Market

Purple Cafe

Barolo Ristorante

Seattle Attractions

Pike’s Place Market

Future of Flight Aviation Center & Boeing Plant Tour

The Seattle Center (Space Needle & Experience Music Project)

Seattle Underground Tour

TripKick Top 10 Most Refreshing Hotels

1) Mandalay Bay & The Hotel Resorts (Las Vegas) – Best combination of pools that suit all travelers who want to get wet and wild. This resort offers so much in terms of pool amenities we have to turn to bullet points!

- Giant Wave Pool and Lazy River – great for families

- Adult Topless Pool – don’t have to tell explain who this is for!

- Additional Two Regular Pools – West and East Lagoons for sunbathing and swimming

- Gambling overlooking Pools in newer Beachside Casino

Insider Tip: The Four Seasons at Mandalay Bay also has a separate pool which is definitely the least visited and quietest pool on the strip. Visitors to this pool must be staying at the Four Seasons at Mandalay Bay and not the regular hotel.

2) Regent Bal Harbour (Miami) – Surrounded on two sides by water, an expansive beach is just steps away to the ocean, and the harbor jetty on the North side allows for ultimate privacy. Both pool and adjoining beach are fully serviced with hotel staff.

Insider Tip: The pool is brand spankin’ new, opened in March 2008…so you’ll be the first summer vacationers to take a dip!

3) The Surf and Sand Resort (Orange County, CA) – The hotel literally sits right on top of the beach. There aren’t many other hotels we’ve covered that get your tired toes closer to a beach’s squishy sand than this. The pool and ocean are yards away.

Insider Tip: Stay in the main tower for quick-and-easy access to the pool and beach.

4) Loews Miami Beach Hotel (Miami) – Great for kids and families. The hotel services both the pool area and beach, but the best part is its proximity to famous shops and restaurants. Mom can shop, the kids can swim, and Dad can relax.

Insider Tip: The hotel offers a “SoBe Kids Camp” offered throughout the year with water games and dive-in movies…yes it’s for kids.

5) Four Seasons Hotel (Miami) – The pool’s elevated tropical oasis is perfect for relaxation. Located on the 7^th floor in downtown Miami, it’s a great alternate to the hustle and bustle of South Beach.

Insider Tip: If extra hot hang out in the separate wading pool immersed with plants, palms, and pondlike nooks.

6) Hotel del Coronado (San Diego) – This famous Victorian-style resort could not be forgotten from this TripKick Top 10. The combination of expansive beachfront property and old-world feel make this a unique offering in beachside hotels.

Insider Tip: Request a room in the Cabana or Ocean Towers for the best views and beach access.

7) Hard Rock Hotel (Las Vegas) – Calling all hip twenty-something’s! This hotel pioneered the pool party scene that is now sweeping through Las Vegas. Still one of the most popular pool parties in Las Vegas, Rehab Sundays includes skimpily dressed women and muscle men galore.

Inside Tip: Submerse yourself and never miss a beat, as speakers underwater allow you to hear the poolside music. Stay in an even-numbered room so you’ll never miss the pool action.

8 Hyatt Mission Bay (San Diego) – Certain rooms have direct access to the pool via the room. The hotel displays multiple pools and waterslides. They also supply jet skis and kayaks for bay activities. The best part - a water taxi will take you directly to Sea World across the bay.

Insider Tip: This resort just went through a $65 million renovation, and it truly shows! Bay Towers 1 & 2 odd-numbered rooms have patios with direct pool access.

9) Hotel Casa del Mar (Los Angeles) – Despite being located near the busy Pacific Coast Highway, your stay will still feel peaceful and relaxing with a 5^th floor pool overlooking the ocean…just don’t get stressed out trying to decide which one to take a swim in first!

Insider Tip: Have a “beach concierge” that will attend to guests’ specific pool and beach needs, anything from setting up chairs for lunch on the beach, requesting bike rentals, and finding rafts, surf boards, and boogie boards to ride the waves.

10) The London West Hollywood (Los Angeles) – No oceans next to this hotel, but who needs an ocean when you have a 10^th floor rooftop pool overlooking views of Hollywood. The hotel is located on a hill so it feels a lot higher than 10 floors up…oh how the city sparkles at night!

Insider Tip: Pool just opened June 2008; it’s completely new.

Test Your Seattle Knowledge:

Useless Knowledge that may come in handy.

(Highlight the Answers and they will be revealed)

1. Seattle has a population of nearly 600,000 residents making it the __ largest city in the nation.

A) 8th

B) 12th

C) 14th

D) 24th

Answer: D

2. Besides Starbucks…Seattle residents have had their hands in pioneering other brands that are big biz today. In 1907, 19-year-old Seattle resident James E. Casey borrowed $100 from a friend and founded the American Messenger Company which is now called ____?

A) USPS

B) UPS

C) Fed Ex

D) DHL

Answer: B

3. And staying on topic – which of the following four companies was not founded in Seattle?

A) Microsoft

B) Barnes & Noble

C) Boeing

D) Nordstrom

Answer: B

4. Built in 1962, the Space Needle was originally constructed ____?

A) to promote strong diplomatic relations between Canada & United States.

B) for a Seattle-hosted World Fair.

C) as an epitomized example of “modern” forms of earthquake proof buildings.

D) with a push from Seattle’s City Council as an effort to drive innovation, creativity, art, and architecture in the city.

Answer: B

5. Which Seattle Professional Sports Team(s) have won a National Championship?

A) Seattle Seahawks – Football

B) Seattle Mariners – Baseball

C) Seattle Supersonic – Men’s Basketball

D) Seattle Storm – Women’s Basketball

Answer: C (NBA Championship 1979); D (WNBA Championship 2004); Interesting: Seattle Metropolitans were the first American team to win the Stanley Cup in 1917

6. True or False: New York City, Philadelphia, Houston, Washington DC each receive more rainfall annually than Seattle.

A) True

B) False

Answer: A

TripKick wants to hear from you!

As Lovers of Travel we would love to hear your Travel Stories. We are starting a Feature on the TripKick Blog highlighting visitors’ latest Adventures. Whether it be an amazing hotel stay, a travel tip, or just a great trip we want to hear from you. E-mail your submission with pictures, stories, and extras to Travel@TripKick.com

We are so excited! Today TIME.com listed TripKick as one of the Best Websites of 2008.

TripKick -50 Best Websites 2008 - TIME.com

This is a great designation for us and we are so thankful to TIME for noticing us. Please be sure to Vote for TripKick, TIME lists the 50 websites but lets readers rate them. So please Vote Early and Vote Often!

Seattle is a wonderful destination, and we’re proud to soon be featuring over 30 hotels throughout the “Emerald City!” We had the great pleasure of staying at the W Seattle, located in the heart of downtown. If you’ve never stayed at a W property, you’re simply missing out. The W Seattle strikes the right balance of cool, sophisticated and comfortable, and we couldn’t have been happier with our stay. Our rooms offered stunning views of the Seattle skyline and Seattle Space Needles… simply spectacular.

We decided to include several major Downtown Seattle hotels, as well as hotels throughout the greater Seattle area including Bellevue and Kirkland, Washington. Whether you’ll be staying downtown, visiting the University of Washington, or in the outer lying areas such as Bellevue, we covered it!

Seattle will be our 11th destination, so you can say that we’ve seen our fair share of hotels and resorts across the county. We were impressed with the selection of hotels that Seattle has to offer. Just to mention a few newcomers that we covered, the Pan Pacific Seattle, the Heathman Kirkland, the Hotel Max Seattle and the Hotel 1000 were all noteworthy selections. We were particularly impressed by Hotel 1000’s indoor “Virtual Golf Course”, how neat is that? Golfers can use their own clubs and play on a variety of PGA virtual courses throughout the country.

We also had the pleasure of staying at the Westin Bellevue, located in the quaint and impressively clean town of Bellevue Washington. The Westin was upscale, hip and incredibly convenient to most everything in Downtown Bellevue. We particularly enjoyed the “Grand Deluxe” category rooms, which offers generously sized rooms with impressive bathrooms (separate showers and whirlpool bathtubs, a must!) These Grand Deluxe Rooms are only on select floors, but are well worth the upgrade.

Well, we should be launching Seattle very shortly, so stay tuned!

TripKick is heading to Seattle. We look forward to profiling another great selection of hotels and bringing you all a great list of rooms to request.

We’re happy to see so many people post their own room experiences. We love to hear what other travelers enjoyed, and I hope you all keep it coming.

Sign Up now for the TripKick Newsletter, the first will be coming very soon. We’ll be asking for your feedback. We want to know which hotels you prefer and what you look for when selecting a room.

Thanks to our visitors, and a host of wonderful articles, blogs and features- we’re off to a great start! We would especially like to extend our thanks to TechCrunch.com, as they posted a fantastic feature on our site, offering many of you the opportunity to check us out! (before you check in!)

So we want to hear from our new visitors… particularly about some of our upcoming destinations. Daniel and I have already begun visting new cities, but we want to hear which ones you want to see first! Here is what’s next on our list: Phoenix/Scottsdale, Seattle, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis, Orlando, Philadelphia and quite a few more. Which ones would you like to see first? Are there other destinations you’d rather see? Are there any hotels that you consider “Must Haves” in these destinations?

We look forward to reading your own reviews, and seeing your own candid photos. Be sure to let us know if there is a hotel you don’t see on our list…!

Some other noteworthy press:

http://www.wbaltv.com/video/16261944/index.html

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/13/picky-traveler-tripkick-rates-individual-hotel-rooms/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24577163/

http://www.viddler.com/explore/molzy/videos/95/

Your TripKick Pals,

Bryant & Daniel

We want to be the first to introduce you to TripKick.com…! We can’t tell you how excited we are to be a part of such a big launch, and more importantly, provide our visitors with information that’s never been seen before in the travel industry on this scale.

The Blog is one our favorite spots on TripKick, as it gives us the opportunity to hear from our readers, visitors and travelers. We want TripKick to be interactive, and involve travelers in this unique medium, allowing YOU to share experiences, photos and thoughts.

Danny and I have spent the past year traveling the US in search of the best content for our site. We have visited over 250 hotels and resorts in destinations… and have seen well over 1,000 rooms! As unbelievable as it may seem, we finally did it. As we continue to launch new destinations and hotels, our commitment is to keep you posted on our travels and experiences along the way. Similarly, we look forward to hearing your own experiences!

Keep your eyes open for new posts about hotel additions, new destinations, humor and just plain old fun. Thanks for checking us out.

Your TripKick Pals,

Bryant & Daniel