My Very Favorite Hotel Is in New Orleans

Le Pavillon was the best hotel I've ever stayed at.

Sure, it was comfortable and the staff was friendly. But what really won me over were the free peanut butter sandwiches served in the lobby each evening.

Like all of the nice hotels I've ever stayed at, this one came courtesy of Priceline. For $65 a night, we were just a few blocks from Bourbon Street and the edge of the French Quarter. I could tell the hotel was faaaaan-cy when we walked into our room and found a ceiling fan and eight pillows on each of the double beds. Who could ever be content with just two pillows per bed? The thought!

Then I went in the bathroom and found this:

Yep, a drawn bath menu. Nope, I didn't partake. The cheapest bath, at $25, came with peanut butter sandwiches. The most expensive, at $80, came with champagne, chocolate-dipped strawberries and rose petals. The most interesting bath, however, was $50:

But as I said, the peanut butter sandwiches were the highlight. Every evening, from 10 to 11 p.m., a table in the lobby was set with a platter of white, wheat and raisin breads, along with bowls of creamy and crunchy peanut butter and a variety of jams. There was even hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream.

Needless to say, I had evening snacks of peanut butter sandwiches on both Saturday and Sunday nights before heading out again for the evening.Who needs a continental breakfast? Give me some PB&J any night.

Overnight in Manhattan

Maybe I was looking forward to it more than I should have, but I hadn't stayed overnight in Manhattan since our honeymoon.

But Thursday, for one night only, I had the chance. Paul had a full day of work meetings and meals in the city, and his company was putting him up in midtown's Intercontinental Barclay Hotel for the night. I couldn't let that go to waste.

Paul was planning to be with his out-of-town work friends until the wee hours (a prediction that turned out to be true) so I was on my own for the night. My goal: do as many things as possible in one night that he would've hated.

First stop: Bloomingdale's. I wasn't in the market for anything, but it is a New York landmark (that I also hadn't visited since our honeymoon). Then the big H&M store on Fifth Avenue. Then a shortcut through Rockefeller Center to Times Square, where I climbed the big, red neon steps above the TKTS booth.


As I made my way back to the hotel's neighborhood, I inadvertently walked through the dark-and-dreary diamond district and finally found the cupcake shop I had picked out for dessert. A quick stop for a pumpernickel bagel with strawberry cream cheese and I was off to the hotel.

The room exceeded my expectation. New York hotel rooms have a well-deserved reputations for being expensive and tiny. This room was actually normal sized! And the bed was as big and comfortable as any I'd every slept on-- just as wide as it was long.

The best part? The next morning my commute to work was cut in half to about 25 minutes, and I walked through Grand Central for only the second time in my life. That I could get used to.