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Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel
Let us pull back the curtain and show you how you can maximize money you're already spending to earn enough credit card points and miles to travel with your family for nearly free.
We've used credit card points and miles to take our family of 5 on trips to places like Costa Rica, San Diego, Disneyland, Oceanside, NYC, Washington DC, Hawaii, and next year we have already booked Paris, Spain and Japan!
Using credit card points and miles (often called travel hacking) doesn't have to be overwhelming or take a ton of time, and we can show you how.
Can you earn a lot of points and miles without opening up multiple credit cards? Only if you have a really high amount of spend each month. For people with larger families, opening new cards is the easiest and fastest way to earn enough points and miles to take a couple of really low cost (but not low budget) family vacations every year!
If you want to learn ways to help you and your family travel more affordably using credit card points, this show is for you.
Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel
Arizona Grand Resort & Spa...and Water Park?! (Summer Staycation Series Part 2!)
[WAITLIST] 1:1 Points Travel Strategy Session - get on the waitlist here!
And make sure to follow us on Instagram! @travelpartyof5
In this episode we take you through our recent stay at the Arizona Grand Hotel in Phoenix, exploring their impressive water park and sharing our experience as a family of five.
• All-suite hotel with space for families of all sizes
• Water park features three thrilling water slides, wave pool, and lazy river
• Numerous lifeguards stationed throughout the water park
• Food options include poolside service, breakfast restaurant, and Starbucks
• Multiple smaller pools throughout property offer quieter alternatives
• Hotel located on 164 acres at base of South Mountain
• Tips for saving money on food and drinks during your stay
• Room rates around $299/night include four water park passes
• Can be booked through travel portals or American Airlines Hotels
• Earns a solid four out of five stars for family-friendly amenities
If you're interested in learning how to maximize your points and miles for family travel, we're opening up one-on-one consultation sessions. Get on the waitlist through the link in our show notes for an exclusive discount.
Today's episode is the second episode in our Summer in Phoenix staycation series, where we visit some of the most recommended hotels in the Phoenix area for families that are bookable on points. Today we are all about the Arizona Grand Hotel, so if you've been planning a trip to the Phoenix area or looking for a fun staycation, listen in. Hi, I'm Raya.
Speaker 2:And I'm Dwayne.
Speaker 1:And we are your hosts of the Travel Party of Five podcast, where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world we travel as a family of five around the world.
Speaker 2:We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free.
Speaker 1:So if you're wanting to travel more with your family but you're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in.
Speaker 2:So welcome to our podcast, where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip. Welcome back, hello. Thanks for tuning in again. Welcome back to Travel.
Speaker 1:Party 5.
Speaker 2:Or if it's your first time, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yes, welcome and hi. Nice to meet you. My name is Rhea. This is my husband, dwayne. We're the little hosts of this fancy podcast. Before we jump into today's topic, which is a staycation that we just did like, literally, we got home three hours ago, I think, and so it's very fresh. Also, we're a little tired, just as a side note, a lot, yes, um. So okay, before we jump in, I'm going to ask you this question that has absolutely nothing to do with anything, um, travel related. Okay, would you rather be a cowboy, a samurai or a pirate?
Speaker 1:samurai and why is that?
Speaker 2:because no one can f with me if I'm a samurai oh, lord okay, it's some.
Speaker 1:It's some kind of personality test you're supposed to ask your husband I don't know what each.
Speaker 2:Also, I grew up in japan, so okay, fair, definitely gonna pick a samurai okay.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know what each of them means, so, so, like I don't know, if you say samurai, no, no, I'm sorry, I know what a samurai is and I know what a cowboy is.
Speaker 2:No, I'm saying, you ask me this question and then you don't know.
Speaker 1:No, I'm saying like I don't know, like what it means. Like okay, if you say you're a samurai, then that says this about your personality, like I don't looked into it yet.
Speaker 2:So what was your point of asking this question?
Speaker 1:I just wanted to see what you would say. Yeah, Okay, we looked it up. Okay, if you're a samurai, it means you're an honorable guy. Stick to the rules and upholds the rules, Think lawful and good. If you're a cowboy, rough around the edges, stands for what he believes in, doesn't mind speaking his mind and a pirate would be, you do what you want when you want. Maybe not so great, Well that's great. You're an honorable guy according to this personality test. Yeah, Good to know.
Speaker 2:But I break some rules Like what kind of rules? I mean whatever rules need to be broken.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know how true that is, because, like you, you, you like can't send food back at a restaurant or anything that causes any kind of conflict I mean, I snuck beers into the pool today.
Speaker 2:That's true, that's true um, also duane, duane.
Speaker 1:We were looking at the final bill and I was like, wow, is this right? It seems high. And duane was like, well, we would have saved 21 if you would have gone up and got all the food and drinks, because all these little charges are all the tips that I left, and I I mean, if I'm getting the food myself, I don't see a reason to tip.
Speaker 2:I mean, they weren't great tips, I just you know.
Speaker 1:I mean, I was a server and a bartender for a long time, so I'm definitely a 20% tipper when you know we're sitting down and eating. But anyways, okay, let's, let's get into the hotel. So we stayed at the Arizona Grand Hotel. This is not a hotel that's bookable direct with points, so it's not like a Hilton or a Marriott or anything like that. There are a couple ways that you can use points to book it, and we'll talk about that at the end and I'll also walk through how we booked it. But first a little bit about the hotel itself. So this hotel opened in 18 I'm sorry, no 1987. It was rented, last renovated in 2009. So it's definitely not super new or modern. Last renovated in 2009. So it's definitely not super new, or modern.
Speaker 2:It is set on 164 acres at the base of, at the base at the base of the base of south mountain, um which I don't did.
Speaker 1:You know that that's the largest municipal park in the united states, south mountain.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that I had no idea all of the rooms in this hotel are suites, which is perfect for families, so you can't just book like a basic. Well, I mean, you can book a basic room, but the basic room is a quote-unquote suite and so I had no idea. By suite, we mean like there's a little living room area with a pull-out couch and then a separate bedroom area, and I think that the bedroom area can either be two queens or one king. We booked a one king bed suite, but there's 744 suites in this hotel and they have both one and two bedroom options, so definitely a good option if you need a little bit of space.
Speaker 2:I want to guess there's more rooms than that.
Speaker 1:It looks it's very big, Like. It's a very, a very like sprawling property. There's also a golf course and you looked up the prices and you said they weren't too bad.
Speaker 2:Not not too bad right now, Cause in the summertime prices drop drastically yeah.
Speaker 1:Because it's so hot. Um, they also have, like, access to hiking and biking trails right from the property. We didn't do any of that. So we this trip originated with us deciding to do this because our all of our kids are now done with school. So we were going to, we wanted to take them as a tree, you know, they are our last kid finished school earlier this week and so we wanted to take them, because there's a water park at this hotel and we've never been before and I thought that would be super fun. And we mentioned it at one of our son's football practices to another family. And then they ended up texting us later and they were like I think we're gonna do the same thing. Do you mind if we like crash your party? And I'm like no, absolutely not. Like that would be great. And then they also invited a couple of other families. So we ended up having four families all with kids who graduate or not graduated but go to the same school and, yeah, finished, like the school year and how many kids were there?
Speaker 2:There was what eight?
Speaker 1:Let's see we have three, four, five, six, seven, eight. No, there was ten.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah eight. No, there was 10. Oh yeah, 10.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so 10 kids and seven adults. So we had a a fairly large group and we didn't have rooms like near each other or anything like that, but like the we, you know, hung out at the pool, the kids swam all day and had just the best time. So, um, let's go back to the room really quick. So, like I said, we booked a one king bedroom suite. The vibes here were very similar to the last hotel that we stayed at, to the point where we were kind of wondering if they were designed by the same person or people. I would almost guarantee it was.
Speaker 1:It was just very similar. Even the layout of the room was the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but this one was way nicer.
Speaker 1:It was definitely nicer. It didn't have that like a musty smell. Um, the pool area was much more uh, appealing, let's say, and fun because of the water park, which we'll we'll go into detail about that here in a few minutes, um, but so, yes, so you walk into room and again, I'll make an Instagram reel about this sometime this week if you want to see what it looked like. But you walk into the room, there's the couch with the TV and kind of the little mini bar area, and then there was, you know, you walk through the door and there's the king bed in the bedroom and the bathroom.
Speaker 1:I will say the bathroom. I will say the bathroom was less than desirable. The sink was outside of, like the sink was in the bedroom, and then the toilet and shower were were separated by a door, but like you couldn't sit on the toilet without and close the door at the same time, like that's how tight it was, so you had to, like, pretzel yourself around the door to shut it before you could go to the bathroom or take a shower I mean, wasn't a horrible bathroom by any means.
Speaker 2:I mean, still, it was fine. I'm surprised that 2009 was their last upgrade.
Speaker 1:I would have guessed later than that, more recent yeah, um well, yeah mean, but it was fine, it was completely fine, the kids slept great, we all slept great, um, so, in addition, like to the water park, so they have a full on water park with like three pretty legit water slides and a wave pool, um, a fairly big hot tub and also a pretty small like kids splash pad area, like really small like I think there were maybe six or seven like spouts of water that shot up and there was a little kiddie pool that was about a foot and a half deep I mean this is by far the most legit water park I've been to stateside, I mean at at a hotel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't go down any of the slides. Do you want to talk about the slides and what that was like?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, for sure, Like I said, these were the two most legit slides I've been on.
Speaker 1:I think the website says it's an eight-story slide.
Speaker 2:I could easily believe that they're legit. I mean, my booty hurts still from going down these slides. I was getting air off these slides, yeah, and hydroplaning at the end there.
Speaker 1:Our two boys went down them one time and then they were like no, we're traumatized. Dwayne did convince our oldest to go down a second time. He bribed him with ice cream and so he did it a second time. But other than that the kids didn't really have interest in the slides because they're definitely for like an older demographic. Or if you have a kid who's maybe like just super adventurous, ours were just kind of like no, that hurt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's legit. First of all, this is, I mean, the water park. I thought was great it was great I also thought it was great plenty of seating, not a lot of shade. But I don't think you're gonna get a lot of shade in arizona, like it's just they should have more umbrellas, without question they should it's just an aesthetic thing, I'm pretty sure like it's stupid, but still a great water park, like she said there was. There's a wave pool yeah um.
Speaker 2:There's a section of the pool where there's a volleyball and a basketball hoop um a lazy river oh yeah, the lazy river. I forgot about that yeah, I mean this was the most legit water park I've been to in a long time.
Speaker 1:And definitely the only one we've ever been to in a hotel. Yeah, so with your room that you reserve, you get access. Well, I reserve for two adults and two kids, because I couldn't do it for five, and it comes with four wristbands to the water park. So if you have five, like we did, I had to buy an extra one. No one blinked an eye that I needed a fifth one. No one was concerned about the occupancy of our room at all, and we certainly had more than enough room for all five of us. All three kids slept on the pullout sofa, and then Duane and I had the king bed. The cost of the extra wristband was $50 a day, so it was a hundred bucks.
Speaker 2:Oh, was that in the price today that we paid?
Speaker 1:I don't know, probably not, because I think I paid it at check-in, so I don't think it would have been on the bill. I don't know. I did so. The cutoff is three. So if you have a kid who's three or younger, they can go in for free. Um, so probably what that means is if you have a kid that's four or younger, you just need to tell them they're three and they could go in. I said my daughter and I went up to check in and I said I didn't know the. I didn't know what the cutoff was. So I said if she is four, do I need to buy a fifth wristband? And the girl said yes, the cutoff is three. And my daughter said mom, I'm five, she is five, I know that she's five. I just was kind of. You know, I was fibbing a little bit to hopefully not have to pay the $100. But no, we paid it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to set that up before you go in there, I know, I just so when we left I said hey, I said mommy knows how old you are, but if you ever hear me say that you're younger, you just don't say anything until we get like outside and then you can ask me about it. She was like okay, but she said three times but mom, I'm five, like pulling on my arm, I'm five and I'm like waving at her, like just stop, just stop talking. Oh, yes, bless her heart. Um, so if you are a family of five, like we are, that's the way to do that. Um, I do think you can just buy like a day pass to the water park, but at 50 a pop for the day you're. I mean you might as well just get the room, because the room only costs like 250 or 299, I can't remember, but I mean for not much more.
Speaker 1:You can just spend the night and you get access to the water park the day that you check in and the day that you check out yeah, that's definitely the way to go yes, um, okay, so let's talk about we spent most of our time at the pool, so we ordered quite a bit of food at the pool for the kids and you know it's your basic chicken tenders, french fries like burger.
Speaker 2:You know, incredibly expensive, $20 alcoholic drinks nachos $12 freaking dipping dots that totally overpriced.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that were very small, very small, um, so the food is pricey, like there's just no way around that. For dinner, though, what we ended up doing was one of the moms went and picked up little caesar's pizza and I'm, and we had six pizzas for all 17 of us. That ended up being more than enough, and I'm pretty sure they paid $40 for it.
Speaker 2:I think I heard Little Caesars.
Speaker 1:But it was not bad pizza, it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad pizza, it wasn't bad at all. I ate it and I was like, wow, this is surprisingly good. Actually it's not bad. It's not the best, no, but I mean for $40 to feed 17 people, you can't go wrong with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can't be bad.
Speaker 1:And so the location of the hotel. There are definitely options that you could either door dash or run out and grab so that you don't have to pay the hotel prices run out and grab that, you know, so that you don't have to pay the hotel prices.
Speaker 2:Oh, as a matter of fact, we were at the pool the first night and one of the couples we were with brought a lot of beer and drinks and we didn't bring that many. So the first night I went to the lobby, to the gift shop, to go get some. And I'm like you much are the. You know the high noons. She said eleven dollars a can. Oh my god. And I said I'm sorry, you said eleven dollars a can. She said yes, and then she goes, but the bellman can take you to fries. It's right down the street. So the bellman took me to fries oh, is that how you?
Speaker 2:I didn't, I thought you drove they took me to the grocery store that was right down the street. I didn't even know that, yeah, in an executive Tahoe.
Speaker 1:Fries is like if you're not from Phoenix fries is like the Kroger.
Speaker 2:It's a grocery store, yeah, I didn't know that so the bellman took me to the store and I grabbed an eight-pack of High Noon and a 12 pack of Mickey.
Speaker 1:Ultra, and the reason that you got those is they serve both of those at the at the, not the Ultra.
Speaker 2:But I bought the Ultra because that's what the couple had.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, well, the High Noons we got, because you could buy a High Noon there. Yes, and so if we were walking around with a High Noon, like they would just assume we bought it there. But we didn't. And no one was like. Occasionally they were checking bags when you walked through, but they didn't check.
Speaker 2:I don't think they honestly. If you like, just hide them on the bottom.
Speaker 1:They don't like go through it, they just like peek but also one time that duane and his buddy passed a like thermos through the fence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we like went to the his car to make a drink, which was funny because there was other dads out there doing things of the same nature.
Speaker 1:I thought that was hilarious, oh yeah so there are, like the food at the hotel is expensive, but there are just like any other hotel I mean yeah, yeah, I know we did eat breakfast at the hotel. It was not a buffet, it was in like the lobby bar and grill. It was a menu. It was good actually.
Speaker 2:I thought it was pretty good actually, the coffee was good.
Speaker 1:They also have a Starbucks in the lobby where you can get like legit Starbucks drinks.
Speaker 2:Again, you're paying hotel prices, though.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's, though. Oh yeah, it's more expensive, for sure, yeah, but I was able to get like a, you know, like the latte I normally get. They also had cold brew, which I also get a lot. So, um, and yeah, I mean, the breakfast was good. We had pancakes, bacon, you know all the basics.
Speaker 1:It's a basic breakfast menu, but it was good and you get to watch the golfers tee off from the whole hole number one there yes, there is a nice view of the golf course from breakfast, and Duane was getting a chuckle out of watching these golfers because it made you feel better about your golfing.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm horrible at golf and there were some horrible, I would have fit right in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, we've talked about they also have a spa at this hotel and you can golf. We mentioned that already. Did not experience the spa, but I would imagine it's pretty nice, like the hotel in general, like the service was good. Let's talk about how we booked it. So you can book this through a travel portal, like at the Chase portal or the Amex portal, and you can use your points that way. Like we've talked about before. That's not going to really be like the best value for your points, but it's. It would get you the room for free and it would be fine. Um, you also could book with your capital one card and then erase the um charge and that would also be an option for how you could book this charge and that would also be an option for how you could book this. The way that we booked it was actually through American Airlines hotels.
Speaker 1:So we are on a or I am on a quest to earn American Airlines status, mostly as like a test to see if there's value in it for a family. Because a test to see if there's value in it for a family? Because I, admittedly, am a little bit skeptical about whether or not we'll see the value in doing so or in having the status. But I'm currently at gold and the next one up is platinum, and my goal is to hit platinum status by the time we go to Cabo, cause I want to see if we'll get some kind of an upgrade to first class for our two hour flight. I have no idea if we will, I don't know. I don't know how many people fly to Cabo and I don't know. But that's my plan, because I would like to maybe see if I could get us an upgrade, if possible. As far as, like, what level of status am I aiming for? I think I'll just have to wait and see. Definitely I want platinum and then potentially the one above that. I don't think I'll get to the highest status level because it needs like a lot of points, but we'll see. And in the in the meantime we're just earning a lot of a miles, you know, as we kind of get to get to the status level. So that's always helpful as well.
Speaker 1:So that's how we booked it and so technically this is like booking through a third party, so like if you are going to do like a Hilton or whatever, like we talked about last time, you may not get your status benefits, but for this hotel in particular there is no status or anything like that. They're not part of any major points program. So I had zero qualms about booking through the AA hotels.
Speaker 1:So I think we I'm pretty sure it was $299 we spent for the night, and again, that included four passes to the water park on both Saturday and Sunday, and then we just paid the extra for the fifth person and we will earn 2300 AA miles on top of that, and I was able to use my chase Sapphire card, and so we'll earn also like 900 Chase points. And then we I put down my Amex biz platinum the second one for the incidentals, so any like food and stuff and drinks that we bought will go towards the minimum spend for that card. So I will say, though, like when I was looking at the bill, I was like wow, like this is a lot of money, and normally when we booked with points, I worry less about the cost of it because the hotel itself was free, you know. But this time it was like we've had paid for the hotel and we paid for the food and the drinks, and I was like wow, I was like this is like not sustainable.
Speaker 2:And we typically get free breakfast. Because of your globalist status Also true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, also true, I mean we probably should have gone out and like done like McDonald's or something, but I wanted to have a good kind of idea of the food so that I could report back to everyone. So I mean it is what it is, but I definitely felt the like oh feeling when I looked at the bill, knowing that we paid for both of the room and the like you know, all the food, that I don't normally feel that way when we use points, points or I feel it less, I guess. But yeah, I mean I mean if you were going to go for like a four or five night vacation and spend that like every day yikes, it's a lot, um.
Speaker 1:So I mean, I just I love how the points give us the freedom to to not stress about, you know, the cost of a hotel breakfast or whatever you know pool food, whatever it may be. I really like, I really do appreciate that and I'm grateful for that, and I feel like it's something you don't even really realize until you're like paying cash and you're like, oh, my God, okay. So, before we wrap up, I think, like one we should, we should give, like, our final verdict on this. And also, to who do you think that this hotel would be good for? I'll tell you what I think and you tell me your thoughts. I think this would be super. This is a fantastic hotel for families, especially if you have older kids, like our kids.
Speaker 1:Our two boys were a fine age for this they're 11 and 8 and they were off with their friends. Each of them had a couple of friends that were like in their their age group, because our, as a background, our two boys go to different schools, but our oldest used to go to the same school as our as our eight-year-old, and so he still knows some of the people from that school and that's who was on this like weekend trip with us, so they each had friends in their age group to play with, and there would be times where we wouldn't see them for 3045 minutes and then we'd have to go like, look for them and just verify like yep, they're still fine, because they were in the river and they were playing volleyball and they were in the wave wave pool and they were, you know, going down the slide and they were doing all the things.
Speaker 2:Yes, I would agree with that. Um, also, we we didn't mention this at all there are lifeguards at this pool and I mean there are, they're everywhere. Yes, um, in the wave pool alone there was two um the slides. There are lifeguards everywhere. There's lazy river. There were like stationguards everywhere there, just lazy river. There are like station lifeguard stations throughout the lazy river yeah, so yeah as a parent that's good yeah, no, I mean, that's what I was gonna say as a parent.
Speaker 2:It eases your anxiety a little bit, not yours though, but for other parents nope, not mine.
Speaker 1:um, so for our five-year-old I made her wear her little floaty most of the time, unless a grown-up was in the water with her, like staring at her, and she didn't love that. But even the wave pool, I mean the waves were pretty big for someone her size.
Speaker 2:Like I wasn't opposed to it for this resort. I mean because the wave pool did get really busy. I mean at one point it was packed. It was packed but like this morning when we went this morning it was not anything like it was yesterday and I was totally fine with her not having a floaty on.
Speaker 1:But that's me, not you but that's that's me, not you.
Speaker 2:I just am very aware of how quickly a child can drown. It is literally seconds and, mind you, just so you know, we were front row seats, so I mean we were right there but I mean, all you have to do is get distracted for just a minute, you know it's not worth it my anxiety level is not
Speaker 1:I know they're not the same as yours, yes, um. So, yes, there are lifeguards. I will say, like, for our five-year-old, there was less for her to do because we wouldn't let her run free with her brothers, and nor did her brothers want her to be playing with them either, because they're they play super rough and she just can't hang like that because she's she doesn't swim like they do yet she will, but she's not there yet. So there she was a little limited in what she could do without a grown-up. So we, you know, we took her to the little kiddie pool. She likes to go in the hot tub. So we took her in the hot tub. But it was like you can't, we couldn't just sit and let her, like, go, you know. So I do think if you have older kids, this would be fantastic. We also did.
Speaker 1:They had a movie at the pool night. I'm not sure if it's Fridays and Saturdays or just Saturdays, but they played a movie at the pool. It was completely dark. I think it started at 8 PM and we went for that, which we normally wouldn't because the kids had already been in the water for like a solid eight hours. But we went for that, had a great time, and the slides were still open then too, and you went down the slide yes, I took advantage of that because there were no lines yeah, when it was busy the lines were long and it took forever.
Speaker 2:They just weren't efficient running these slides. But it had something to do with the water levels of the slide and whatever they had to wait for the water after each person would go down.
Speaker 1:They had to wait for the water levels to return to a certain level before they could safely let someone else go down. But I mean literally.
Speaker 2:It took like not even exaggerating probably seven minutes after someone went down the slide like yeah, so the lines were were long when it was busy.
Speaker 1:But I think if you're coming to phoenix and you are like wanting to kind of go out and do stuff during the day, especially if you're coming in the summer, you'll be able to get a cheaper cash rate for sure. And then, if you have older kids, you can come back to the hotel and they can. You guys can go to the pool for a couple of hours and still, if you have older kids, you can come back to the hotel and they can. You guys can go to the pool for a couple of hours and still enjoy, you know, the water slides and all that. They still have lifeguards on duty, like everything. So I mean I think, yeah, that would be a great way to kind of end the day and then start all over 100.
Speaker 2:Come back to this hotel.
Speaker 1:Yes, so, okay. So last time we rated it like on a you know scale of one to five, like stars, and the last one was a, we said was a three. So what would you give this one?
Speaker 2:I mean, this was a solid four.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was definitely way better than the last hotel we were at, the Tapatio.
Speaker 1:Yes, I do think the service was kind of similar, like no one was up our butts right and like there were no Bellman. Was there Bellman?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was a Bellman. Oh, there were Bellman, but we just didn't use them. They drove me to the store.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, okay, I take it back, I take it back.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, in the hotel was I thought it was great. It was great. Yeah, we weren't in there for a long. The bellman were the ones that helped me the most. Um, we've been hotels where there's cocktail servers that go, you know, walk throughout the pool.
Speaker 1:They didn't have that, which I thought was weird. They had qr codes on the chair, I know, but there's still.
Speaker 2:I mean well, I mean, I know, I just thought that was weird, but I mean it allowed me to sneak in some drinks, so that also saved a lot of money. Yeah, a lot yeah.
Speaker 1:So, yes, I think, families, especially if you have older kids, this is a great hotel for that. Also, like a multi-generational trip, like if you have, like you know, the grandparents and the and the you know, the kids and the grandkids you know, and and the maybe I'm going to be kind of this is like a little bit of a stereotype, but grandpa and dad want to go golfing and, like you know, mom and grandma hang back with the kids and take them to the pool, like I could see that, you know, being a thing too. I do not think this is a good hotel for couples or a couples getaway. There were kids everywhere, everywhere, and in the hot tub. We were laughing because there were some couples in the hot tub and then we were there with like all 10 kids and plus other people's kids were in there and we were just kind of laughing that like this is not the place to come if you want to relax in the hot tub, because there's literally children everywhere.
Speaker 2:But you know what we didn't mention. There are other pools on this property, oh yeah, that's true, that are way less busier. So I mean, if you are a couple, you can probably just hang out. I mean, mind you, there's still still gonna be kids there, just not yeah, so they're okay.
Speaker 1:So there is the water park, and then there are other pools.
Speaker 2:The other pools are not fancy, like they're literally rectangles, just a pool with a hot tub, some seats yeah that are within the walls of the hotel.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and there seemed to be at least two or three that we saw.
Speaker 2:So we were in the Camelback building yeah, wing or whatever and there was two pools alone for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it wasn't a very big building. And there were several other buildings as well that also had their own pools.
Speaker 2:Yeah, our friend stayed at another building and they also had two pools, so I mean yeah, so that's true.
Speaker 1:That's a good point. If you want to get away from the kids, there are other pools that you could go to but have no service. So I mean yeah, I mean, yeah, it would be fine, um, but yeah, I would 100% go back. I really thought it was a really fun time for the kids.
Speaker 2:And the kids had a great time.
Speaker 1:I mean so exhausted. They are so exhausted they're like literally falling asleep as we record this, which is great, because my goal as a parent is always to exhaust my children. So love that. Okay, anything else that we forgot or didn't talk about?
Speaker 2:No, I think this was a quick uh stay great, stay. Part two of our series.
Speaker 1:If you've never like, if you're in Phoenix or you know the Phoenix area and you've never been to this hotel, I would definitely recommend it. I think yeah, for sure a really good like a weekend trip. Staycations are great because you don't have to pay for airfare and you're.
Speaker 1:It will definitely occupy your kids and if you are from phoenix, it's right down the on um the tenon vaseline okay um, we are heading to yosemite and Lake Tahoe in the next few weeks, and so our next couple episodes I will actually be recording before we leave, and so those will be out next week and the week after Also it'll just be her. It will just be me, because I have to record them this week and Duane will be working. Oh, actually you're off.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I'm building stuff. Oh yeah, duane will be working, so oh, actually, you're off. No, I'm building stuff. Oh yeah, we're. We decided, as part of the way we're going to meet this minimum spend is we need to do some furniture reorganizing for the kids and, like our daughter needs a bed and we're gonna. It's a whole long thing, but we're ordering a bunch of furniture that duane is going to be assembling this week, so yeah, anyways but no freaking jet skis no jet skis.
Speaker 1:If you listened to last week's episode, that was how Dwayne wanted to meet the minimum spend on my second Amex Biz Platinum. Sadly, the poll sided with me and we are not getting jet skis. It's not sad, though, because I don't want them.
Speaker 2:Thank you to the listeners out there that voted for jet skis. You were appreciated more than you know.
Speaker 1:There were a few who messaged me and were like yes to the Jess keys and I'm like, yes, but no, thank you, oh goodness, um. One last thing. Um, I opened up a waitlist last week for um a basically a one-on-one consultation slash session with me for an hour where if you have points and you're just not sure how to use them or you don't want to use them, like wrong, even though there's really no way wrong way to use them. But if you don't want, if you want to make sure you're getting the most value for your points, I am going to be opening up sessions. It's probably going to be a solid two weeks before the waitlist like ends or whatever, so you have some time. But I'll put a link to that in the show notes if that is something that might be interesting to you.
Speaker 1:I know there's a lot of people that listen, that like to do their own kind of hunting and gathering and figuring out which and that's fantastic, because that's how I am too. But if you're new and you just need, like someone to hold your hand and say, like these are the points that I have like and I want to go to Hawaii or I want to go to Europe or I want to go to wherever I will. You can schedule time with me and I will show you like how I would recommend that you use them and give you some different options. So that is going to be opening up in the next um, likely two to three weeks. So if you want to get on the wait list, you will get a an extra discount for being on the wait list and so I will put a link to sign up to that in the show notes as a side note.
Speaker 1:Like the way that I can set up the wait list, it like I have to send you something and so I'm just sending the link to the podcast. So like if you get the link to the podcast, so like if you get the link to the podcast and you're like what is this for? It's because the way that the beacons, like link tree, is set up is like I have to send something. So, anyways, just as a side note, that's what you'll get until the waitlist actually opens and it's like an actual thing. So, okay, that is all we have. I hope that you enjoyed coming along with us to the arizona grand with the water park and all the fun family activities.
Speaker 2:Um what's the next staycation series?
Speaker 1:I actually haven't booked it yet because I need to figure out when we can do it between slacking. I know well we have two vacations in the next month, and so it's just a matter of finding the time but I mean it's gonna be like desert ridge or yeah, desert ridge is gonna be one of them, for sure that it's a jw marriott.
Speaker 1:Um, the other like. So our kids have a very short summer break, so by mid-july they will all be in school. So it's like we have to cram all the, all the summer vacations into like a six week window, and so that is like kind of challenging. So yeah, and then, yeah, we have the Grand Hyatt coming up in August, so we've stayed there but we haven't been with our kids since the remodel. Yep, so we'll probably do Desert Ridge and then one other one. That's my plan, okay.
Speaker 2:Anyways, we appreciate you guys listening.
Speaker 1:Yes, thanks for tuning in. We appreciate you. Yes, leave us a review, thank you, love you. Bye, have a good one, bye, thank you.