My Quest for Cheap Downtown Spokane Hotels.

Spokane Riverfront Park {Photo courtesy of creativecommons.org}

We’re driving over to the IMAX theatre in Riverfront Park, Spokane, to watch The Dark Knight next weekend.   I’ve never been to an IMAX, and I hear that it is something I must experience.   I figure The Dark Knight would be just awesome on IMAX!   My hubby and I are taking our kids to visit some friends, and then we figure we will do some shopping and hit the rest of Riverfront park.  Just a quick little weekend getaway.   First, we’ve got to find a cheap downtown hotel near the IMAX for the night. Comparing Spokane hotels is pretty easy with my little HotelsCombined.com booking widget, because I can compare prices from over 30 different hotel search engines at one time.   To find the cheapest hotel, I always “sort” the hotel selections by price.  When HotelsCombined pulls up a list of Spokane hotels, at the top portion of the screen you see the “sort” field, and you can select “price”.  HotelsCombined will then re-generate the list with the cheapest hotels on top.  Now, I know from horrible first hand experience, that you never want to just stay at the cheapest hotel….(Once I was in Seattle and stayed at such a hotel, which shall remain nameless, and my cab driver was afraid to drop me off, and I could not get a cab to pick me up in the morning!).  So, to avoid putting my family in utter danger, I am much more careful about my hotel selections now.    Start scrolling down the list, paying particular attention to the “star rating”.   Don’t pay too much attention to the hotel names at this point.  If you find a hotel in your price-range with at least 3 stars, you may be onto something.  The next step is to read reviews of that hotel.  This is very important!  Never skip this step when booking a hotel.   The first hotel that strikes my fancy is the Ridpath Hotel in Spokane.  It has 3 stars and the picture looks nice at only $73 a night.   On HotelsCombined, underneath the price there is a little link to the hotel reviews.  (Some hotels have no reviews on HotelsCombined, so you would need to look elsewhere).   I’m in luck, HotelsCombined has 38 reviews of Ridpath Hotel.  Clicking on that, and….ouch!   Not the best review to start off with.  Scrolling down, I see the word “horrible” and “outdated” and several other dispariging remarks.  Okay, moving on.  I hit the back button on my browser, and continue my quest for the perfect cheap hotel near the IMAX in Spokane.  I come across the Ramada Limited Hotel, with 3 user reviews on HotelsCombined.  The reviews are okay, not spectacular, but okay.   I am mainly attracted to the location of the hotel, 2 blocks from Riverfront park in downtown Spokane.  At only $75 per night, that is not bad.  However, I’m not really sold, so I do a little more price surfing.  On Priceline, I find a King room with sofa bed & mini-fridge at the Courtyard By Marriott Spokane Downtown for $129/night.  If you are wondering if that is really a deal, I took a gander on Mariott.com’s site and found that they would have charged me $159/night for the same room.  I also liked the Madison Inn by Riverstone for $95 on Hotels.com.   

Now that I’ve booked our hotel in downtown Spokane.  I’m checking into getting some IMAX tickets online.  The Dark Knight is currently showing 4 times daily.  It is a “special feature”, so I believe it is more expensive than the regular IMAX movies, (ie. the combo attraction ticket won’t work for this one).  However, it looks like the Spokane IMAX does not sell tickets online.  Crossing my fingers that it doesn’t sell out!

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Let’s Talk About Flights to San Diego

Photo courtesy of PDphoto.org, isn't it beautiful!

The first time I went to visit San Diego I said, “I’m going to move here someday“.   I really loved it.  The hot humid air…the tropical landscape…the surf.   San Diego is California’s second largest city, with 70 miles of beach packed with adventure.   It’s one of those cities where you can walk to cool shops and destination spots from your hotel (save on those horrendous gas prices).  The airport is even located downtown!  So, you really don’t need to rent a car, as the cab from the airport is only about 12 bucks.  Then, after you arrive in your hotel you will find an abundance of public transportation, including foot-powered bicycle “pedi-cabs” to whisk you around town.   San Diego is what I would call a “health conscious” community, and you will find much in the way of sports and outdoor recreation (besides the obvious, surfing).   I often find cheap airline tickets from Seattle to San Diego, so it is not that difficult to make it down there a couple times a year.   I found the cheapest round trip flights to San Diego on cFares from $267 per person (for members) and $303 per person (for non-members).  The rates are best if you stay over a weekend.  cFares is a meta-search engine (compares several sites at once) that offers discounts to members.  For more information, read this review of cFares.

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