The Ace Hotel & Swim Club, Palm Springs

I promised a little bit about our stay at The Ace in P-Sprangz, so here you go! For the bulk of the vacation we stayed with our parents in a two bedroom condo they rented out for a month in La Quinta. It was really nice and comfortable but we liked our stay at The Ace in Seattle so much, and I was itching for some poolside bar service, so we decided to stay for one night (also, my dad is ridiculous and cranks up the A.C so much at night that I can’t feel my fingers). 

The people at Ace bought up a mid-century five building complex, formerly a Howard Johnson hotel and converted it into a true desert OASIS. They even converted the old Denny’s into The King’s Highway and The Amigo room (a sweet delicious restaurant and excellent bar). 

We had a look around at the rooms online, and even though our first instinct was to go with cheap and cheerful, we decided that for one night it would be okay to go all out and get a King-sized room with a patio & fireplace.

Naturally, we spent a lot of time by the pool. There were two of them. One was about a 5 metre dash from our room’s door, but they didn’t have bar service, so we frequented the main one (much to Andy’s chagrin, he doesn’t drink and the other pool was always empty). The pools were both open really late, so it was nice to swim the night away after we returned from a really filling Italian dinner.

The King’s Highway restaurant brewed stumptown (my favourite), so I had way more coffee than I should have. Look at the beautiful créma on my Americano!

The complex was largely smoke-friendly (a stupid rarity in this stupid world), so I was obviously really happy.

All-in-all, it was an excellent stay, a magical vacation-within-a-vacation. Part of me hates that I love the Ace franchise so much (I mean, it’s a ridiculously calculated marketing ploy aimed directly at my specific demographic; the Urban Outfitters of hotel chains, really), but a bigger part of me doesn’t give a f**k and I know I’ll definitely be back!