Los Angeles Long Beach: Travel Experience

The best thing about the Westin Hotel in Long Beach is the daily discount of $25 on breakfast. And Benny who serves the coffee, and knows that Anastasia likes a decaf almond cappuccino. But that's where the amenities and good service ends. The safe doesn't work and it takes four requests and eventually a very short and cutting call to guest services from me to get it resolved.

There is a gym with a small swimming pool as advertised, although of course it's out of commission due to construction. Naturally none of this information is on their site when making the booking, and you're not compensated at all.

The hotel has no soul and is purely tailored for in-out business folk, which is fine. The room is warm, but the lobby is so cold everyone wears their woolly hats. It does seem a little tight fisted in a nation where energy is five times lower than the UK, that the establishments can't turn the heating on.

The Aquarium is across the street and has otters, large sea bass and zebra sharks. They talk about the kelp that grows two feet a day, and the oil platforms that are decommissioned a few miles off the Long Beach coast line that are reefing colonies for urchins, fish and other marine life. Scientists now want them to be permanent structures as removing them will disrupt huge ecosystems.

One of the perks of being in Long Beach is that you're not far from the Cruise port where Anastasia and I departed for a 16 day cruise through the Panama Canal with Princess Cruises.

Before that however we took two more boats; one was a ferry out to Catalina Island that I'll talk about on another post, the other was a Harbour Breeze Cruise tour that advertised Whale spotting. We only saw a couple of grey fin whales at a great distance, but we were serenaded with huge pods of Common dolphins that followed us like lemmings. A scoop of Pelicans seared past us on the starboard bow and led the way.

For food in LongBeach, look no further than RISU. A modern American cuisine (if there is such a thing) with happy hour Bougie Brussels; Honey-glazed brussels caramelised with onion, bacon and peppered with truffle ponzu and sesame seeds. These are the best Brussels I’ve ever tasted.

For tourist food there is also Bubba Gump Shrimp by the pier, with costumes from the movie framed on the wall. No plaque informs whether these are screen worn, and the staff are none the wiser.

Photo by Camille Minouflet on Unsplash