What brings you to Calabasas?
This hotel brought me to Calabasas.
Hotel loyalty programs take me to places I would be unlikely to visit otherwise. Case in point was finding myself in Calabasas, California last week. The only reason I was staying in Calabasas was the Country Inn hotel was on Highway 101, convenient for my drive south to my primary destination of Disneyland, Anaheim and the location in the San Fernando Valley meant I did not have to continue on and drive the LA freeways on a Friday night.
Country Inn & Suites Calabasas cost 5,000 points + $66.53 after tax. The hotel stay included free parking, free breakfast and free internet.
On top of the complimentary benefits provided by the Country Inn brand was a room measuring about 450 sq. ft. That is about 25% larger than the average hotel room and nearly as large as most luxury hotel standard rooms.
Country Inn & Suites Calabasas is located in the old town section of the city. My mother told me this was a town famous for motorcycle races in the 1950s. The place looked like the kind of place where the mountain canyon dwellers, the entertainment star types from the Santa Monica Mountains come to town for supplies and food.
This was my first ever stay at a Country Inn. One of the features of the hotel brand that I found highly commendable is the Country Inn & Suites “Read It & Return†hotel library in the lobby.
Most of the books seemed geared to a teenage reader audience.
The Read It & Return policy indicates a book checked out of a Country Inn can be returned to any other Country Inn property.
Country Inn Calabasas lobby.
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The breakfast room is located at the Pool Level of the hotel. There is also a guest laundry off the pool deck.
The main drawback of the room was its proximity to Highway 101, aka Ventura Freeway locally.
Calabasas marked as “A†on Google maps.
The window in the hotel room opened, but the freeway noise made that feature less than accommodating for sleep.
Strolling Calabasas
The Country Inn Calabasas hotel is located next to an historic Mexican-era farm from the 1840s that now operates as the Leonis Adobe Museum and Plummer House.
There is a $4.00 fee for the museum.
The grounds include a farmhouse, livestock and park. The Leonis Adobe was built in 1844 and remodels transformed the property into the Monterey-style mansion architecture seen today.
The Plummer House is an 1870s Victorian that was considered the oldest house in Hollywood when it was moved in 1983 to the museum grounds.
The Plummer House.
Feeding time on the farm. The Highway 101 Ventura Freeway is just on the other side of the brick wall.
Across and down the street from the Leonis Adobe was the Saturday morning Calabasas Farmers’ Market.
Farmers’ market fruit was incredible looking in June. Calabasas means pumpkin, squash, gourd from Spanish calabaza. The city of Calabasas holds an annual pumpkin festival in October.
Blackberries, blueberries, raspberries and strawberries.
This single huge California oak tree filled this Chamber of Commerce courtyard with a park full of shade.
One of the interesting signs of Calabasas was across the street from the Farmers’ Market showing the City of Los Angeles at the Highway 101 freeway entrance.
Los Angeles is one big city. Downtown Los Angeles where they held the Summer X-Games 2012 this weekend at L.A. Live is 29.2 miles away according to Google Maps.
The 44,000 Club Carlson bonus points for this stay from the SOGO Country promotion May 15-July 15 posted within four days.
Ric Garrido, writer and content owner of Loyalty Traveler, shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests. You can follow Loyalty Traveler on Twitter and Facebook and RSS feed.
Original post link: http://loyaltytraveler.boardingarea.com/2012/07/01/country-inn-calabasas/
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